William James

William James (1842–1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who helped establish psychology as a discipline and developed influential accounts of consciousness, habit, and religious experience.

Stream of consciousness: The continuous, changing flow of thoughts and sensations in conscious experience. James’s description of thought as continuous rather than a chain of separate mental states became influential.
Charles Sanders Peirce: An American philosopher, logician, and scientist who founded pragmatism. Peirce’s pragmatic maxim shaped the philosophical movement James later popularized.
The Principles of Psychology: William James’s 1890 two-volume work synthesizing psychological research and philosophical analysis. This landmark book presents his accounts of consciousness, habit, attention, and emotion.
Structuralism (psychology): An early school of psychology that analyzed conscious experience into basic elements. James opposed reducing the changing stream of consciousness to discrete mental elements.
Habit: A learned tendency to respond in a particular way, often with reduced conscious effort. James treated habits as central to character and as practical means of shaping conduct.
John Dewey: An American philosopher and educational reformer associated with pragmatism and progressive education. Dewey extended pragmatic philosophy and functional psychology in directions James helped make possible.
The Varieties of Religious Experience: William James’s 1902 study of personal religious experiences and their psychological significance. James applied psychology to religious life by examining individual experiences and their effects.
Idealism: The philosophical view that reality is fundamentally mental or depends on mind. James challenged idealist systems with pluralism and an empiricist focus on experience.
Attention: The selective focusing of awareness on some information while other information is neglected. James analyzed attention as an active selection that helps organize conscious experience.
G. Stanley Hall: An American psychologist who founded the first psychology laboratory in the United States. Hall studied with James and helped build the new American discipline of psychology.

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