Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Last week I quoted from a 19th century article by Chauncey Wright, mentor of the Harvard-based Metaphysical Club, concerning the beginnings of self-consciousness in humans.  He compared it with flight in birds. I'll try to elucidate. "The derivation of this power [self-consciousness], supposing it to have been observed by a finite angelic (not animal) intelligence, could not have been foreseen to be involved in the mental causes, on the conjunction of which it might, nevertheless, have been seen to depend. The angelic observation would have been a purely empirical one." The bracketing is mine, the parenthesis is Wright's.  Our observing angel presumably is aware of mental activity in a range of animals  -- stimulus is followed (often after some gap in time as if for deliberation) by response.  Monkey sees some food out of reach. Monkey looks around, sees a long stick, uses it to extend his reach for the food.  But then a particular "naked ape" appears who ha...

  A few words from Chauncey Wright, famously of the "Metaphysical Club" that gave rise to the pragmaticism of Peirce and the pragmatism of James.   "The derivation of this power [self-consciousness], supposing it to have been observed by a finite angelic (not animal) intelligence, could not have been foreseen to be involved in the mental causes, on the conjunction of which it might, nevertheless, have been seen to depend. The angelic observation would have been a purely empirical one. The possibility of a subsequent analysis of these causes by the self-conscious animal himself, which would afford an explanation of their agency, by referring it to a rational combination of simpler elements in them, would not alter the case to the animal intelligence, just as a rational explanation of flight could not be reached by such an intelligence as a consequence of known mechanical laws, since these laws are also animal conditions, or rather are more material ones, of which our ange...

I've been reading a book of the above title, published in 1963, written by Edward H. Madden . The title is a bit odd and is perhaps intended ironically. Madden's chief point seems to be that Chauncey Wright did not in fact set the "foundations of pragmatism," that he was more of a sounding board than an inspiration for those pragmatists with whom his name is generaly linked, Peirce and James, that his own views were positivistic and utilitarian. Further, Madden seems to be of the view that on most of the points where those who are properly called pragmatists diverged from Wright, he was right and they were wrong. Sample passage. After quoting from an essay by Wright that was itself a reply to a book by St. George Mivart, Mivart was an early critic, as Wright was an early defender, of Darwinism. In case you were wondering why I'm using an early-hominid skull to illustrate this blog entry, now you know. As part of the Mivart review, Wright discussed the...