"Truth is something that happens to an idea"
"The true is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving"
William James was an American philosopher and psychologist, who developed the philosophy of pragmatism (the term pragmatism is first used by the American logician C. S. Pierce). James was born in New York City. His father, Henry James, Sr., was a Swedenborgian theologian; one of his brothers was the writer Henry James. William James attended private schools in the United States and Europe, the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University, and the Harvard Medical School, from which he received a degree in 1869.
According to James's pragmatism, then, truth is that which works. One determines what works by testing propositions in experience. In so doing, one finds that certain propositions become true. As James put it, "Truth is something that happens to an idea" in the process of its verification; it is not a static property. This does not mean, however, that anything can be true. One cannot believe whatever one wants to believe, because such self-centered beliefs would not work out.
James's formulated the principle of functionalism in psychology, removing psychology from its traditional place as a branch of philosophy and establishing it among the laboratory sciences based on experimental method. He maintained that the meaning of ideas is found only in terms of their possible consequences. If consequences are lacking, ideas are meaningless. James contended that this is the method used by scientists to define their terms and to test their hypotheses, which, if meaningful, entail predictions.
Before finishing his medical studies, James went on an exploring expedition in Brazil with Swiss American naturalist Louis Agassiz and also studied physiology in Germany. After three years of retirement due to illness, James became an instructor in physiology at Harvard in 1872. He taught psychology and philosophy at Harvard after 1880; he left Harvard in 1907 and gave highly successful lectures at Columbia University and the University of Oxford. James died in Chocorua, New Hampshire.
Publications
What is an emotion? 1884The Chicago School,, 1904
The Stream of Consciousness, 1892, Psychology (chapter XI). Cleveland & New York, World.
Does Consciousness Exist? 1904, Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1, 477-491.
A World of Pure Experience, 1904, Journal of Phil., Psych., and Scientific Methods, 1, 533-543, 561-570.