… in this extraordinary universe …
This is from ‘Some Problems of Philosophy’ found in William James: Writings 1902-1910 (1987):
… No matter what ‘efficacies’ there may really be in this extraordinary universe it is impossible to conceive of any one of them being either lived through or authentically known otherwise than in this dramatic shape of something sustaining a felt purpose against felt obstacles, and overcoming or being overcome.
… Our outcome so far seems therefore to be only this, that the attempt to treat ’cause,’ for conceptual purposes, as a separable link, has failed historically, and has led to the denial of efficient causation, and to the substitution for it of the bare descriptive notion of uniform sequence among events. Thus intellectualist philosophy once more has had to butcher our perceptual life in order to make it ‘comprehensible.’
My most recent previous post from James’s book is here.
-Julie
Coloring 