The wisdom of William James
William James, an American philosopher who died more than a hundred years ago, still matters. In fact, a keynote speaker said, he is just what the doctor ordered. In a lecture on Monday, physician and Harvard Medical School Professor Arthur Kleinman discussed the importance of living a fulfilled life based on a deep “moral wisdom,” one illuminated in the writings of James, and the need for such insight in the academic realm. As context for his 2011 William James Lecture at Harvard Divinity School, Kleinman, Rabb Professor of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, described two crises in his own life, a turning point in his professional career more than 40 years ago, and the recent loss of his wife of almost half a century. The events were connected by an old journal yellowed with time. On its pages were pithy comments from 20th-century continental philosophers, compiled by a young Kleinman...
