A person who has become an outstanding professor of psychology, a new science, but refuses to admit that it is a science, which category should he belong to? He is full of praise for the findings of experimental psychologists, but he is unwilling to do experiments and does as little as possible. He was regarded as the greatest psychologist in America at that time (19), but he never took a psychology class, and sometimes even denied that he was a psychologist. Listen to this weirdo william james. To a friend who wrote poetry, he wrote sarcastically to the new psychology of German mechanists: "The only soul that science can confirm now is a frog with its head cut off. The twitching and twisting of this frog expresses a deeper truth than you cowardly poets can imagine. " To his brother, novelist Henry? In James's letter, he said that psychology is a "nasty little discipline" and people don't study it as long as they want to know. In less than two years, he completed his own magnificently authoritative psychological principle, and he wrote:

"It's really strange to hear people talk proudly about' new psychology' and see people write' history of psychology', because the real elements and power covered by this word don't exist here, and there is no clear shadow. There is only a string of pure facts; Some gossip and arguments of different opinions; Only small classification and synthesis are carried out at the description level; A strong prejudice that we have different mental states and our brains control these states; However, there are no laws at all, unlike physics, which can give us some laws. No proposition can be used to infer a result from cause to result. This is not science, this is just a scientific hope. "

However, this outspoken disobedience does not mock psychology, but has great expectations for it. He saw that its goal is to find the connection between each physiological "brain state" and the corresponding state of consciousness; The real understanding of this connection will be "scientific achievements, in front of which all previous achievements are dwarfed." However, he said, psychology is not ready to achieve this goal; Its state is like physics before Galileo announced the law of motion and chemistry before lavoisier announced the law of conservation of mass. Before Galileo and lavoisier appeared in this science, the best thing it could do was to explain the laws of conscious spiritual life, but "this day will come".

Although James's words were not formal comments, there was no pretentious meaning in them. However, these words tell us that we will soon see a completely different person from Feng Te. No wonder they have no good comments on each other's work. James is short and thin with blue eyes and a little beard on his face. He has fine features and an aristocratic forehead. He likes to wear some informal clothes, such as Norfolk jacket, light-colored shirt and loose tie, which is not in line with his professorship. He is friendly, charming and likes to go out. He often walks through Harvard Park with his students and talks with them very speculatively, which makes serious professors feel scared. As a lecturer, he was so lively and humorous that one day in class, a student interrupted his lecture and asked him to be serious. Although he always smiles and looks naive or even naughty, he is a complex figure: he is strong, but sometimes fragile, diligent, sociable and cheerful, but sometimes he is troubled by bouts of melancholy, friendly to students and full of love for his family. However, when doing trivial things such as proofreading, he is easy to get bored, likes to exaggerate and likes to be picky. (In this regard, he once wrote: "Don't let our school be right again! I will go back intact and never talk to you again. " Although he is a gentleman and his behavior is very cultured, he can sometimes be vicious, such as the remarks he made to Feng Te quoted earlier. However, usually he only says these things in private letters, but in public works, he is humble and polite, even when criticizing others.

His writing is very fluent, very relaxed and freehand, and he also talks about many personal things, which other psychologists of his time, especially Germans, never dreamed of. Among some different rules that restrict a person's many functional social selves, he said: "Generally speaking, you can't lie, but when you ask about your relationship with a lady, you can do whatever you want;" In the face of a peer, you must accept the challenge, but if you are worse than you, you can laugh it off and talk about contempt. "In order to illustrate that it is difficult for a person to focus on a topic he doesn't like, he gave the following example (possibly himself):

"People will seize all kinds of excuses to avoid what they don't want to do at hand, no matter how trivial and irrelevant this unintentional excuse is. For example, I know a person who would rather stir the fire, remove the stains on the ground, clean the desktop, turn over the newspaper, turn over any book that his eyes can see, and get a manicure. In short, he just dawdled all morning, and all this was not planned in advance-just for the formal logic he didn't like, and the only thing he had to do at noon was to prepare lessons for this course. What do you think of this? ! "

Sometimes, James will use some humorous stories and jokes to dilute the seriousness in his works. Describing how Helmholtz and Feng Zhi felt about a professor who had just wrongly applied their unconscious reference principle, James wrote: "Naturally, (they) felt about him just like the sailor felt about the horse in the story, because the horse put his foot in the stirrup, and the sailor said,' If you want to put it on (go forward), I have to take it off (dismount). "James is sometimes quite sensitive and compassionate. When Helen Keller was a little girl, he bought her a small gift that she thought she would like, but in fact she never forgot this gift-an ostrich feather.

