ABSTRACT
William James is better remembered for his political conscience than his political consciousness. Scholars tend to grant him the instincts and scruples of a well-meaning liberal individualist but no real deep awareness of politics and power. In James’s philosophy, all inquiry, belief, and activity begins in individual experience; no mind can know anything to which it is has not been exposed, directly or indirectly, and to which it has not selectively attended amid the rest of life’s “blooming, buzzing confusion”. James’s federalist-republican analogy is apt. It resonates with two of his central claims regarding the nature of consciousness, both of which speak directly to political philosophy. James’s view of the impact of other people on our individual experience cannot be overstated. “Individualism” is far too thin a term for such a politics, which, contrary to dominant strands of modern liberalism, assumes people humans are primarily social and collaborative beings.
