Matter and Spirit: A Study of Mind and Body in Their Relation to the Spiritual Life
(If we knew just how mind affects body and how body affect...)
If we knew just how mind affects body and how body affects mind we should have the clew to many a philosophical riddle, and a clew that would give us much-needed guidance not only in philosophy but in many a region of practical, moral, and religious activity and experience in which our generation is groping rather blindly and is longing very eagerly for more light. -from the Preface Developed from a series of lectures Pratt delivered at Yale Divinity School in 1922, this is classic work of modern philosophy, an outspoken defense of dualism: the idea that the physical brain and the mental mind are two distinct entities. With its dramatic impact upon contemporary understandings of human consciousness, religious belief and spirituality, and even the biological evolution of sentience on the planet Earth, this is readable guide to a complex concept that underlies the modern debate between faith and reason. American philosopher JAMES BISSETT PRATT (1875-1944) was professor of philosophy at Williams College from 1905 to 1943. He is also the author of The Psychology of Religious Belief (1905), Democracy and Peace (1916), Reason in the Art of Living (1949), and Eternal Values of Religion (1950).
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
(TO MY DEAR COMRADE IN INDIA AND IN LIFE AT WHOSE SUGGESTI...)
TO MY DEAR COMRADE IN INDIA AND IN LIFE AT WHOSE SUGGESTION THIS BOOK WAS BEGUN AND BY WHOSE ASSISTANCE IT WAS COMPLETED .
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(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
He was born on June 22, 1875 in Elmira, New York, United States, the only child of Daniel Ransom Pratt by his second wife, Katherine Murdoch; there were three sons and a daughter by the first marriage. James's father, born in Elmira of Connecticut ancestry, was a banker and a trustee of the local Presbyterian church. His mother, to whom he was close in temperament and interests, was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister who had emigrated from Scotland to Canada and in 1850 to Elmira.
He was much influenced also by an uncle (after whom he was named), James Bissett Murdoch, dean of the medical school of the University of Pittsburgh.
Education
After graduating in 1893 from the Elmira Free Academy, Pratt went to Williams College, with which he was to be associated for the remainder of his life. His teacher of philosophy at Williams, Prof. John E. Russell, urged Pratt to devote himself to philosophical studies, and after graduating from Williams in 1898, he went on to Harvard. There the realist trend in his philosophical thinking at Williams was challenged by the impressive idealist teaching of G. H. Palmer and Josiah Royce, who in turn were being challenged by the pragmatism of William James.
So confused was Pratt at the end of his first year of graduate work that he decided to abandon philosophy, and, following his father's wish, he entered the law school at Columbia. A year there, however, convinced him that he preferred the "confusion" of philosophy to the "boredom" of the law. He received his Ph. D. degree in 1905.
Career
His first book was The Psychology of Religious Belief (1907). Then followed in rapid succession a large number of critical articles and reviews on the psychology of religion. This subject, during the two decades after the appearance of James's book, was one of the most extensively debated fields of research and interpretation among psychologists and philosophers. Pratt's intense, critical participation in this movement culminated in his most noted work: The Religious Consciousness: A Psychological Study (1920).
Meanwhile he had returned, after completing his Ph. D. , to Williams, where he advanced from instructor (1905) to Mark Hopkins Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy (1917). He had already questioned the validity of pragmatism in What Is Pragmatism? (1909). Besides contributing to the Essays in Critical Realism (1920), he also published his own interpretation of this type of realism in his book Matter and Spirit (1922).
The chief work of Pratt's later years was in the field of Oriental religions. This growing interest was shared by his wife, Catherine Mariotti. Together with his wife, Pratt used his sabbatical leaves from Williams (1913-14, 1923 - 24) to study religions in India, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Indo-China, and Java, as well as in China and Japan. From these journeys came his India and Its Faiths (1915) and The Pilgrimage of Buddhism (1928).
Pratt was a visiting professor at the Chinese Christian University in 1923-24 and at Rabindranath Tagore's school in Santiniketan, India, in 1931-32, and he lectured at several American universities. In 1934 he was elected president of the American Theological Society and in 1935 of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association.
Pratt retired from teaching in 1943. The following year he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home in Williamstown, Massachussets.
Achievements
James Bissett Pratt vstudied religions in India, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Indo-China, and Java, as well as in China and Japan. The results he published in his famous works India and Its Faiths and The Pilgrimage of Buddhism. These contributions to the history and understanding of Oriental religions, along with his growing courses and other work in the appreciation and history of religions, became Pratt's major lifework and constitute what is generally regarded as his most enduring achievement.
(TO MY DEAR COMRADE IN INDIA AND IN LIFE AT WHOSE SUGGESTI...)
Religion
He retained a nondenominational Protestant faith.
Views
Drawn by his deep religious convictions toward the idealism of Royce and Palmer, yet influenced by his association with James, Pratt for a time found himself unable to accept either idealism or pragmatism. Nor could he share the position of the so-called New Realists. The new realism with its "neutral monism" seemed to him to be no adequate reply to either pragmatism or idealism. Pratt worked out his own "dualistic realism" and joined the evolving group that came to be known as the Critical Realists.
Interests
He spent much of his leisure time hiking in the hills and mountains surrounding Williamstown, until a blood clot resulted in the amputation of a leg in 1938.
Connections
He married Catherine Mariotti in Milan, Italy, on August 5, 1911. The daughter of an American mother and an Italian father and the sister-in-law of a Williams classmate of Pratt's, she retained her Catholic faith; they sent their two children, David Mariotti and Edith Cornell, to the local Episcopal church.
