An Uneasy Alliance in the Battle of the Absolute: William James and George Holmes Howison

Abstract: The closing section of James's "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results" contains a surprisingly abrupt dismissal of Kant's philosophy. This paper suggests that James's real target is his host, George Holmes Howison, whose Philosophical Union had invited James to speak at Berkeley. James and Howison shared a common commitment to pluralism in opposition to the Absolute monism such as Josiah Royce was developing. Howison relies on Kant's account of the a priori as well as his moral ideal of a Kingdom of Ends in order to fashion a pluralistic form of |idealism that would avoid the errors he found in Absolute monism while also countering the influential evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer. While James shared Howison's opposition to monism, as well as his critical view of Spencer, he did not share his aversion to evolutionary ideas. Ultimately, the pragmatism that he announced at Berkeley would reply to Howison's Kantian approach by retaining a pluralism while building on the modern psychology growing out of evolution. James's position would test the alliance that they had forged against monism. In time, it would prove too fragile to withstand their growing differences until a final break came in the year before James's death.