The first book to map William Jamesâs preoccupation with medical ideas, concerns, and values across the breadth of his work.
William James is known as a nineteenth-century philosopher, psychologist, and psychical researcher. Less well-known is how his interest in medicine influenced his life and work, driving his ambition to change the way American society conceived of itself in body, mind, and soul. William James, MD offers an account of the development and cultural significance of Jamesâs ideas and works, and establishes, for the first time, the relevance of medical themes to his major lines of thought.
James lived at a time when old assumptions about faith and the moral and religious possibilities for human worth and redemption were increasingly displaced by a concern with the medically ânormalâ and the perfectibility of the body. Woven into treatises that warned against humanityâs decline, these ideas were part of the eugenics movement and reflected a growing social stigma attached to illness and invalidism, a disturbing intellectual current in which James felt personally implicated. Most chronicles of Jamesâs life have portrayed a distressed young man, who then endured a psychological or spiritual crisis to emerge as a mature thinker who threw off his pallor of mental sickness for good. In contrast, Emma Sutton draws on his personal correspondence, unpublished notebooks, and diaries to show that James considered himself a genuine invalid to the end of his days. Sutton makes the compelling case that his philosophizing was not an abstract occupation but an impassioned response to his own life experiences and challenges. To ignore the medical James is to misread James altogether.
Industry Reviews
"By examining the 'sick' William James, Sutton reveals an intriguing relation between pain and philosophical outlook in his work. Her analysis not only gives us new understanding of the 'adorable genius'; it reminds us that philosophy itself often springs from lived experience, and enduring ideas can find their beginnings even in the most inhospitable human circumstances." * Book Post *
"Sutton is especially convincing when she discusses how James fought off the then popular, yet dangerously distorting, eugenic idea of degeneracy, with his more promising emphasis on regeneration; how he rethought religion as a source of biological energy; how he conceptualized the politics of psychopathology; and how he gave prominence to suffering as an expression of everyday moral heroism. Her view of James as an active political campaigner for mental health is both inspired and inspiring." * The Lancet *
"Sutton's extensive reading of James's notebooks, correspondence, and many unfamiliar essays and talks supports a significant reassessment of James's philosophy as an extended inquiry dominated by concerns and ideas of health and sickness, physical and mental. . . . Highly recommended." * Choice *
"Fabulous . . . Changed everything that I thought I knew about Williams James." * New Books Network *
"Sutton has not provided the world with yet another biography of philosopher and psychologist, William James. Instead, she has used her impressive research and analytical skills to provide important insights regarding the relationship between James's many physical and psychological challenges and his intellectual output. Sutton argues that James's experiences of infirmity have direct effects on his philosophical arguments, not as intellectual irritants but as substantive catalysts for leading to deep insights. This book shows just how thoroughly embodied James's philosophy truly is, and as such, makes an important contribution to Jamesian scholarship." -- D. Micah Hester, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
"Sutton's study offers a brilliant new reading of James. Her original approach not only brings new dimensions to issues around illness, pain, health, and medicine-though Sutton performs this with precision-but offers a rare scholarly analysis of his letters, reviews, notebooks, and diaries to provide a fuller picture of his personal life and his intellectual engagements. It shows the vital quality of James's holistic integration of life and thought and the lived quality of his intellectual concerns around sickness and health. With this work, Sutton shows us that the margins of the archive are as important to Jamesian scholarship as his main works. It is a rich study that roots James's thinking in the reality of his embodied life and shows that, with a sensitivity to his language, we can see the voice of the physician in his psychology, philosophy, and analysis of religion." -- Jeremy Carrette, University of Edinburgh
"This book changes our perception of James as a philosopher and intellectual. The best extended piece of scholarship on James in a long time." -- Sarin Marchetti, Sapienza University
