Essays in Radical Empiricism

Essays in Radical Empiricism (ERE) by William James is a collection edited and published posthumously by his colleague and biographer Ralph Barton Perry in 1912. It was assembled from ten out of a collection of twelve reprinted journal articles published from 1904–1905 which James had deposited in August, 1906, at the Harvard University Library and the Harvard Department of Philosophy for supplemental use by his students. Perry replaced two essays from the original list with two others, one of which didn't exist at the earlier time.

Because ERE is a collection of essays written over a period of time, and ultimately not selected or collated by their author, it is not a systematic exposition of his thought even though Perry suggests otherwise in his preface. This circumstance, in addition to the evolution of James own philosophic stance, has contributed to a wide variance in understanding, misunderstanding, and critical opinion of radical empiricism.

This is the original collection of articles deposited by James (as bound by Harvard about 1912), with dates of journal publication:

In mid-1907 James composed a list of 15 essays for an anticipated book titled "Essays in Radical Empiricism". Two of the essays in the 1906 collection are not present on this list. "The Pragmatic Method" had been adapted as chapter three for James' book Pragmatism. "Humanism and Truth Once More" was combined with "Humanism and Truth" in the 1909 book The Meaning of Truth (MT).

James' plans for a book on radical empiricism based on this list never came to fruition. Pragmatism was published in June 1907 and was well received. In the spring of 1909 James began to assemble material for a follow-up book called The Meaning of Truth. His 1907 list fell victim to the needs of the immediate book. The two strikeout lines were made by James on his actual list. The notes to the right of the titles have been added to clarify how the essays were later used.

After James' death, Ralph Perry thought it appropriate to assemble a book on radical empiricism, and mined the earlier lists to come up with this one:

Harvard added one more article, "Controversy About Truth", from James' 1907 list to its 1976 critical edition.

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