William James and Henri Bergson; A Study in Contrasting Theories of Life (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV THE REVELATIONS OF INTUITION AND THE DISCOVERIES OF PRAGMATISM Since epistemology and the doctrine of method are inevitably circular, making use, in their very construction, ot exactly those materials of reality which are to be apprehended and defined by their application, to discuss the theory of knowledge or method is to discuss its implied metaphysic, and to apply either or both is to apprehend the metaphysical soil from which they spring and the experiential atmosphere they grow in. This we saw in the last chapter. Intuition could be defined DEGREES only by means of what it exhibits, the pragmatic method only in terms of that to which it_ applies. It is now needful to look more deeply into the revelations of intuition and the discoveries of pragmatism, to study in and for themselves their nature and inward constitution, to see clearly and distinctly their similarities and differences, and to apprehend the bearing of their traits on the destiny of man and the rule of good. Methodologically, no two devices could differ more completely than that of James and that of Bergson. And, in spite of a certain identity of spirit and direction, of sympathetic appreciation of each other, the difference shows itself as still more pervasive and more profound, Metaphysically. Paradoxical as it may seem, Bergson is before all things systematic, consistently architectonic, a monist who insists 'on an irrefragable difference between appearance and reality; a logician who with rigorous dialectic deduces the character of the one from the nature of the other. James, on the contrary, is before all things intent on insights and data rather than on system. His philosophy is a mosaic, not an architectonic. He does not set out from one intuition which is.