Sciousness, a term coined by

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

in ''

The Principles of Psychology ''The Principles of Psychology'' is an 1890 book about psychology by William James, an American philosopher and psychologist who trained to be a physician before going into psychology. There are four methods from James' book: stream of consciousne ...

'', refers to

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

separate from consciousness of self. James wrote: When James first introduced "sciousness" he held back from proposing it as a possible prime reality in ''The Principles of Psychology'', warning that it "traverse common sense." He allowed that he might return to a consideration of sciousness at the conclusion of the book, where he would "indulge in some metaphysical reflections," but it was not until two years later in his conclusion to the abridged edition of ''The Principles'' that he added: Then thirteen years later, writing solely as a philosopher, James returned to his "parenthetical digression" of sciousness that "contradict dthe fundamental assumption of every philosophic school." James had founded a new school of philosophy, called "

radical empiricism Radical empiricism is a philosophical doctrine put forth by William James. It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations. In concrete terms: ...

," and nondual sciousness was its starting point. He even wrote a note to himself to "apologize for my dualistic language, in the Principles." James did not continue to use the word "sciousness" in later essays on radical empiricism, but the concept is clearly there as the "plain, unqualified ... existence" he comes to call "pure experience," in which there is "no self-splitting ... into consciousness and what the consciousness is of." Pure experience sciousness was mostly attacked when first presented. With some notable exceptions, such as

Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson

, Dewey, and Whitehead, Western philosophers rejected James' view. That rejection continues to this day. One of the first to appreciate James's concept was the Swiss psychologist Theodore Flournoy, a mentor of

Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

. In a book about James he wrote: The 20th century philosopher

Kitaro Nishida was a Japanese moral philosopher, philosopher of mathematics and science, and religious scholar. He was the founder of what has been called the Kyoto School of philosophy. He graduated from the University of Tokyo during the Meiji period in 1 ...

—introduced to James by

D.T. Suzuki , self-rendered in 1894 as "Daisetz", was a Japanese-American Buddhist monk, essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, translator, and writer. He was a scholar and author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in s ...

—compared James's concept of sciousness and his phrase "pure experience" to tathata or suchness.

(1992), ''An Enquiry into the Good'', Tr. by Masao Abe & Christopher Ives (New Haven: Yale University Press) Yet James scholars today still do not agree on how receptive James himself remained to sciousness. As psychologist

Benny Shanon Benny Shanon ( he, בני שנון; born 1948) is an emeriti professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds the Mandel Chair in cognitive psychology and education. Born in Tel Aviv, Shanon studied philosophy and linguistics ...

observed recently:

References

Bibliography

* Andrew Bailey, "The Strange Attraction of Sciousness: William James on Consciousness" (1988), Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 34, pp. 414–43

* Jonathan Bricklin, Ed., ''Sciousness'', Guilford, CT: Eirini Press, *

, with introduction by George Armitage Miller, George A. Miller (1890/1983), Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, paperback, *

, ''Psychology (Briefer Course)'' (1892), University of Notre Dame Press 1985: , New York: Dover Publications 2001: {{ISBN, 0-486-41604-6 * Thomas Natsoulas, "The sciousness hypothesis: Part I" (1996), ''Journal of Mind and Behavior'' 17 (1): 45–66 *

, ''An Enquiry into the Good'' (1992), Tr. by Masao Abe & Christopher Ives, New Haven: Yale University Press * Eugene Taylor and Robert Wozniak, eds., ''Pure Experience: The response to William James'' (1996), Bristol, England: Thoemnes

External links

A Great Consciousness Shift Is Happening
Conceptions of self Consciousness Psychological concepts 1890s neologisms