Note from list owner:

The following message was posted to the wm-james list about two months ago. It
was not distributed until now because the author's account was still in
moderated condition. As a precaution against spam all of my lists are configured
such that new subscribers are automatically placed on moderated status. I
apologize for the delay.

In addition, let me note that the wm-james list has never been advertised or
officially "launched", so the membership is fairly small (22 members). If
somebody here would like to propose a discussion topic and offer to lead the
discussion, I would be willing to announce the list.

Lancelot Fletcher
President, The Free Lance Academy
writing from Tbilisi

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I was about to settle in the read Whitehead's "Modes of Thought",
when I came upon this claim in the first chapter.

In Western literature there are four great thinkers whose services to
civilized thought rest largely upon their achievements in
philsophical assemblages; though each of them made important
contributions to the structure of philosophic system. These men are
Plato, Aristotle, Leibnitz, and William James.

[skip description of first three.]

Finally, there is William James, essentially a modern man. His mind
was adequately based upon the learning of the past. But hte essence
of his greatness was his marvellous sensitivity to the ideas of the
present. He knew the world in which he lived, by travel, by personal
relations with its leading men, by the variety of his own studies. He
systematized; but above all he assembled. His intellectual life was
one protest against the dismissal of experience in the interest of
system. He had discovered intuitively the great truth with which
modern logic is now wrestling.

I don't know who else besides Whitehead rates James so highly -- in
the top 4 philosophers in history. Who would even include him in the
top dozen? I am unaware of an annotated edition of his works such as
has been accorded to other Americans such as Peirce, Dewey or
Santayana.

But, for me personally, the bottom line is that I'm postponing Modes
of Thought in order to go through some William James first.