Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy.
New York, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909
Inscribed to a prominent suffragist and social reformer. First edition, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, 'To Elizabeth Evans, from her friend, W.J., April 19th, 1909'.
'In his famous lectures at Oxford University in 1908 and 1909, William James made a sustained and eloquent case against absolute idealism and intellectualism in philosophy. Ever since Socrates and Plato, the philosophy of the absolute had held sway—the emphasis on essence at the expense of concrete appearance, the insistence on a coherent universe, abstract, timeless, finished, enclosed in its totality. James's own thinking led him to renounce monistic idealism and the intellectualization of all "truth." Going against the grain of entrenched philosophy, James argues in A Pluralistic Universe that the world is not a uni-verse but a multi-verse. He honors the human experience of manyness and disconnection (and various kinds of unity) in the world of flux and sensation, a world that is discounted scornfully by the monists. "Pluralistic empiricism," as James called it, permits intellectual freedom, while the artificial concepts of monism do not. It approaches the only reality that has any meaning, one that follows the pattern of daily experience. A Pluralistic Universe, like Some Problems in Philosophy and Essays in Radical Empiricism, is basic to an understanding of James's thought' (University of Nebraska Press).
The recipient of this copy, Elizabeth Glendower Evans (1856-1937) was a prominent suffragist, social reformer, and philanthropist. She met James through her husband, who was taught by him at Harvard, and after her husband's early death she remained close to James and his wife Alice. They are two of the most frequent correspondents in her archive at Harvard University, and in September 1929 she published a profile of the couple in The Atlantic.
First edition, first printing, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper; publisher's ad on blue paper loosely inserted, contents partially unopened, minor creasing to lower corners; original green boards, green cloth backstrip, printed paper label to spine; some loss of size from the cloth, partial toning of the boards, lower corner bumped, slight wear at the extremities, very good condition; 400pp.
'In his famous lectures at Oxford University in 1908 and 1909, William James made a sustained and eloquent case against absolute idealism and intellectualism in philosophy. Ever since Socrates and Plato, the philosophy of the absolute had held sway—the emphasis on essence at the expense of concrete appearance, the insistence on a coherent universe, abstract, timeless, finished, enclosed in its totality. James's own thinking led him to renounce monistic idealism and the intellectualization of all "truth." Going against the grain of entrenched philosophy, James argues in A Pluralistic Universe that the world is not a uni-verse but a multi-verse. He honors the human experience of manyness and disconnection (and various kinds of unity) in the world of flux and sensation, a world that is discounted scornfully by the monists. "Pluralistic empiricism," as James called it, permits intellectual freedom, while the artificial concepts of monism do not. It approaches the only reality that has any meaning, one that follows the pattern of daily experience. A Pluralistic Universe, like Some Problems in Philosophy and Essays in Radical Empiricism, is basic to an understanding of James's thought' (University of Nebraska Press).
The recipient of this copy, Elizabeth Glendower Evans (1856-1937) was a prominent suffragist, social reformer, and philanthropist. She met James through her husband, who was taught by him at Harvard, and after her husband's early death she remained close to James and his wife Alice. They are two of the most frequent correspondents in her archive at Harvard University, and in September 1929 she published a profile of the couple in The Atlantic.
First edition, first printing, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper; publisher's ad on blue paper loosely inserted, contents partially unopened, minor creasing to lower corners; original green boards, green cloth backstrip, printed paper label to spine; some loss of size from the cloth, partial toning of the boards, lower corner bumped, slight wear at the extremities, very good condition; 400pp.
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