The cover page is adapted from Allegory of the Planets and Continents, a painting completed in 1752 by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Tiepolowww.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
A Pluralistic Universe
Chapters (8)
- Lecture I: The Types of Philosophic Thinking 0:00
- Lecture II: Monistic Idealism 47:37
- Lecture III: Hegel and His Method 1:37:00
- Lecture IV: Concerning Fechner 2:34:25
- Lecture V: The Compounding of Consciousness 3:29:31
- Lecture VI: Bergson and His Critique of Intellectualism 4:21:55
- Lecture VII: The Continuity of Experience 5:23:17
- Lecture VIII: Conclusions 5:53:03
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Originally delivered as the 1908 Hibbert Lectures, A Pluralistic Universe provides an explanation of the philosophy known as “radical empiricism.” This theory rejects the certainty of the “absolute,” an academic theory that holds that all existence is only the observable part of an all-encompassing entity that governs every detail in universe. By contrast, radical empiricism contends that while such an absolute may be possible, it’s unprovable within the experiences of our finite lives, and so has little practical value.
Much like the theories James describes in his landmark work Pragmatism, radical empiricism evaluates the truth of a statement based on experiences and observations that we can actually have. This view doesn’t exclude religion, as religion can be directly experienced, even if people may differ on exactly what the experience is. Anything that can be experienced must, by definition, exist, and therefore can be analyzed using radical empiricism.
When these lectures were given, the academic consensus was in favor of some version of the absolute. James spends much of the lectures discussing and critiquing the ideas of other philosophers, in particular Hegel, Fechner, and Bergson. He finds much to like in each of the works he discusses, but finds them all incomplete.