The Beginning of Radical Empiricism

Abstract William James introduced the expression “radical empiricism.” The chapter explains what was supposed to make empiricism radical, and why James thought that was worth trying to do. That requires explaining the connection between radical empiricism and other themes in James’s work, including pluralism and the idea of pure experience. His work belongs to an effort from the latter nineteenth century to make empiricism more consistently empirical by overcoming the legacy of Ockham and nominalism, and it is this anti-nominalist animus that radicalizes James’s empiricism.