Essays in Radical Empiricism

Essays in Radical Empiricism is by William James, and its contents include Does ‘Consciousness’ Exist?, A World of Pure Experience and The Thing and its Relations. The contents also list The Essence of Humanism, La Notion de Conscience, Is Radical Empiricism Solipsistic?, Humanism and Truth Once More and Absolutism and Empiricism.

A piece headed DOES ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’ EXIST? says that ‘Thoughts’ and ‘things’ are names for two sorts of object, which common sense will always find contrasted and will always practically oppose to each other. The same piece says that one day Kant undermined the soul and brought in the transcendental ego, and that ever since then the bipolar relation has been very much off its balance. The writer gives the central point of the pure-experience theory as that ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ are names for two groups into which we sort experiences according to the way in which they act upon their neighbors.