No wonder philosopher alfred north whitehead summed him up and said, "william james, this is a respectable genius."

William james was born in new york on 1842. His family is very rich, but he never thought that he would become Wan's younger brother, and he could only be regarded as a player who dabbled in it rather than a playboy.

His grandfather was of Scottish-Irish descent and came to the United States from Ireland. He is a shrewd businessman and the initiator of the Lake Erie Canal, making millions of dollars. Therefore, his son Henry (William's father) doesn't need to work at all. Henry studied in a missionary school for two years, but later dropped out because he found the old Presbyterian doctrine uncomfortable here. However, he continued to be interested in religious and philosophical issues. He has been like this all his life. At the age of 33, he suffered a serious emotional crisis. After dinner, he was looking at the fire idly, and suddenly he was enveloped by an inexplicable fear-"a completely irrational, pitiful fear without any obvious reason", which he later said-although it only lasted for 65,438+00 seconds, it was a great blow to him, and he continued to be affected by recurrent anxiety in the next two years. Seeing a doctor, traveling and other distractions didn't play much role, but in the end, he found a way to help in the philosophy of the Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenburg, because Swedenburg himself was hit by anxiety.

After Henry recovered, he spent part of his time writing books on theology and social reform (he considered himself "a philosopher and a pursuer of truth"), and on the one hand devoted himself to children's education. He is dissatisfied with American schools and takes his family to Europe from time to time-William? James is the eldest son of five children-in order to gain more knowledge and education, and then take the children back to their home in Washington Square in new york to keep in touch with their own culture.

As a result, James studied in the United States, Britain, France, Switzerland and Germany, and also received private education; He is familiar with the large museums and art galleries in the cities where his family has been. Can speak five languages; I have met celebrities who often visit his home, talked with them and listened to their speeches, such as Thoreau, Emerson, grilli, Hawthorne, Carlisle, Tennyson and J.S. Muller. Under the influence of his father, he read widely and had a philosophical foundation. This is not to say that old Henry James is a foreman, but a disciplined man. In his time, he was a very unusual casual man and a lovely father, because he allowed children to talk about any topic at the dinner table. To his friends' great surprise, he allowed children to go to the theater. However, an amiable, lovely and kind father may also have a bad influence on children. 17 years old, William? James wants to be a painter, but old Henry? James disagreed and took his family to Europe for a year to play down the matter, because he wanted his children to find a career in science or philosophy. Only because William insisted on this point did he reluctantly let him learn painting from a painter in Xingang. After half a year, William felt that he lacked talent in this field, perhaps more because of a sense of guilt than a lack of talent. He entered Harvard University according to his father's wish and began to study chemistry.

However, the red tape laboratory work tested his patience, and he quickly turned to the hot physiology at that time, mainly because of the pioneering work done by Mill, Helmholtz and Dubois Raymond in Europe. But soon, because the family's economic situation began to deteriorate, William realized that he would have to stand on his own feet sooner or later, so he chose Harvard Medical School instead. Medicine failed to arouse his enthusiasm, so he and the famous Harvard naturalist Louis? Agassiz went to the Amazon River together, hoping that natural history would become his real favorite subject. No, he doesn't like collecting specimens. He returned to medical school, but he was afflicted with various diseases-low back pain, poor eyesight, indigestion and bouts of suicidal impulses-all of which were aggravated by his worries about the future. In order to find a way out, he went to France and Germany, where he bathed for about two years and studied under famous physiologists such as Helmholtz. Therefore, he is quite familiar with the new psychology.

