- Title Pages
- The Drama of Possibility
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Introduction: Reading Mcdermott
- Prelude: Remarks Upon Receiving the 2004 Presidential Teaching Award
- Prescript
- Poem: Roots/Edges
-
Chapter One Threadbare Crape -
Chapter Two An American Angle of vision, Part 1 -
Chapter Three An American Angle of Vision, Part 2 -
Chapter Four Spires of Influence -
Chapter Five Josiah Royce's Philosophy of the Community -
Chapter Six Possibility or Else! - Poem: The Professional Tin Cup
-
Chapter Seven A Relational World -
Chapter Eight Nature Nostalgia and the City -
Chapter Nine Space, Time, and Touch -
Chapter Ten Glass Without Feet - Poem: Waiting
-
Chapter Eleven Why Bother -
Chapter Twelve: Ill-at-Ease -
Chapter Thirteen “Turning” Backward -
Chapter Fourteen The Inevitability of Our Own Death -
Chapter Fifteen Isolation as Starvation - Poem: Deadlines
-
Chapter Sixteen Hast any Philosophy in Thee, Shepherd? -
Chapter Seventeen The Cultural Immortality of Philosophy as Human Drama -
Chapter Eighteen To Be Human is To Humanize -
Chapter Nineteen Experience Grows by its Edges -
Chapter Twenty The Aesthetic Drama of the Ordinary - Poem: Lurking
-
Chapter Twenty-One The Gamble for Excellence -
Chapter Twenty-Two Liberty and Order in the Educational Anthropology of Maria Montessori -
Chapter Twenty-Three The Erosion of Face-to-Face Pedagogy -
Chapter Twenty-Four Cultural Literacy -
Chapter Twenty-Five Trumping Cynicism with Imagination - Finis
- Index
Possibility or Else!
Possibility or Else!
The Philosophy of William James
- Chapter:
- (p.131) Chapter Six Possibility or Else!
- Source:
- The Drama of Possibility
- Author(s):
John J. McDermott
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
This chapter presents an essay on the philosophy of William James about alternative and possibility. It cites James' statement that philosophy is the habit of always seeing an alternative. This belief is grounded on James' dubiety about closure, finality, totality, and certitude, and his commitment to the doctrine of possibility, to the persistent presence of novelty and to the wisdom of taking a chance. He also believes that experience has a way of boiling over and flooding people's categories that washes habits, additions, and beliefs.
Keywords: William James, doctrine of possibility, philosophy, experience, essay
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- Title Pages
- The Drama of Possibility
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Introduction: Reading Mcdermott
- Prelude: Remarks Upon Receiving the 2004 Presidential Teaching Award
- Prescript
- Poem: Roots/Edges
-
Chapter One Threadbare Crape -
Chapter Two An American Angle of vision, Part 1 -
Chapter Three An American Angle of Vision, Part 2 -
Chapter Four Spires of Influence -
Chapter Five Josiah Royce's Philosophy of the Community -
Chapter Six Possibility or Else! - Poem: The Professional Tin Cup
-
Chapter Seven A Relational World -
Chapter Eight Nature Nostalgia and the City -
Chapter Nine Space, Time, and Touch -
Chapter Ten Glass Without Feet - Poem: Waiting
-
Chapter Eleven Why Bother -
Chapter Twelve: Ill-at-Ease -
Chapter Thirteen “Turning” Backward -
Chapter Fourteen The Inevitability of Our Own Death -
Chapter Fifteen Isolation as Starvation - Poem: Deadlines
-
Chapter Sixteen Hast any Philosophy in Thee, Shepherd? -
Chapter Seventeen The Cultural Immortality of Philosophy as Human Drama -
Chapter Eighteen To Be Human is To Humanize -
Chapter Nineteen Experience Grows by its Edges -
Chapter Twenty The Aesthetic Drama of the Ordinary - Poem: Lurking
-
Chapter Twenty-One The Gamble for Excellence -
Chapter Twenty-Two Liberty and Order in the Educational Anthropology of Maria Montessori -
Chapter Twenty-Three The Erosion of Face-to-Face Pedagogy -
Chapter Twenty-Four Cultural Literacy -
Chapter Twenty-Five Trumping Cynicism with Imagination - Finis
- Index
