William James in the Borderlands: Psychedelic Science and the "Accidental Fences" of Self
Configurations March 1, 2008 DOI: 10.1353/con.0.0058 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that William James's investigations into paranormal phenomena, mysticism, and drug effects are consistent with his philosophical claims about pluralism, radical empiricism, and science's role. Proposes that James's self-experiments with nitrous oxide revealed waking consciousness as a habit concealing the self's enmeshment with the world, and that he advocated practices to block this habitual self to enable transformation and ethical openness. |
Abstract
While William James's investigations into paranormal phenomena, mysticism, and the effects of drugs upon consciousness have been typically dismissed or overlooked by scholars, they actually prove to be consistent with his more reputable philosophical claims about pluralism, radical empiricism, and the role and purpose of science. James's self-experiments with nitrous oxide and other drugs challenged the limits of scientific practice, implemented an alternative rhetorical economy for scientific experiment, and revealed normal waking consciousness to be a habit that conceals the self's nature as something thoroughly enmeshed with and inseparable from the world. James argues for the implementation of practices that might effect the blockage or closing off of this habitual self in order to make way for difference or transformation—that is, for a more open, responsive, and ethical relation to the world.