Bordogna, Francesca. William James at the Boundaries: Philosophy, Science, and the Boundaries of Knowledge.

Shaw, Elizabeth C.

BORDOGNA, Francesca. William James at the Boundaries: Philosophy, Science, and the Boundaries of Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. x + 382 pp. Cloth, $39.00--The purpose of this volume is to highlight William James's role during a pivotal period in the development of contemporary academic culture. Bordogna argues that, against growing movements toward professionalization and specialization within philosophy, James represented a countermovement that sought to minimize the boundaries both among academic disciplines and between professional philosophers and amateur "dabblers." According to Bordogna, James's concerns and efforts in this regard had potentially broad implications, both within and outside academia: "a new configuration of knowledge and a new vision for American society" (p. 7).

Bordogna begins with an account of James's 1906 presidential address to the American Philosophical Association, which she argues is emblematic of James's mission and method. The lecture, titled "The Energies of Men," considers the question of how people might maximize their physical, mental, and moral energy. Given the A.P.A. audience, both this subject matter and James's approach to it were unconventional, and perhaps even disappointing and unsettling. In the United States the prestige of the natural sciences had been waxing through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, while respect for philosophy and philosophers had been waning, and the A.P.A. was founded at the turn of the century in an effort to rescue the reputation of philosophy as a formal discipline. In view of this raison d'etre of the A.P.A., the audience might have expected, and preferred, a technical, scholarly discourse on the timely and controversial themes of James's pragmatism and radical empiricism. Instead, what it got was a lecture that displayed James's propensity for inquiries that were fundamentally practical and geared toward what might be dubbed a self-help sort of philosophizing. In "The Energies of Men" James surveys the theoretic aspects of structuralism and functionalism, the competing academic schools of scientific psychology, but he accompanies this treatment with extended discussion of a variety of practical techniques for energy enhancement employed by ordinary people. Yoga, meditation, and the consumption of brandy are among the latter. In this way the lecture exhibits James's eclectic method of pursuing truth and his general disdain for the insular and elitist attitudes not uncommon among his academic colleagues. The ironic nature of this presidential address to the A.P.A. is not subtle, and it demonstrates James's expansive view of the nature of reality and the appropriate means of finding truth. For James, the earnest searcher will ferret out truth wherever and however it may be found, giving credence to the perspectives and capacities of academics and laymen alike.

Bordogna develops the notion of James as a unifier of knowledge, his well-articulated opposition to unitary or monistic theoretic schemes notwithstanding. His interest in a multifaceted science of human nature best exemplifies his efforts in this regard. As she writes, his "efforts to promote a psychological-medical-hygienic-physiological-spiritual pragmatic science of man--a project framed in a way that made it impossible to realize within the bounds of any existing discipline--represented the epitome of his drive" (p. 272). James himself was trained as an M.D., he taught anatomy, physiology, psychology, and philosophy, and he studied and wrote on a host of issues and themes, from sociopolitical affairs and aesthetics to psychical research and the paranormal. He was interested and learned in many disciplinary approaches, and not exactly wedded to or confirmed in any one of them; as such, he was perhaps uniquely equipped to appreciate the virtues of interdisciplinary inquiry. The most robust science of man would incorporate all angles of approach to human nature and experience. Bordogna maintains that James did not seek to eliminate the disciplines or blur their boundaries, contrary to later interpretations and appropriations of his writings, but that his concern was to promote better respect, interaction, and cooperation among them. Moreover, he envisioned a broader, egalitarian network of communication and deliberation extending beyond the academy, which might serve both to advance learning and knowledge and to ameliorate tensions that derived from impersonal, self-serving institutions and structures.

James's efforts to reform attitudes and approaches to knowledge both within and outside academia have deep roots in his pragmatism and are also philosophically grounded in his metaphysical vision of the pluralistic universe. These aspects of his thought, though important and still relevant, are unduly neglected and in consequence often misunderstood or misrepresented. It is difficult to say which is the worse fate, but Bordogna's volume may serve as a remedy in both respects. Although it is a work of intellectual history and not a philosophical study of Jamesian pragmatism and pluralism, it may pique readers' interest and prompt them to turn to James's writings. For those who do so, this history will complement their study by providing an illuminating context for his thought.--Elizabeth C. Shaw, The Catholic University of America.