James: Refinement

Zitat

„Refinement has its place in things, true enough. But a philosophy that breathes out nothing but refinement will never satisfy the empiricist temper of mind. It will seem rather a monument of artificiality.“ (p. 24) #James #refinement

James: Process of Change

Zitat

„Personal histories are processes of change in time, and the change itself is one of the things immediately experienced. ‚Change‘ in this case means continuous as opposed to discontinuous transition. (p. 41) #James #change #process #transition

James: Empiricism

Zitat

„Now, ordinary empiricism, in spite of the fact that conjunctive and disjunctive relations present themselves as being fully co-ordinate parts of experience, has always shown a tendency to do away with the connections of things, and to insist most on the disjunctions. Berkeley’s nominalism, Hume’s statement that whatever things we distinguish are as ‚loose and separate‘ as if they had ’no manner of connection.‘ James Mill’s denial that similars have anything ‚really‘ in common, the resolution of the causal tie into habitual sequence, John Mill’s account of both physical things and selves as composed of discontinuous possibilities, and the general pulverization of all Experience by association and the mind-dust theory, are examples of what I mean.“ (p. 38) #James #empiricism #experience #Berkeley #Hume #Mill

Hume: Connexion Among Ideas

Zitat

„To me, there appear to be only three principles of connexion among ideas, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect.“ (p. 31) #Hume ConnexionAmongIdeas #Resemblance #Contiguity #Cause #Effect