Finally, he came back and finished medical school at the age of 27. He didn't try to practice medicine because he was in poor health. But he spent time studying psychology, because he was worried about the future and his mood was gloomy. Besides, his scientific view on consciousness is far from the mysticism and spiritual pursuit of the world and his father, so he is not happy. 1870 at the age of 28, after more than a year of depression, he suddenly experienced an emotional crisis very similar to his father. Many years later, in Various Religious Experiences, he described this experience in the form of a memoir written by an anonymous Frenchman:

"One night, I went to a clothing store in the dark and bought a dress. Suddenly, a terrible fear attacked me without warning, just like coming out of the darkness. This fear is the fear of one's own existence. At the same time, the image of an epileptic appeared in my mind. I once saw him in a mental hospital. A young man with black hair and green skin, who is a complete fool, sits on a stool all day, or sits on a shelf on the wall with his legs crossed. This image is me, I thought. I was trembling with fear. Since then, the meaning of the universe has completely changed for me. Every morning when I wake up, there is a terrible fear in my heart, a sense of life exposure that I have never had before. Since then, I have never experienced it. "

When William came of age, he explained his father's crisis, saying that it was a general outbreak of hostility suppressed by the tyrant's father for a long time, but William never hinted at how to explain his crisis. Jacques? Bazin once put forward a hypothesis: "People can reasonably guess that this is caused by unbearable pressure, because he can't resist a father who has never been violent to him but just loves him."

The attack depressed James for several months. During this period, he was particularly worried about the German physiologist's mechanistic view of the world, which was the scientific equivalent of Calvinism determinism that his own father had always opposed. If the mechanism truly reflects consciousness, then all his thoughts, desires and wishes are just the interaction between some natural particles, which are decided in advance; He can't judge his behavior, just like an epileptic in a mental hospital.

Finally, like his father, he freed himself from depression by reading ── but instead of reading Swedenburg, he read the French philosopher Charles? An article about free will by Henuye. James wrote in his diary: "(I) don't see any reason to change his definition of free will-'When I may have other ideas, I just keep the one I chose'-to the definition of illusion. Anyway, I will temporarily-until next year-think that this is not an illusion. My first act of free will will be to believe in free will. I want to go further with my will, not only to act with this will, but also to believe in it and believe in my authenticity and creativity. "

He believed that the will of free will really worked, and he began to recover slowly, although his physical condition was fragile all his life, and he occasionally had short-term depression. In the next two years, he extensively read physiology and physiological psychology and recovered his mental health. 1872, he was almost 30 years old, financially supported by his father, and had no plans for the future. At this time, Charles Elio, president of Harvard University, and his neighbor James' family had lived in Cambridge for some time and invited him to Harbin for Buddhist physiology. He accepted the invitation and stayed there for 35 years.

But I didn't stay there as a physiology professor. Three years later, he began to teach physiological psychology courses and began to work with Lawrence? Hale's small laboratory made a demonstration for the students. He continued to read out of order, forming his own mysterious psychological concept, and wrote a lot of articles and book reviews in the next three years, vigorously advocating his own ideas. The publisher Henry Holt gave him a contract to write a textbook about this new scientific psychology. James signed the contract, but he said he was sorry because it would take him two years to finish the book. As a result, it took him 12 years to finish the book in 1890, but his book was very successful, far exceeding the publisher's initial hope.

The year when James started writing this book, namely 1878, was another milestone. He got married at 36. Although he believes in free will, he seems to be an illiberal agent in choosing a spouse. Two years ago, when his father came back from a meeting of the Boston Radical Club, he announced that he had met William's fiancee, Alice Gibbons, who was a primary school teacher and a pianist who made a small achievement in Boston. Although William dragged his legs to see her, once he saw her, the tree became a boat and the raw rice became cooked rice. After a long chase, Alice became his loyal and strong wife and good helper. She became a mother of five children, an excellent writer and a lifelong intellectual companion. She appreciates his genius, understands his emotional needs and temperament, and, although there are many times when the relationship is tense and difficult, especially before William has to travel for a long time-he sometimes needs to be apart for a while-they are a loyal and respectful couple.

Once married, some of James' remaining neurological and physical symptoms began to ease. Although his body is not perfect, his attitude towards life has changed greatly, and his enthusiasm and energy are unprecedented. He finally became an economically independent person, with his own identity, family, income and freedom to pursue his own goals. Two years later, Harvard admitted his special interest and talent, and made him an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy (his psychology is more suitable in this department than in the Department of Physiology). Finally, he changed his title and became a 1889 psychology professor.

