Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in French in 1997 and appearing here in English for the first time, David Lapoujade's
William James: Empiricism and Pragmatism is both an accessible and rigorous introduction to and a pioneering rereading of James's thought.
Trade Review“David Lapoujade's book, at last translated, was an event in France, and so it will be for his American readers, who will rediscover what they thought they knew. Lapoujade does not write about William James but rather embraces the movement of James's thought, performing it as a musician performs a score, making it alive and audible for its own sake and enabling his readers to go back and read James as if for the first time.” -- Isabelle Stengers, author of * In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism *
“In this crisp, well-argued book, David Lapoujade rescues the whole idea of pragmatism from the dismissive and misguided views that it is an ‘American’ philosophy by recasting its fundamental questions along new lines. He advances a vision of pragmatism that is based in trust in the world of things in the making, in effect reopening pragmatist thought from a fresh angle.” -- John Rajchman, author of * The Deleuze Connections *
“Originally published in French in 1997 and finally translated into English, David Lapoujade's William James is varnished by the specter of Deleuzean transcendental empiricism.... William James is as much an archeological disinterring of Deleuze by way of James as it is a recovery of James’s pragmatism from Richard Rorty’s neo-pragmatism....”
-- Ekin Erkan * Continental Thought & Theory *
“[
William James] is well written, with a verve that will repay the attentive reader. Recommended.” -- J. A. Fischel * Choice *
“For those attentive to connection, who seek to multiply relations, [
William James] will prove instructive through its experimentation with the prospective possibilities of a philosopher’s thought. As Lapoujade performatively reminds us, every act of interpretation is also an act of creation.” -- Bonnie Sheehey * American Literary History *
Table of ContentsA Note on References vii
Preface / Thomas Lamarre ix
Introduction 1
1. Radical Empiricism 9
2. Truth and Knowledge 27
3. Faith and Pragmatic Community 51
Conclusion 73
Afterword: Diversity as Method / Thomas Lamarre 77
Notes 119
Bibliography 137
Index 143
