William James

William James (1842–1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist, the brother of the novelist Henry James. Born in New York to a wealthy, restless family, he studied painting and then medicine, suffered years of ill health and depression, and taught at Harvard for thirty-five years, in anatomy, psychology and finally philosophy. The Principles of Psychology, published in 1890 after twelve years' work, founded the discipline in America; The Will to Believe, The Varieties of Religious Experience and Pragmatism set out a philosophy that judged ideas by their consequences in experience. He wrote with a vividness rare in his profession, and the phrase stream of consciousness is his.