Overview

William James is America’s most important psychologist and (arguably) intellectual. While a thriving literature on Jamesian thought exists, the typical undergraduate learns little more than his name. This book fills the gap between the passing paragraph or two about James in undergraduate textbooks and the dense academic literature of Jamesian scholars. By offering an interesting and inspiring introduction to James, the book aims to bring a new generation of minds into the Jamesian conversation. Written as a dialogue between William James and some of his famous students such as Theodore Roosevelt, Gertrude Stein, and W. E. B. Du Bois, Good Counsel: A Walking Dialogue with William James provides an introduction to the important elements of Jamesian thought and seeks to inspire students to explore that thought further on their own. While not a formal critique of James, this book does not shy away from highlighting potential weakness or challenges to his thought. By the book’s end, students should have a solid grasp of basic Jamesian concepts, including what he meant by: Radical empiricism, pluralism (or a pluralistic universe), experience (especially the stream of thought), attention, freedom, truth, reality, God, rational belief, moral claims, moral solitude, consciousness, sentiment (how it drives reason), mysticism (or the mystical experience), and pragmatism (or the pragmatic approach). Furthermore, they should understand the interconnections among these concepts and the objections or alternatives to them (e.g., monism, determinism, reductionism, idealism, rationalism, etc.).

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9781538191996

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Reviews

Absolutely novel. Rossano is a very polished writer with an excellent 'voice' that will speak to both scholarly academics as well as relatively untutored students. In this book, William James has conversations with other significant thinkers as a vehicle for covering important ideas in philosophy and psychology, like a set of Socratic dialogs but set in a more modern era. This would be a great book for something like an Honor's course, a Capstone course, or even a Special Topics or historically-oriented or American-focused course at the graduate or undergraduate level for either Psychology or Philosophy. --Tracy B. Henley, Texas A&M University-Commerce

Good Counsel offers an accessible introduction to the themes of James's thinking. Each chapter presents an innovative dialogic format, which reflects James's own dialogic writing style and it has something in common with James's own preference for what he called 'ambulatory' over 'saltatory' conceptions of knowledge. --David Evans, Dalhousie University; author of Understanding James, Understanding Modernism Absolutely novel. Rossano is a very polished writer with an excellent 'voice' that will speak to both scholarly academics as well as relatively untutored students. In this book, William James has conversations with other significant thinkers as a vehicle for covering important ideas in philosophy and psychology, like a set of Socratic dialogs but set in a more modern era. This would be a great book for an honor's, capstone course, or special topics course, or even a historically-oriented, American-focused course, at the graduate or undergraduate level for Psychology or Philosophy. --Tracy B. Henley, Texas A&M University-Commerce

Good Counsel offers an accessible introduction to the themes of James's thinking. Each chapter presents an innovative dialogic format, which reflects James's own dialogic writing style and it has something in common with James's own preference for what he called 'ambulatory' over 'saltatory' conceptions of knowledge. --David Evans, Dalhousie University; author of Understanding James, Understanding Modernism Absolutely novel. Rossano is a very polished writer with an excellent 'voice' that will speak to both scholarly academics as well as relatively untutored students. In this book, William James has conversations with other significant thinkers as a vehicle for covering important ideas in Philosophy and Psychology, like a set of Socratic dialogs but set in a more modern era. This would be a great book for an honor's, capstone, or special topics course, or even a historically-oriented, American-focused course, at the graduate or undergraduate level for Psychology or Philosophy. --Tracy B. Henley, Texas A&M University-Commerce

Absolutely novel. Rossano is a very polished writer with an excellent 'voice' that will speak to both scholarly academics as well as relatively untutored students. In this book, William James has conversations with other significant thinkers as a vehicle for covering important ideas in Philosophy and Psychology, like a set of Socratic dialogs but set in a more modern era. This would be a great book for an honor's, capstone, or special topics course, or even a historically-oriented, American-focused course, at the graduate or undergraduate level for Psychology or Philosophy. --Tracy B. Henley, Texas A&M University-Commerce Good Counsel offers an accessible introduction to the themes of James's thinking. Each chapter presents an innovative dialogic format, which reflects James's own dialogic writing style and it has something in common with James's own preference for what he called 'ambulatory' over 'saltatory' conceptions of knowledge. --David Evans, Dalhousie University; author of Understanding James, Understanding Modernism

Author Information

Matthew J. Rossano is a retired Professor of Psychology. For over 30 years, he taught at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, LA. He is an evolutionary psychologist who has authored or co-authored scores of scholarly papers, book chapters, commentaries, and reviews. His work has appeared in highly respected scholarly journals such as: Psychological Bulletin, Cognition, Current Anthropology, PaleoAnthropology, and Cambridge Archeological Journal; as well as more popular outlets such as: Men’s Health, New Scientist, The Huffington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, and Psychology Today. He is the author of several previous books including: Supernatural selection: How religion evolved (2010, Oxford University Press); Mortal rituals: What the story of the Andes’ survivors tells us about human evolution (2013, Columbia University Press); and Ritual in human evolution and religion: Psychological and ritual resources (2020, Routledge). He is also co-editor (and chapter author) on two recent volumes on psychology and cognitive archaeology (both published by Routledge).

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