Before James 1875 began to teach psychology, there were no psychology professors in American universities. At that time, in the courses taught by American universities, the only forms of psychology were phrenology and Scottish psychophysiology, which was a branch of Lenovo and mainly used as a defense of the apocalypse. James himself has never taken a new psychology course, because there is no such course at all, as he quipped: "The first psychology lecture I heard was taken by myself." But within 20 years, at least 20 American universities have opened psychology courses, published three psychology magazines and established professional psychology societies. There are three reasons why psychology has reached its flowering stage: many university presidents hope to emulate the success of German psychological institutions, psychologists trained by Feng Te came to the United States, and most importantly, James's influence spread through his teaching, dozens of his extremely popular articles and his masterpiece Principles of Psychology.

James introduced experimental psychology to America. At least he and Feng Zhi demonstrated experiments to students at the same time. If not earlier, when James and his students started psychological experiments, they used Feng Te and his students to do experiments at the same time. Ironically, on the one hand, James emphasized the value of experiments, on the other hand, he felt bored and academically limited. He usually only spends two hours doing experiments. He told a friend, "I don't like experimental work by nature." When talking about the working style of the laboratory in Leipzig University, he said, "I am afraid of psychology-physical experiments and complete copper instruments and algebraic formulas."

However, he believed in experimental psychology and made students conduct extensive experiments. They let frogs spin quickly to explore the function of the inner ear; He did the same experiment on deaf-mute people to test James' hypothesis that they should be less sensitive to dizziness than normal people because their semicircular passages have been damaged (he is right); They conducted reflex experiments on frog legs and experiments on reaction time and nerve transmission speed of human subjects. Moreover, they went far beyond the scope of Feng Te's physiological psychology, and also conducted experiments of hypnosis and automatic writing.

Although James doesn't like doing experiments, when the best way to prove or refute a theory is to do experiments, he will force himself to do some. When he wrote a chapter about memory in the book Principles of Psychology, he hoped to test the belief of an ancient person, that is, functional psychologists still believe that memory, like muscles, can be strengthened through practice. Remembering anything will not only improve the memory of memory materials, but also enhance the ability to remember all materials. James doubted this and made himself a subject. In eight days, he recited 158 lines of Victor Hugo's satire, which took about 50 seconds on average. Then he began to recite Milton's Paradise Lost. For 38 days, he spent 90 minutes reciting every day until he recited a complete poem (798 lines). If the theory of practice is correct, this long-term effort should greatly strengthen his memory. He went back to the poem Satire and recited 158 lines-and found that each line was recited for 7 seconds more than the first time. Practice did not enhance his memory, but slowed it down, at least temporarily. He asked several assistants to repeat the experiment, and the results were roughly the same. ) The psychological theory that has been widely accepted for more than two thousand years has been completely refuted by many laymen. However, James's own experiment is only a source of his psychological thought, and it is a very humble source. He used all the books he had read in the fields of philosophy and physiological psychology; 1882-1883 spent more than half a year in Europe, visiting universities, participating in laboratory activities, listening to various lectures, and talking with dozens of famous psychologists and other scientists; Correspond with them regularly and collect clinical research data and reports on abnormal thinking and normal thinking under hypnosis, drugs or depression.

He got many main insights and speculations through introspection. This very different source is very different from what Feng Te and students call introspection. In James's view, through Feng Te's introspection, it is inevitable that some single elements in the process of thinking cannot be captured and separated: "Like a snowflake falling on a hot hand, it is no longer a snowflake, but just a drop. When we want to grasp the feeling that a relationship is ending, we will find that we are grasping something real and solid, usually the last sentence we send. If we look at it from a static point of view and combine its functions and trends, in these cases, the method of internal name analysis is actually like grasping a rotating beam to feel its movement, or trying to turn on the gas lamp quickly to see what the darkness looks like. " However, he thinks that naturalist's introspection method-observing our own thoughts and feelings according to their actual appearance-can tell us a lot about spiritual life. For James, this is the most important investigation method, which he defined as "searching our own minds and reporting what we found there". He refers to the introspection of conscious psychological activities. At that time, neither he nor other psychologists knew how much part of our psychological activities happened outside our consciousness. )

This kind of introspection requires concentration and practice, because the inner States are close one after another, often mixed together, and it is difficult to distinguish. But James said it was feasible, and he compared it to the feeling of a lawsuit. As people can see, people can achieve the same goal of exploring internal phenomena by carefully observing, naming and then classifying external objects. To be exact, at that time, there was a classic question about whether it was possible. Conscious thinking can observe external objects, but how does it observe itself? Is there a second consciousness to observe the first consciousness? How do we know the existence of such a second consciousness-can we also observe it? How to observe? James has an answer to these complicated questions: introspection is actually instant memory; The conscious mind will look back and report what it has just experienced.

