JAMES, WILLIAM
William James was a popular and influential philosopher whose writings and theories influ-
enced various areas of U.S. life, including the movement known as LEGAL REALISM.
James was born in New York City on January
11, 1842, to Henry James Sr. and Mary Walsh
James. Comfortably supported by an inheri-
tance, his parents stressed their children’s abili-
ties to make independent choices. James’s
formal schooling was irregular, and he studied
frequently in England, France, Switzerland, and
Germany. James pursued an enduring interest in
the natural sciences, earning a medical degree
from Harvard University in 1869, though he
never intended to practice medicine. He joined
Harvard’s faculty in 1872, teaching anatomy and
physiology. He was also interested in psychology
and philosophy, seeing these as related fields
through his grounding in scientific studies. He
began teaching those disciplines at Harvard in
1875 and 1879, respectively. He retired from the
Harvard faculty in 1907.
In his first major work, Principles in Psychol-
ogy (1890), James began to articulate a philoso-
phy based on free will and personal experience.
In a theory popularized as stream of conscious-
ness, James argued that each person’s thought is
independent and personal, with the mind free
to choose between any number of options. The
subjective choices each individual makes are
determined by the interconnected string of
prior experiences in that person’s life. In James’s
thought, choice and belief are always contin-
gent, with no possibility for some permanent,
definitive structure based outside of personal
experience.
498 JAMES, WILLIAM
WEST’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 2nd Edition
William James 1842–1910
? ? ?
1842 Born,
New York
City
1914–18
World War I
1910 Died,
Chocorua, N.H.
1861–65
U.S. Civil War
1890
Principles
in
Psychology
published
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¡ ¡
1900 1900 1925 1925 1850 1850 1875 1875
? ?
1869
