"Adams had, in his Education, drawn attention to a leading feature of the new American world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—its love affair with energy—and he had proposed the dynamo or generator as the symbol of that energy. William James’s life work was the discovery, retrieval, and harnessing of previously unused energies that lie dormant within us. So James was stirred, in June 1910, to rise in protest against the urbane and learned pessimism of his friend Adams’s book-length funk. Finishing Adams’s “Letter” in mid-June, James fired off a riposte. The beginning was jolly enough. Referring to the “Letter,” James said, “To tell the truth it doesn’t impress me at all, save by its wit and erudition, and I ask you whether an old man soon about to meet his maker can hope to save himself from the consequences of his life by pointing to the wit and learning he has shown in treating a tragic subject. No, sir, you can’t do it,—can’t impress God in that way.”20
He then got down to cases. “I protest against your interpretation of some of the specifications of the great statistical drift downwards of the original high-level energy.” Adams had neglected to remember, and James now reminded him, that history is “the course of things before that terminus,” and in the course of things it was a question of what use was made of any given spoonful of energy.
Physically a dinosaur’s brain may show as much intensity of energy-exchange as a man’s, but it can do infinitely fewer things, because as a force of detent it can only unlock the dinosaur’s muscles, while the man’s brain, by unlocking far feebler muscles, indirectly can by their means issue proclamations, write books, describe Chartres Cathedral etc. and guide the energies of the shrinking sun into channels which never would have been entered otherwise—in short make history. Therefore the man’s brain and muscles are from the point of view of the historian, the more important place of energy-exchange, small as this may be, when measured in absolute physical units.
For this reason, James concluded, sweeping his hand across Adams’s chessboard, “the ‘second law’ is wholly irrelevant to ‘history.’”
It is impossible, after reading James for any length of time, to refrain from using italics oneself. But even italics fail to do justice to this magnificent outburst, the last stand of William James for the spirit of man. What can one say about the philosophical bravado, the cosmic effrontery, the sheer panache of this ailing philosopher with one foot in the grave talking down the second law of thermodynamics? It is a scene fit to set alongside the death of Socrates. The matchless incandescent spirit of the man!" --William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism by Robert D. Richardson
My current projects revolve around questions about the real meaning of education, and what sort of knowledge matters most. WJ remains the most reliable guide I've found, in exploring such questions. John Dewey is right there with him.
There's a looming submission deadline for a conference concerning the latter's legacy for education. Does that legacy also bask in Jamesian incandescence? Might also be a question worth exploring.
No comments:
Post a Comment