William James (January 11, 1842 – August 27, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychology the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James was a leading thinker of the late nineteenth century, one of the most influential U.S. philosophers, and has been labeled the “Father of American psychology
William James, philosopher and psychologist, was instrumental in establishing Harvard’s psychology department, which at its inception was tied to the department of philosophy. James himself remained unconvinced that psychology was, in fact, a distinct discipline, writing in his 1892 survey of the field, Psychology: Briefer Course “This is no science; it is only the hope of a science”
William James is considered by many to be the most insightful and stimulating of American philosophers, as well as the second of the three great
As a professor of psychology and of philosophy at Harvard University, he became the most famous living American psychologist and later the most famous living American philosopher of his time. Avoiding the logically tight systems typical of European rationalists, such as the German idealists, he cobbled together a psychology rich in philosophical implications and a philosophy enriched by his psychological expertise.
