About this episode

David and Tamler discuss William James' concept of consciousness as a continuous stream of thoughts and emotions, exploring its implications and related studies.

David and Tamler return to William James' monumental "Principles of Psychology", this time wading through his famous chapter "The Stream of Thought." We talk about his rejection of empiricist theories of consciousness in favor of a view that consciousness is a continuous stream of thoughts, sensations, and emotions without any elements (atoms) that repeat or appear in other people's streams. We talk about how vividly James captures certain features of consciousness, like trying to recall a forgotten name, or the ways that the subjective per of two people differ radically in the same environment. And we debate the merits of James' methodology as well as his universalist ambitions. Plus, we discuss one of the early to mid-2000s papers, how seeing Batman on a subway makes you more altruistic because – wait, hold on, what, this study is from 2025?? Pagnini, F., Grosso, F., Cavalera, C., Poletti, V., Minazzi, G. A., Missoni, A., ... & Bertolotti, M. (2025). Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect. npj Mental Health Research, 4(1), 57. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. Chapter 9: "The Stream of Thought" [free access to fulltext via…

People in this episode

Hosts: David, Tamler Sommers

Topics covered

• William James
• consciousness
• psychology
• altruism
• methodology
• subjective experience

Sponsors

givedirectly

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Pagnini, F., Grosso, F., Cavalera, C., Poletti, V., Minazzi, G. A., Missoni, A., ... & Bertolotti, M.

Books & works: Principles of Psychology, The Stream of Thought, Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect, npj Mental Health Research

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