THE NON-DISCIPLINARY WILLIAM JAMES

William James crossed many disciplinary fields in his career. He composed his theories, especially in psychology, philosophy, and religion, in contexts that did not yet contain sharp disciplinary boundaries, and in fact, many were just starting to take modern shape. His biographical roots in science and religion and his commitment to understanding their relation to each other fostered thinking that emphasized the interrelation of the parts of his work. These forces encouraged James to be a non-disciplinary thinker. He did not ignore disciplines, but he also did not stop at their boundaries on his path toward understanding experience. He was also committed to viewing the world without reliance upon various dualisms of science and religion or related contrasts between material and immaterial dimensions of life, including empiricism and idealism, objectivity and subjectivity, body and mind, and the natural and the spiritual. And so the non-disciplinary James was also the non-dualist James, experiencing and thinking without assuming contrasting poles of thought. In addition, he was also ready to work on either side of these divisions, and so his non-disciplinary affiliations also contributed to his facility for bridge building, his "hankering for the good things on both sides of the line," as he said in Pragmatism. And these mediating dimensions of James suggest still further ways to use his insights to facilitate understanding across intellectual and cultural divides.