Audio Sample
William James
Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth
Read by Adam Sims
unabridged
William James was one of the most influential figures in 19th-century American philosophy and psychology. His Pragmatism is a set of lectures that he gave in 1906–07 in answer to the enduring debate between empiricism and rationalism. Shifting between them, he proposed pragmatism as a method, the idea being that the value of any truth is dependent upon its utility – upon its practical and experiential consequences. To address the critical response to his ideas that followed, he produced in 1909 The Meaning of Truth, collecting together further writings on the issue to consolidate and reinforce his position. With a gift for language akin to that of his brother Henry, his work remains both highly readable and thought-provoking.
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Running Time: 11 h 42 m
More product details
Digital ISBN: 978-1-78198-427-7 Cat. no.: NA0562 Produced by: Neil Rosser Edited by: Ross Burman BISAC: PHI020000 BIC: HPCF Released: January 23 -
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Reviews
Pragmatism, originally a series of lectures, is an approachable but far from simple philosophical text, and The Meaning of Truth, a collection of essays, is more challenging yet. Adam Sims’s voice isn’t immediately impressive but proves to be a highly serviceable tool, flexible and expressive. He uses it to elucidate James’s meaning and also bring out his tone, which in Sims’s performance is argumentative, but urbane and commonsensical. Rather than lecturing, he delivers the texts as conversation. Performance is interpretation, and Sims’s narration may make James’s meaning clearer to the listener than it would be to a reader – but listeners unfamiliar with the books may find them stiff going. Despite the difficulty of the material, Sims’s performance is remarkably engaging; it’s hard to imagine better.
W.M., AudioFile