Experience And Experimental Writing From Emerson To William James PDF Download

Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Experience And Experimental Writing From Emerson To William James PDF full book. Access full book title Experience And Experimental Writing From Emerson To William James.

Experience and Experimental Writing

Experience and Experimental Writing
Author: Paul Grimstad
Publisher:
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2013-08-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0199874077

Download Experience and Experimental Writing Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

The book traces connections between the literary experiments of Emerson, Poe, Melville, and Henry James, and the emergence of classical American pragmatism.


Experience and Experimental Writing

Experience and Experimental Writing
Author: Paul Grimstad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2013-06-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0199874085

Download Experience and Experimental Writing Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

American pragmatism is premised on the notion that to find out what something means, look to fruits rather than roots. But, as Paul Grimstad shows, the thought of the classical pragmatists is itself the fruit of earlier experiments in American literature. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and (contemporaneously with the flowering of pragmatism) Henry James, each in their different ways prefigure at the level of literary form what emerge as the guiding ideas of classical pragmatism. Specifically, this occurs in the way an experimental approach to composition informs the classical pragmatists' central idea that experience is not a matter of correspondence but of an ongoing attunement to process. The link between experience and experiment is thus for Grimstad a way of gauging the deeper intellectual history by which literary experiments--Emerson's Essays; Poe's invention of the detective story in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue;" Melville's Pierre; and Henry James's late style--find their philosophical expression in classical pragmatism. Charles Peirce's notion of the "abductive" inference; William James's "radical empiricism;" and John Dewey's naturalist account of experience inform the book's readings. Experience and Experimental Writing also frames its set of claims in relation to more contemporary debates within literary criticism and philosophy that have so far not been taken up in this context: putting Richard Poirier's account of the relation of pragmatism to literature into dialogue with Stanley Cavell's inheritance of Emerson as someone decidedly not a "pragmatist;" to differences between classical pragmatists like William James and John Dewey and more recent, post-linguistic turn thinkers like Richard Rorty and Robert Brandom.


The Other Emerson

The Other Emerson
Author: Branka Arsić , Cary Wolfe,Stanley Cavell
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 353
Release:
Genre:
ISBN: 1452914729

Download The Other Emerson Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle


Three Roads Back

Three Roads Back
Author: Robert D. Richardson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2023-01-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0691224315

Download Three Roads Back Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

From their acclaimed biographer, a final, powerful book about how Emerson, Thoreau, and William James forged resilience from devastating loss, changing the course of American thought In Three Roads Back, Robert Richardson, the author of magisterial biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James, tells the connected stories of how these foundational American writers and thinkers dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. For Emerson, it was the death of his young wife and, eleven years later, his five-year-old son; for Thoreau, it was the death of his brother; and for James, it was the death of his beloved cousin Minnie Temple. Filled with rich biographical detail and unforgettable passages from the journals and letters of Emerson, Thoreau, and James, these vivid and moving stories of loss and hard-fought resilience show how the writers’ responses to these deaths helped spur them on to their greatest work, influencing the birth and course of American literature and philosophy. In reaction to his traumatic loss, Emerson lost his Unitarian faith and found solace in nature. Thoreau, too, leaned on nature and its regenerative power, discovering that “death is the law of new life,” an insight that would find expression in Walden. And James, following a period of panic and despair, experienced a redemptive conversion and new ideas that would drive his work as a psychologist and philosopher. As Richardson shows, all three emerged from their grief with a new way of seeing, one shaped by a belief in what Emerson called “the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.” An inspiring book about resilience and the new growth and creativity that can stem from devastating loss, Three Roads Back is also an extraordinary account of the hidden wellsprings of American thought.


The Matter of High Words

The Matter of High Words
Author: Robert Chodat
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2017-08-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0190682167

Download The Matter of High Words Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

In a world of matter, how can we express what matters? When the explanations of the natural sciences become powerfully precise and authoritative, what is the status of our highest words, the languages that articulate our norms and orient our lives? The Matter of High Words examines a constellation of American writers who in the decades since World War II have posed these questions in distinctive ways. Walker Percy, Marilynne Robinson, Ralph Ellison, Stanley Cavell, and David Foster Wallace are all self-consciously post-WWII authors, attuned to the fragmentation and skepticism that have defined so much of the literary and critical culture of the last century and more. Yet they also attempt to reach back to older forms of thought and writing that are often thought to have dried up-the traditions of prophecy, of wisdom literature, of the sage. Working within this dual inheritance, these authors are drawn equally to both art and argument, "showing" and "telling," shifting continually between narrative and discursive genres. In their essays they act as moralists, promoting the broad, abstract concepts that might inspire action in the face of naturalistic reduction: community, family, courage, fraternity, marriage, friendship, temperance, judgment. In their narratives, they offer particular lives in particular settings, thick descriptions that give flesh to such high words. Rarely do these movements between genres generate a tidy equilibrium; where their essays speak of cooperation and redemption, their narratives display alienation, loss, and failure. But in pursuing such risky, unorthodox strategies, these postwar sages are not only able to challenge some of the dominant naturalistic theories of the last several decades: cognitive science, neo-Darwinian theory, social science, the fact-value divide in analytic philosophy. Through five chapters of detailed analysis and close reading, Chodat explores the question of whether vocabularies of ought and ought-not can still emerge today, and how these concepts might be embodied, and whether such ideas might be found in things.


