European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy

The Jamesian notion of the ‘stream of consciousness’is closely related to the epochal theory of time. It also stems from an attempt to resolve the old aporia contained in Zeno’s paradoxes. Time flows like a‘river’ or a ‘stream,’ but still it grows by ‘drops’ or ‘buds.’ These basic units of time are whole and indivisible, but they do not ‘crack’ or ‘divide’reality. Other process philosophies also include this notion of a continuous time that, nevertheless, integrates these interrelated units that account for individualisation without any breach of continuity. Henri Bergson’s duréeand Alfred N. Whitehead’s epochal theory of time clearly illustrate this doctrine. The examination of memory and the status of the past as a positive existence also emphasise the temporal aspect of reality. Existing reality grows out of its past, which endures in the newborn actuality. William James is widely known as one of the theorizers of pragmatism, and also for his pioneering work on consciousness. Jamesian pragmatism relates to the rejection of intellectualism, and from an early stage to the notion of thought, or consciousness depicted as a continuous flux, like a “river” or a “stream” In William James’s philosophy, rationalism is contrasted to pragmatism: “for rationalism reality is ready-made and complete from all eternity, while for pragmatism it is still in the making, and awaits part of its complexion from the future” . Later in his philosophical development, James also pictured the world as something unfinished that flows and keeps growing. . What emerges then is what is still in the making, not what is completed and pre-established. Real existence consists of real things, which are in the process of coming into being. We can actually apprehend these things that are ‘still in the making’ by a stroke of intuition. But they are not ready-made and clear-cut; also, they do not lie about awaiting our appropriation of them. Reality is a process of coming into being, a flux that unravels itself so that it can achieve its own existence. Reality “mounts in living its own undivided life – it buds and burgeons, changes and creates” 1Principles of Psychology, vol. I, p. 239. 2“Pragmatism and Humanism” in Writings 1902-1910, p. 519. 3“A Pluralistic Universe”, Ibid. p. 751. . William James can thus be considered as one of the forefathers of process philosophy. His philosophy was certainly an enduring inspiration for other process philosophers such as Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead, and it gave rise to a new literary genre: the stream-of-consciousness novel. We can count Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and Marcel Proust as some of the most illustrious writers who have explored this technique. MARIA TERESA TEIXEIRA THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE EPOCHAL THEORY OF TIME _________________________________________________________________________ ISSN: 2036-4091 2011, III, 1 132 In The Principles of Psychology consciousness and its temporal succession are presented as a continuous stream. Thought is in a continual change. James depicts thought as something that “goes on”: “Within each personal consciousness, thought is sensibly continuous” In chapter IX of his Principles of Psychology, entitled “The Stream of Thought” he writes: “Every thought we have of a given fact is, strictly speaking, unique, and only bears a resemblance of kind with other thoughts of the same fact. When the identical fact recurs, we must think of it in a fresh manner, see it under a somewhat different angle, apprehend it in different relations from those in which it last appeared” . He says that “continuous” should be defined as “that which is without breach, crack, or division.” Consciousness cannot be divided into bits; on the contrary, it flows like a stream. However, we can identify different states of consciousness within the flow. But they are not external or contiguous to one another. There is a relatedness that accounts for the continuity of the flow of consciousness, although there is no recurrence of the same state of consciousness. This is the reason why we never think the same thing twice. James anticipates here what will be established later in the philosophies of Bergson and Whitehead’s as the irreversibility of time.