§ 1. Apparent philosophical disagreement: a philosophical problem. Philosophers are frequently criticized for their remarkable inability to reach consensus. “‘The same problems,’ we hear it often, ‘the same disputes, the same sheer failure. Why not abandon it and come out? Is there nothing else more worth your labour?’”. In science there are established results and generally accepted theories. Philosophy, by contrast, seems to breed only disagreement and controversy. Unless philosophers are simply a peculiarly argumentative lot, we are told, the fact (...) that philosophy is marked by widespread disagreement must indicate something about the nature of the philosophical enterprise. And the usual conclusion is that either it is intrinsically flawed or it is not as it has appeared to be, a search for truth. (shrink)

"Space," William James confessed, "is [both] a direfully difficult subject [and the] driest of subjects.'" Nonetheless, convinced that most previous accounts of space were either incoherent or mythological, he set out to describe space as it is actually experienced. His first effort, "The Spatial Quale," appeared in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy in 1879. 2 This article is historically important; as Ralph Barton Perry notes, "his peculiar view of the amplitude and eonnectedness of experience seems to have begun with the (...) application to space. ''3 But, despite this fact, it is seldom read today. It was not reprinted in James's Collected Essays and Reviews because the editor found "no important difference" between the content of this article and that of the chapter in The Principles of Psychology dealing with the same topic. 4 And it has not been included in more recent anthologies of James's writings. James would undoubtedly have concurred with the reasoning behind these editorial decisions. In the preface to the Psychology he wrote: Chapter 20, on Space-perception, is a terrible thing, which, unless written with all that detail, could not be fairly treated at all. An abridgment of it, called The Spatial Quale' ... may be found by some persons a useful substitute for the entire chapter? In fact, however, there is a significant philosophical difference between... (shrink)