a genius of his own kind

“Those thinkers of our time who contend that James is meaningful for contemporary thought because he anticipates certain specific philosophical concerns or analyses of experience, actually sell him short. His relevance lies in his ability to offer philosophical insight of the kind which refuses to be localized by any strictly circumscribed method or doctrine. James was neither a phenomenologist nor an existentialist… to speak of James as a pragmatist is also inadequate. He was a genius of his own kind, who gave to philosophy, largely by virtue of his personal qualities, a perspective and a context wholly novel in implication. With James, the philosophical enterprise begins anew, for if one is imbued with his viewpoint, nothing is seen in quite the same way again. He once said that “there can be no difference anywhere that doesn’t make a difference elsewhere” (Pragm., 49–50). The most signal instance of this truth is the reading of James himself, who helps us to restructure our very context of apprehension. In the most basic sense, James is a seminal thinker. It is, therefore, extremely important that the public mind, for whom he primarily wrote, more fully realize his originality and relevance. Not only in his inspirational essays, but in his technical thought as well, James had everyday experience in view, and he devoted a long series of lectures and articles to the articulation of psychological and philosophical truths, for the purpose of enhancing the immediate situation. He was, in fact, a meliorist and saw philosophy itself as “the habit of always seeing an alternative” (L.W.J.I, 190).” — The Writings of William James by John J. McDermott https://a.co/0dIDnreO