From Virtue to Morality: Republicanism in the Texts and Contexts of William James

Authors : Paul Jerome CROCE

Pages : 37-48

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Publication Date : 1995-10-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :For most of this century, William James`s reputation quietly included assumptions about his political and cultural role. For example, Ralph Henry Gabriel believed that his ideas were `reminiscent of the frontier` 336 , and Henry Steele Commager maintained that James`s philosophy `reflected qualities in the American character` that were `wonderfully adapted to the average American` 96-97 . William James was the all-American philosopher. Recently, historians have redoubled their attention to the importance of ideas in context, which has led to a highlighting of the ideological components of theoretical constructions and beliefs--including those of philosophers. As a result, James has gotten redressed and appears a bit more trendy than those early to middle twentieth-century portraits made him out to be. We have witnessed a William James renaissance, with his thought contextualized in portraits of him: critically adapting the work ethic to modern questions of vocation in James Gilbert`s study of industrial alienation; crusading for a `culture of inquiry` in David Hollinger`s work; displacing his artistic vocation into his psychology and becoming the great philosopher of secular modernism in Daniel Bjork`s two books; pioneering a non-Freudian American psychotherapeutics in Eugene Taylor`s reconstruction of his unorthodox psychology; helping to create a `via media` between scientism and traditional religion in James Kloppenberg`s analysis of political ideologies; emerging as a culturally engaged `public philosopher` in George Cotkin`s recent book; surviving the critical pen of Frank Lentricchia as an advocate of `committed radical pluralism` with `comedic selfdeflation`; and even achieving canonization as a `culture hero` in Monroe Spears` recent literary studies for my discussion of James`s cultural role, see Croce .
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