Abstract

This essay considers the apparent inconsistency between william james's doctrines of multiple realities and radical empiricism by examining the influence of brentano on james. Taken as james understood it in the de facto course of his thinking, That influence becomes a guide for clarifying james's transformation of multiple realities into pure experience. This is seen to involve an implicit rejection of brentano in such a manner that james's account of pure experience falls under the heading of what husserl called the "problem of intentionality" rather than under the heading of radical empiricism.