ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews James’s innovative assessment of consciousness, starting with his unique conceptualization of consciousness and proceeding to his discussion of its five essential characteristics (it is personal, variable, continuous, object-oriented, and selective). Much of James’s psychology is predicated on his elaboration of the implications of these characteristics. As in other chapters, emphasis is placed on James’s view of consciousness as a holistic experience that is carved up through selective discrimination and refigured through comparison and synthesis. The chapter also explicates James’s distinctive critique of the concept of “the unconscious” and reviews his thoughts on subconsciousness, noting that aspects of his discussion posed an interesting contrast to some of his assertions about consciousness (such as its unity and continuity). Finally, it shows how James drew upon investigations of hysterical and neurotic patients as well as some of the phenomena associated with hypnosis and psychical research to justify his assertion that subconsciousness was the frontier for future research.
