Correspondence (1882–1910)

William James, Carl Stumpf, Riccardo Martinelli, Riccardo Martinelli

• Editorial: De Gruyter
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783110524673
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Philosophie
• Categoría: Épistémologie en philosophie

James and Stumpf first met in Prague in 1882. James soon started corresponding with a "colleague with whose persons and whose ideas alike I feel so warm a sympathy." With this, a lifelong epistolary friendship began. For 28 years until James's death in 1910, Stumpf became James's most important European correspondent.

Besides psychological themes of great importance, such as the perception of space and of sound, the letters include commentary upon Stumpf's ( Tonpsychologie ) and James's main books ( The Principles of Psychology, The Varieties of Religious Experience ), and many other works. The two friends also exchange views concerning other scholars, religious faith and metaphysical topics. The different perspectives of the American and the German (European) way of living, philosophizing and doing science are frequently under discussion. The letters also touch upon personal questions of historical interest.

The book offers a critical edition and the English translation of hitherto unpublished primary sources. Historians of psychology and historians of philosophy will welcome the volume as a useful tool for their understanding of some crucial developments of the time. Scholars in the history of pragmatism and of phenomenology will also be interested in the volume.

Correspondence

English translation of Stumpf’s letters by R. Brian Tracz

William James, Carl Stumpf

Letters (1882–1910)

[1, 1882]

Paris, 26.11.1882

My Dear Stumpf,

I’m sure you will allow me to drop titles of ceremony with a colleague with whose person and whose ideas alike I feel so warm a sympathy; & I trust that when you write to me you will give the same token that you regard me in the light of an old friend.

I mailed you the papers you were kind enough to lend me the day before yesterday.¹ I hope they will reach you safely. When I say that I actually had no time to finish reading them before I got to Paris, which was three days ago, it will give you an idea of the busy character of my life since leaving Prague. Both in Leipzig and in Berlin I found a host of old american friends, many of them former students. I stayed in Berlin a week, in Leipzig 5 days, in Liege 2 1/2 days with Delboeuf. In each place I heard all the university lectures I could, and spoke with several of the professors. From some I got very good hints as to how not to lecture. Helmholtz for example gave the very worst lecture I ever heard in my life except one – (that one was by our most distinguished american mathematician). The lecture I heard in Prag from Mach was on the same elementary subject as Helmholtz’s and one of the most artistic lectures I ever heard. Wundt in Leipzig impressed me very agreeably personally.² He has a ready smile and is entirely unaffected and unpretending in his manner. I heard him twice, and was twice in his laboratory, he was very polite but showed no desire for a further acquaintance. Überhaupt I must say that the hospitality of Prag towards wandering philosophers much surpasses that of Berlin and Leipzig. In greater capitals it is more difficult to give one’s time to strangers. I found M. Delboeuf a most delightful man, full of spirit and originality, and altogether I enjoyed extremely my sojourn in Liège.³ I’m not yet settled in Paris. I find my chronic insomnia rather worse in Europe than it was at home, so I may possibly return before many weeks. I read your “Aus der 4ten Dimension” with lively interest and admiration.⁴ Where did it appear? I should like the reference for the use of my students. I make a couple of them work up that subject in an essay every year. I hope that this will find you, the Frau Professorin and the youthful Rudi all well. It will be long ere I forget those pleasant days in old Prague – pleasant chiefly on account of you. With best regards to Professor Marty when you meet him, and extra best to Mrs Stumpf, believe me always faithfully yours

Address: Cave of Baring Bros. & Co Wm James

London England

[2, 1882]

Smichov-Prague 8 Dec 82

Dear James!

I likewise return your greetings with sincere joy, for I have gained with your all-too-brief visit the firm impression that we not only harmonize in our scientific views and intentions in a rare way, but will also always be good friends.

I am much obliged for the restitution of my short essays, but far more for the delivery of both of your essays.⁵ Regarding the latter – since my hands are currently full with the printing of my Tonpsychologie –, I have only read one, “The Feeling of Effort”,⁶ and am in almost complete agreement with your basic remarks; I am also glad that I was able to refer to it once for support⁷ in the Tonpsychologie (in particular, the “innervation feelings [Innervationsgefühle]”⁸ play their questionable role there, too).⁹

My essay about the fourth dimension appeared in the Philosoph. Monatsheften edited by Schaarschmidt (1878).¹⁰

I hope that this letter will still find you in London, and indeed in better health. Perhaps the erratic lifestyle that you revere in Europe had an unfavorable influence on your nerves? I, at least, would long since have been ruined by it. But you must know yourself better than I.

Your notes on Helmholtz and Delboeuf, among others, were interesting to me. I hope very much that in the future we will hear of each other at least once a year. The next sign of me will certainly be delayed somewhat longer, since for now and foreseeably throughout the whole of 1883, I will find myself “under the press” and unable to catch my breath.

Heartfelt greetings from me as well as from my wife and Marty, who have received your greetings thankfully and with joy.

All the best!

