Jacques Barzun is most likely known
to American audiences as the author of the massive From
Dawn to Decadence: Five Hundred Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the
Present. In addition to
producing that immense 877-page epic, Barzun somehow also found the time to
write A Stroll with William James, a more modest 300-page appreciation
of one of Barzun’s personal and intellectual heroes. Originally published in 1983, its re-release in 2002 is surely
calculated at least in part to capitalize on the publicity generated by From
Dawn to Decadence.

In a personal note which opens A
Stroll with William James, Barzun tells the reader that this is not a
biography in the traditional sense; that task he leaves to the
biographers. Rather, it is “the record
of an intellectual debt. . .[it attempts to] simply show what [James’s] works
have meant to me and can mean to others.” 
Thus, one should not expect a detailed psychological analysis of William
James the man, complete with an account of how he was influenced by his family
and environment. This sort of ground is
covered briefly in the first chapter, but Barzun devotes the majority of the
book to a discussion of James’s ideas and the impact they have had on the
twentieth century and could have on the twenty-first.

For example, in the chapter on
pragmatism, Barzun begins with the standard explanation of the doctrine, its
intellectual debt to Charles S. Peirce, and the myriad ways in which it has
subsequently been misunderstood. But he
also spends a good portion of the chapter attempting to convince the reader
that a wider (and more accurate) understanding of pragmatism would significantly
advance current debates in epistemology, the arts and art criticism, and
morality. Throughout the book, in
addition to explicating various aspects of James’s published works,which cover subjects from
physiology and chemistry to religion and aesthetics,Barzun argues for their relevance to the
contemporary world. He demonstrates how
James’s philosophical and psychological insights either have influenced or
should be influencing fields as diverse as physics, physiology, psychology
(including pop psychology and the self-help industry), artistic and literary
criticism, linguistics, and education, to name only a few. The philosophically minded will find
discussions of topics such as radical empiricism (and its nemesis, German
idealism), materialism, the cult of scientism, the mind/body problem,
philosophy of language, determinism, the moral life, perspectivism, and
pluralism. In short, Barzun honors
pragmatism by evaluating James by a pragmatic standard: what kind of difference
have the ideas in question made in the real world?

In terms of structure, the two
halves of the book are to a certain extent mirror images of each
other. The first and last chapters
cover the traditional biographical areas,James’s
upbringing and early career and his death, respectively. The second and second-to-last chapters
address two of James’s most famous works, The Principles of Psychology
and The Varieties of Religious Experience. In the middle, there are chapters on pragmatism (as mentioned
above), determinism and the moral life, experience as it grounds James’s
radical empiricism, and the period 1890-1914, not only the prime of James’s
career but also the crucible of modern thought and culture. (One of Barzun’s side arguments in this book
is that many of the ideas born of the enormous upheavals in almost every area
of life during that 25 years were forgotten in the dislocation of two world
wars; a careful study of the period would thus save us the trouble of
reinventing many, many wheels.)

Who would be interested in A
Stroll with William James? For
those unfamiliar with James’s work, the book serves as a useful (if rather
biased) introduction to one of the major American thinkers in both philosophy
and psychology. Because he points out
the connections each of James’s insights has to current intellectual and social
debates, Barzun has done all the heavy lifting for the reader wondering how
James might relate to his or her life. 
Those who know a little bit more about James may find it edifying to see
how Barzun sees James, how deeply one person was influenced by the work of
another and how important he believes that work is for the society in which he
lives. At the very least, this book is
more than the payment of an intellectual debt. 
By arguing for the continuing importance of James’s work, it is not only
about the past, but the future as well.

© 2003 Lara Winner

Lara Winner, M.A., is a
doctoral candidate in philosophy with a concentration in medical ethics at the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is interested in mental health/mental
health ethics both because it is a traditionally underserved area of medical
ethics and because it can provide valuable insights into the interrelationship
of mind, body, and spirit.

Categories: Psychology, Philosophical