The community in the philosophy of William James

Abstract

There are those who have stated that James' social philosophy is of little import, and that the reader of James is, therefore, hard-pressed to find any notion of community therein. My primary purpose in this work is to show that while James has no systematic "theory of community," he does have important things to say about our "experience of community." In showing this, I also indirectly respond to the claim made against James' social philosophy. I call attention to the importance of James' theory of relations--where both conjunctive and disjunctive relations are held to be as real as the terms they connect--to his position as regards both the self, and the relation of selves known as the community. This is also the basis for James' suggestion that on the common sense level of daily life, we operate within the framework of a narrative concept of selfhood. Our experience of community consists of three overlapping areas; the materials, social, and spiritual. In the first area, our focus is upon "me and mine." In the second, it is on our social relations. The third has to do with the moral relations that exist between ourselves and other members. I suggest that a hypothetical Jamesean community is one that is pragmatic in orientation. James characterizes the pragmatic community as "an experiment of the most searching kind."