The Jamesian Mind

The Jamesian Mind
Author: Sarin Marchetti
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 725
Release: 2021-12-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0429639112

Download The Jamesian Mind Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

William James (1842–1910) is widely regarded as the founding figure of modern psychology and one of the most important philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Renowned for his philosophical theory of pragmatism and memorable turns of phrase, such as ‘stream of consciousness’ and the ‘will to believe’, he made enormous contributions to a rich array of philosophical subjects, from the emotions and free will to religion, ethics, and the meaning of life. The Jamesian Mind covers the major aspects of James’s thought, from his early influences to his legacy, with over forty chapters by an outstanding roster of international contributors. It is organized into seven parts: Intellectual Biography Psychology, Mind, and Self Ethics, Religion, and Politics Method, Truth, and Knowledge Philosophical Encounters Legacy. In these sections fundamental topics are examined, including James’s conceptions of philosophical and scientific inquiry, habit, self, free will and determinism, pragmatism, truth, and pluralism. Considerable attention is also devoted to James in relation to the intellectual traditions of empiricism and Romanticism as well as to such other philosophical schools as utilitarianism, British idealism, Logical Empiricism, and existentialism. James’s thought is also situated in an interdisciplinary context, including modernism, sociology, and politics, showcasing his legacy in psychology and ethics. An indispensable resource for anyone studying and researching James’s philosophy, The Jamesian Mind will also interest those in related disciplines such as psychology, religion, and sociology.


First We Read, Then We Write

First We Read, Then We Write
Author: Robert D. Richardson
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2015-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1609383478

Download First We Read, Then We Write Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

Writing was the central passion of Emerson’s life. While his thoughts on the craft are well developed in “The Poet,” “The American Scholar,” Nature, “Goethe,” and “Persian Poetry,” less well known are the many pages in his private journals devoted to the relationship between writing and reading. Here, for the first time, is the Concord Sage’s energetic, exuberant, and unconventional advice on the idea of writing, focused and distilled by the preeminent Emerson biographer at work today. Emerson advised that “the way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent.” First We Read, Then We Write contains numerous such surprises—from “every word we speak is million-faced” to “talent alone cannot make a writer”—but it is no mere collection of aphorisms and exhortations. Instead, in Robert Richardson’s hands, the biographical and historical context in which Emerson worked becomes clear. Emerson’s advice grew from his personal experience; in practically every moment of his adult life he was either preparing to write, trying to write, or writing. Richardson shows us an Emerson who is no granite bust but instead is a fully fleshed, creative person disarmingly willing to confront his own failures. Emerson urges his readers to try anything—strategies, tricks, makeshifts—speaking not only of the nuts and bolts of writing but also of the grain and sinew of his determination. Whether a writer by trade or a novice, every reader will find something to treasure in this volume. Fearlessly wrestling with “the birthing stage of art,” Emerson’s counsel on being a reader and writer will be read and reread for years to come.


William James

William James
Author: Robert D. Richardson
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 638
Release: 2007-09-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0547526733

Download William James Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

The definitive biography of the fascinating William James, whose life and writing put an indelible stamp on psychology, philosophy, teaching, and religion—on modernism itself. Often cited as the “father of American psychology,” William James was an intellectual luminary who made significant contributions to at least five fields: psychology, philosophy, religious studies, teaching, and literature. A member of one of the most unusual and notable of American families, James struggled to achieve greatness amid the brilliance of his theologian father; his brother, the novelist Henry James; and his sister, Alice James. After studying medicine, he ultimately realized that his true interests lay in philosophy and psychology, a choice that guided his storied career at Harvard, where he taught some of America’s greatest minds. But it is James’s contributions to intellectual study that reveal the true complexity of man. In this biography that seeks to understand James’s life through his work—including Principles of Psychology, The Varieties of Religious Experience, and Pragmatism—Robert D. Richardson has crafted an exceptionally insightful work that explores the mind of a genius, resulting in “a gripping and often inspiring story of intellectual and spiritual adventure” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). “A magnificent biography.” —The Washington Post


Modernist Fiction and Vagueness

Modernist Fiction and Vagueness
Author: Megan Quigley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2015-02-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 110708959X

Download Modernist Fiction and Vagueness Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

Modernist Fiction and Vagueness examines the development of the modernist novel in relation to changing approaches to philosophy. It argues that the puzzle of vagueness challenged the great thinkers of the early twentieth century and led to dramatic changes in both fiction and philosophy. Building on recent interest in the connections among analytic philosophy, pragmatism, and modern literature, this book posits that literary vagueness should be read as a defining quality of modernist fiction.