He admits that introspection is difficult and error-prone. When feelings happen quickly, who can guarantee their exact order? Who can guarantee the comparative strength between them when they feel similar? If both happened in a flash, who can say which one took longer? Who can list all the ingredients in the complex emotion of anger?

However, he added that the effectiveness of introspection reports can be tested and verified by at least 56 proven experimental methods. For example, the duration of simple psychological activities can be estimated by introspection, and then verified by reaction time experiments; Another example is how many numbers or letters a person can remember at the same time, which can be verified by synaesthesia experiments.

In addition, although introspective reports about more complex and subtle mental states may not be verified by experimental methods, James believes that any straightforward narrative can be regarded as literal because these behaviors can be observed through introspection. In any case, "introspection observation is the method we must rely on first, under any circumstances". Another source of James's psychological thought ── perhaps the most important source ── is a personal and non-scientific source: his natural, wise and wise explanation of human behavior is based on his own experience and understanding. Many of his main insights come from "psychoanalysis", which is what Ernest hilgard, an outstanding psychologist, said in his authoritative book "American Psychology":

"'psychoanalysis' is to recall daily observations and then give a feasible explanation for related experiences and behaviors. Once expressed, such an explanation is often very feasible, even making the detailed proof irrelevant, or at least too cumbersome to try. Shakespeare is such a "psychoanalyst". He has no intention of becoming a psychologist. Among psychologists, James is an outstanding psychoanalyst. As a result, he encouraged a fully armed and enthusiastic psychology, which has no intention of trivial matters-a powerful and important psychology that bravely faces the most puzzling problems in psychology. " After 12 years of research, introspection, psychoanalysis and writing, James completed the Principles of Psychology, which has always been an unbearable burden for him. This is a huge project-the two volumes add up to nearly 1400 pages-and it is totally unsuitable for use as a teaching material. However, within two years, he adapted a simplified textbook based on this. The non-abbreviated version is famous for James, and the abbreviated version is famous for Jimmy. ) Principles of Psychology immediately achieved a sensational effect and had a far-reaching impact on American psychology. Almost 60 years later, Ralph, a philosophy professor at Harvard University? Barton Perry often talks about it: "No book in psychology has been so warmly welcomed ... No book has won such a lasting reputation."

By 1892, when James finished Jimmy, he had been teaching psychology for 17 years and writing psychology for 17 years, and he was a little tired. Since then, he has turned his creative talent to other aspects: education (teaching the application of psychology in class and publishing "A Talk with Teachers" in 1899); Different kinds of religious experiences (various religious experiences are published in 1902) and practical achievements of philosophy (pragmatism is published in 1907, which makes him a famous American thinker). However, he did continue to write some popular articles to publicize his ideas in Principles of Psychology and keep up with the development of psychology. 1894, he was the first American to attract people's attention to sigmund freud, a Viennese doctor who was not very conspicuous at that time. And in 1909, although he was still ill, he went to Clark University to visit Freud, the only one who came to the United States, and listened to his speech.

As a person who has always resisted tradition, James is willing to explore psychological forms outside the acceptable scientific category. He is deeply interested in spiritualism and "soul" phenomenon, and thinks that these things are the extension of abnormal psychology. He also followed the pace of mind researchers; Take part in some seances; 1884, the American soul research society was established. He once made an agreement with a dying friend to sit outside his house after his death and wait for a dialogue with friends in other circles; There is no dialogue. James combined his openness to such topics with strict scientific evidence; Later, in his life, he once concluded: "In these continuous reports on soul phenomena, I found myself believing in' something', although I never got any definite evidence ... Theoretically, I made no progress compared with the beginning." From 1898, James became interested in the afterlife for personal reasons. That year, he was 56 years old, and his heart was overworked while climbing the mountain in Adilon Dacre. Since then, he has suffered from chronic heart disease. His health went from bad to worse: 1907 retired from Harvard and wrote two most important philosophical works in the next three years. 19 10 died at the age of 68. John dewey said of him at that time: "It is universally acknowledged that he has always been the greatest American psychologist. If it weren't for people's unreasonable praise of Germans and things, I think he was the greatest psychologist of his time and any country-perhaps the greatest psychologist ever. "