William James was a philosopher of contexts. Pragmatism, for instance, was a philosophy centered on what works in specific situations. So it is fitting that Trygve Throntveit's William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic provides a richly contextual account of James's moral, ethical, and political thought. Central to this account is a concept that pervaded James's thinking, but one that scholars have only begun to explicate: the “ethical republic.” According to Throntveit, the ethical republic was “not a fixed program, but an ideal of private and public interests converging—an ideal derived from experience, yet suggesting at every moment the terms and consequences of its own realization” (86). The quest for this ethical republic, argues Throntveit, spanned James's career and nurtured his commitment to experimentalism, empathy, democracy, deliberation, freedom, unity, individuals, and communities.
Throntveit explores the development of the ethical republic across five chapters. Chapter 1 accounts for James's philosophy as a “quest to imbue human life—not least his own—with moral significance” (11). This quest was influenced by a number of thinkers, but especially Henry James Sr., William James's father. Chapter 2 pursues James's quest for moral significance via his religious thought. Throntveit argues that James's lifelong interest in religious questions was less about religion per se than about James refining “his radical empiricist metaphysics” and his “pragmatist doctrine of truth” (40). Chapter 3 explores the ethical considerations that grew out of James's quest for moral significance. By reading across James's notoriously diffuse thoughts on ethics, Throntveit pulls together his vision of a society wherein “people reflect upon, test, and revise their freely embraced ideals to accord with the republican reality of moral life, while also helping them alter that reality to accommodate as many ideals as possible” (86). Chapter 4 investigates the political extensions of the ethical republic. As James refined his pragmatist philosophy, Throntveit shows, he also confronted many of the nation's most pressing political problems: imperialism, race relations, corporate trusts, the role of elites, and the need for radical reform. “Citizen James,” as Throntveit dubs him, tried to live out a pragmatist politics that promoted “the habits of ethical republicanism among individuals” and that coordinated “efforts to enlarge the sphere of human flourishing” (121). Chapter 5 demonstrates the political legacy of James's thought. It was James, Throntveit shows, who inspired such reformers as Jane Addams, Louis Brandeis, Randolph Bourne, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann. Ultimately, his imagined ethical republic “teaches us to navigate the shoals of absolutism and relativism by the light of a pluralistic universe” (167).
Taken together, these five chapters provide a clear, compelling, and sophisticated account of James's moral worldview. Pragmatism, Throntveit demonstrates, was tailored to the democratic needs of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, but it also extends beyond these decades. Indeed, William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic provides an adroit account of how James's work speaks to the diverse, pluralistic, political contexts of the twenty-first century. Centered on experience, deliberation, tolerance, tragedy, freedom, and unity, James's view of life remains as compelling today as it was a century ago.
Despite the sophistication and persuasiveness of Throntveit's analysis, the book raises two issues that deserve mention. The first concerns James's thoughts on religion. In making the case that James's philosophy was ultimately a search for moral significance, Throntveit demotes religion, turning it into a mere vehicle for moral inspiration. “Moralism rather than religion,” writes Throntveit, “remained James's chief concern” (43). Similarly, “Religion's primary function is auxiliary: to advance a moral life” (73). Pushing the point even further, Throntveit questions: “Did James believe in God? No. … James was fascinated by religious faith as a fact, one crucial to a full accounting of human nature and even of the philosophical world in which humanity left its footprints, but not sufficient to prove the existence of a supernatural being or a pantheistic world-soul” (81).
Throntveit's characterization is not wholly inaccurate; religion and morality were closely linked for James. But James was much more invested in religion, theism, and supernaturalism than Throntveit acknowledges. Consider Pragmatism, which culminates with a chapter on religious belief. “I firmly disbelieve, myself,” James declared, “that our human experience is the highest form of experience extant in the universe. I believe rather that we stand in much the same relation to the whole of the universe as our canine and feline pets do to the whole of human life.”Footnote 1 For James, religious belief was not a necessary part of experience, but it certainly could be a rich, mysterious, powerful part of experience. “Pragmatism has to postpone dogmatic answer” to religious questions, James remarked, “for we do not yet know certainly which type of religion is going to work best in the long run. The various overbeliefs of men, their several faith-ventures, are in fact what are needed to bring the evidence in.”Footnote 2 Given this claim about overbeliefs, faith-ventures, and melioristic theism, it is a mistake to relegate James's thoughts on religion to some secondary status, as though religion was a mere vehicle for moral significance.
The second issue of Throntveit's book concerns a missed opportunity, especially given the theme of the ethical republic. For too long, scholars have avoided, or quickly moved past, one of the most enduring aspects of James's career—namely, his work in psychical research. Yet in the public culture of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, James was best known as an investigator of the paranormal—mediums, telepathics, ghosts, spirits, hallucinations, etc. In addition, psychical research touched almost every aspect of his thought. As a psychologist, he explored the fringes of human consciousness. As a scholar of religion, he collected testimony from people who had talked with spirits. As a philosopher, he embraced a pluralistic universe wherein individuals had the right to believe in supernatural forces. As a medical doctor, he testified before the Massachusetts legislature in opposition to a proposed bill restricting “mind cure” healing methods. For James, pluralism, experimentation, empathy, deliberation, freedom, and unity—the characteristics of the ethical republic—were closely connected to the problems and possibilities of psychical research. It is time for scholars of James's work to take this aspect of his career more seriously.
These points aside, William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic stands as a significant scholarly achievement. The book does a brilliant job tracing the moral cord that ran through James's psychology, philosophy, ethics, and politics. Scholars of James's work and of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era now have a compelling account of pragmatism as a public philosophy fitted to an age of “facts and values, rational inquiry and emotional commitments, and in which spheres of self-containment shrink while dangers of cultural imperialism proliferate” (166). In other words, Throntveit demonstrates, James's public philosophy is fitted to an age just like ours.
