The Greatest Use of life

Quotes:
1. The greatest use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.’ – William James, The Thought and Character of William James (1935)
2. ‘no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide’. William James to Benjamen Paul Blood
3. ‘Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.’-James, 1895
4. ‘The art of being wise,’ James suggested, ‘is the art of knowing what to overlook.’
5. ‘Let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter.’-Ralph Waldo "circles"
6. ‘I firmly disbelieve, myself, that our human experience is the highest form of experience extant in the Universe.’ -james
7. ‘The miracle is not to walk on water,’ insists the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. ‘The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.’
For many people, life's worth is never a question
1. Life is simply lived until it is not
About William James
1. In the first decade of 20th century he developed Pragmatism
2. Occasionaly disparaged Arthur Schoppenhauer's pessimism
3. Suggested there might be other options than a mere suicide
4. On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings’ (1899)-his final essay
  1. reminded his readers that they often don’t have a clue about how other people experience the meaning of their lives. Better to leave it at ‘maybe’.
5. followed philosopher C S Peirce in believing that the world is teeming with hypotheses to make lives worhwhile
6. in 1890 "Principles of psychology"-developed selfhood-in the centre-material self
  1. the most concrete aspect of our lives but most superficial
    1. there is also a "spiritual self"
      1. the religious, moral, intelectual aspirations
      2. the most expensive aspect of selfhood
      3. most subtle, farthest reaching and easily neglected
7. In "Varieties" was writing about possibilities through religion, psychotrophic drugs, spiritual realm
8. After death of father and his newborn child his wife and him contacted a psychic
  1. Leonora Piper-medium for channeling spirits
  2. In September of 1885
9. As empiricist wanted to test the power of pysichics
  1. co-founded the mission of American Society for psychic research with Stanley Hall
  2. published their findings-the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research
10. Always curious
  1. Would turn off lights so miracles could happen-jokes about him
On Suicide
1. For Davide Hume, self murder should not be illegal or immoral
2. In Romanticism Life and death should be determined freely by passionate individuals
3. For Pragmatist James Williams the answer, if life's worth living-is maybe
4. James liked "The sorrows of Young Werther"
Brooklyn Brigde
1. Sign on a Brooklyn Bridge: "Life's worth living "
2. During its construction 27 people died in 1883
  1. 2 years later Robert Odlum-1st man to jump off the bridge
    1. Swimming instructor. wanted to prove that the jump wouldn't be fatal. Died.
      1. In the next century 1500 people followed him for different reasons
3. Before it was built, ferry carried passengers from one side to another
  1. Walt Witman wrote a poem-Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
    1. Described experiences of nature and human crowd both hopeful and inexplicable
    2. world is not always as is seems as dirty ferry ride is not only that
LIfe's Worth
Useful Terms
1. American Pragmatism-Truth should be judged by its practical consequences
  1. was supposed to make life more liveable
2. "Maybe"-the open question to life's worth. Since everything in cosmos is in the process of making it own guesses
  1. Remains constant-gives us something to watch, expect and experience
3. Social self-the recognition one gets from friends, loved ones, society
4. Subliminal- mental processes just below the threshold of consciousness that can often be felt without fully emerging.
5. "Religious" for james to enter ‘a state of mind, known to religious men, but to no others, in which the will to assert ourselves and hold our own has been displaced by a willingness to close our mouths and be as nothing in the floods and waterspouts of God. In this state of mind, what we most dreaded has become the habitation of our safety …’

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	Created by Salomina Iwonttell about 5 years ago