Your dear ⎪ C. Stumpf

[3, 1884]

Cambridge (Mass) U.S.A.⎪Jan 9. 1884

My dear Stumpf,

I had only been awaiting the sight of your book, which I saw announced six weeks ago, to write you the annual letter we agreed upon last winter. Today I was most agreeably surprised at the reception of the copy you have so kindly sent me.¹¹ I had already ordered one which has not arrived, but which I can easily transfer to a friend. I shall devour it most eagerly, and expect to be greatly nourished in consequence, though unhappily my eyes are no better and the rate of my reading is excessively slow. I feel sometimes quite desperate about it, but the insensibility of habit comes to my aid, and lets me often not think of it. But for the man, who, with as much university teaching as yours, and complaining as you do of imperfect health, can not only write, but actually publish, a volume of 400 pages, – for such a man I have a feeling of admiration and envy such as few other phenomena are capable of exciting in me. My own work has hardly been advanced at all in the past 6 months, – a most humiliating confession.¹²

I am much the better physically however, for my trip to Europe, and find myself already making plans whereby my next sabbatical year, 7 years hence, shall be more successful than this last one was in certain respects. There was no episode of the last of which I think with more pleasure than of my visit to Prag, and of the more than hospitable reception you gave me. I am working away at the old routine of teaching, and will send you the list of our courses which may interest you. The method of teaching throughout is with us more laborious for the professor, though I think better for the student, than it is with you.¹³ In all of our courses the students are interrogated, and stirred up, and frequently made to give an account of themselves in writing in a way that I fancy only happens with you in the courses marked “Privatissime”. But I fear, for all that, that our students remain behind yours in the spirit of work and the degree of real respect paid to intellectual things.

We have no schools comparable to your Gymnasia, and the results make themselves felt all through the college course. It is true that our so-called “college” 4 years, followed by about 1000 students whose ages average from 18 1/2 to 22 1/2, is preliminary to business and law, medicine, and theology, and not, like your philosophical faculty, coordinate with the latter three. We are seeking, if possible, to heighten the standard of admission without raising the age, and to make the course 3 years instead of 4, but it is hard to improve the schools.¹⁴

I have made no discoveries during the past year. I have two or three little mustard seeds of experimental investigations on hand, but I very much doubt if they grow into anything important. I have sent a couple of articles to Mind of which you shall receive reprints in due time.¹⁵ But this seems on the whole, a sterile year with me. Family misfortunes both of my own and my wife’s have followed thick and fast and taken much of my time and thought.¹⁶

I am sorry I have no more jovial account to give you of myself. In spite of it all I am cheerful and sanguine of the future.

The appearance of your book makes me believe that everything must have been going well with you. I will write you my opinion of it as soon as I have succeeded in getting through it, which may possibly not be for some months.¹⁷ Mach’s book which he sent me last summer and which I hoped to have read ere now, I have, Alas! hardly been able to look at.¹⁸ Pray give him my best regards if you see him and do the same to Professor Marty, who I hope will not forget me. My wife, who holds the pen, sends friendliest greetings to your Frau Gemahlin, in which I cordially join.

Believe me, with many thanks, and the warmest good wishes,

Yours always⎪Wm. James

[4, 1884]

Prague, Smichov 4 Feb 84

My dear James!

You have my strongest gratitude for your dear letter, and the same goes for your revered wife for her writing! It is curious that you received my book so late, since I gave Hirzel the order to send it to you already in the second half of October, and the other parcels were all delivered at that time. It must have lain for a while on the way. For the friendly words that you said to me about it, I am thankful with all my heart; up to now, the recognition that I have found has been extremely slight and restricted to 2–3 letters. I also cannot hope that the book will find many readers; it goes too much into detail. “Mind” published a note expressing the suspicion that I was still unfamiliar with Gurney.¹⁹ This, thanks to your recommendation,²⁰ is not the case – I have been familiar with his work for over a year (my book was printed up to, say, § 11 when I read it), but unfortunately I haven’t found as much in it as I had hoped. It has nothing to do with volumes 1 and 2 of my book; I will only be able to use it for volume 3.²¹ I am now working on volume 2, which, however, will not appear before Easter 1885,²² since my nerves cannot stand greater strain; in it, I will provide a new theory of consonance.²³

I have already received your “Courses of Study” and have taken notice of it with interest.²⁴ The facilities appear certainly very different from ours, more scholastic, but certainly more practical. By the way, we now also have a philosophical seminar in Prague, two hours a week, led by me and Marty – it is the first in Austria.

I saw your first essay in Mind at the university library and I read the first pages, which made me eager for the rest. You do Brentano an injustice, though, if you ascribe to him such an extreme view;²⁵ he emphasizes indeed that psychology is essentially dependent on observation in memory and that this is by no means infallible.²⁶ Marty will send you an essay on “Subjectless propositions”.²⁷

Did you receive our photographs last year? My wife sent them to you together with the warmest thanks for the beautiful books by your brother, which she read with much enjoyment.²⁸

I have not yet studied your essays completely, but for the most part I have, and I am glad that I agree with you on the essential points of psychology. You will find your excellent work on innervation feelings already c...