William james

Is consciousness an instinct?When feeling at sea about definitions and meanings in the mind/brain business, it is always rewarding to dial up William James once again. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . More than 125 years ago, James wrote a landmark article simply titled “What Is an Instinct?” He […]

What does it mean to have an emotion? It seems obvious that having one means feeling it. If you’re happy but don’t know it, in what sense could you actually be happy? Such reasoning seemed sound to William James. Conscious feeling, he thought, was precisely what distinguished the emotions from other mental states, like desire. […]