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Persona #114

William James

1842–1910
American psychologist and philosopher, founding figure of pragmatism and American psychology

Pure experience as the neutral fabric — radical empiricism, pragmatic truth, the varieties of religious experience

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where personas disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid (32 attributes) is shown.

Attribute William James
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Relational
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Relational
Space · Curvature implicit
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality implicit
Matter · Extent Finite
Matter · Ontological Status Emergent
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality implicit
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Immediate
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Both
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Cosmic-ordering
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method N/A
Energy · Extent Finite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Relational
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity implicit

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each persona's writings reveal about their stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

William James

Relational and pluralistic — the "specious present" is the centrepiece of James's phenomenology of time.

Space

William James

Relational — the structure of experience.

Matter

William James

Emergent from pure experience under one sorting.

Observer

William James

Both physicality and active agency — the radically-empiricist subject is constituted by relations among experiences.

Energy

William James

Conventional nineteenth-century.

Information

William James

Relational and conserved — Varieties of Religious Experience treats religious experience as durable empirical data.

Internal Tensions

Where each persona's working synthesis strains against itself.

William James

The pragmatic theory of truth drew Bertrand Russell's sustained criticism that James had confused warrant for assertion with truth itself.