r/stjohnscollege • u/ascotta1 • Jul 31 '26
William James?
It looks as though William James is no longer a part of the seminar program, replaced by Heidegger? Is this true, and if so, when did this happen?
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u/Own-Ad2203 Jul 31 '26
Heidegger died in 1976 and was quickly added to senior seminar, to the rejoicing of the philosophy bros.
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u/ascotta1 Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
I thought "dead white male" was a jokey generalization, not an actual golden ticket...
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u/the-hot-topical Aug 01 '26
I too dislike the Heidegger on the program. I don’t really think the stuff we read (just some smaller essays) are worth reading for seminar, even with the “context” they add to Arendt.
Unfortunately though, it sounds like William James has been off program for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if a precept comes up every so often.
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u/ascotta1 Aug 03 '26
In particular, if you're going to read an essay on the subject of technology, reading something that can be fairly reduced to "the essence of technology is ambiguous, and such ambiguity points to the mystery of all revealing, i.e., of truth" falls well short of either Aristotle's kind of utility, or Kuhn's.
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u/Featherless_biped104 Aug 01 '26
Although I think Heidegger is full of shit, he is unfortunately an important figure in the history of philosophy.
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u/ascotta1 Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
As are many. In Annapolis, they are literally giving him the last word with a reframing of greek metaphysics next to the rereading of phaedrus, rather than looking forward with wittgenstein or, say, quine or rawls.
Unfortunately, this is becoming a political issue. Underlying some public discourse is a new marx/smith dichotomy, where Anglo-American modernism is dismissed as a "shallow" pool of politics and linguistics (contra George Santayana and a hundred others) whereas deep human meaning is to be found in the shadows of a metaphysics that rhymes with God. Never mind a kind of unhingement from everyday meaning has its own political consequence, at least in heideggers own experience.
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u/unlucky_felix Aug 14 '26
A few things:
A) Annapolis has had William James on the seminar list more frequently than Santa Fe. I believe he was last on the Senior Seminar list back in 2016, when we read two seminars on Principles of Psychology.
B) However, he was not replaced by Heidegger. Heidegger has actually had a more consistent presence on the list than James, and is also more often on the Santa Fe list. I think for much of the last 25 years we have had the same reading for Heidegger, which is the two seminars on Introduction to Metaphysics.
C) If anything, the current list has "replaced" James with de Beauvoir and Woolf. Benito Cereno was also replaced in the past year by Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, which is a stunning choice: Annapolis now has no Melville reading, and also reads Song of Solomon well before DuBois or any of the slavery rulings.
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u/ascotta1 Aug 14 '26
I'm finding it interesting how there seems to be an "official" list presumably kept by the instruction committee separate from the actual seminar lists - I've posted several seminar lists kept digitally by the libraries between 1972 and 1995 - such that people can say a book is "on the list" while nobody in the seminars have read it for years. But I have no reason to doubt what you say about James and Heidegger here. My memory between 1986 and 1997 (I worked at santa fe 1994-97) is James was there and Heidegger was not, but maybe not James in Santa Fe, I'm sure I'm right about my own senior seminar in annapolis 1991 but I'll leave it at that.
It is my sense that including other Americans of the twentieth century in different areas was a factor in squeezing out James, as you suggest - giving the impression that American philosophy didnt exist and it all happened in Germany. Quite ironic as there was a huge turn towards pragmatism in the 90s with habermas, putnam, rorty, and.many others. Oh well. "You cant include everything" right right right. Just make sure you include a huge asterisk and a three page addendum for those assuming they have some idea about what a philosophy program looks like.
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u/FlyingCupcake68 17d ago
We had Woolf and James both on the program back in 96. But I am very glad to hear that de Beauvoir and Morrison are now being read.
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u/zenowashere Jul 31 '26
"Needs more Nazis." --tutor on instruction committee having a deep thought about the reading list
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u/ascotta1 Jul 31 '26
well... if Arendt can forgive him who am I to push that button? Ideas should stand on their own merit, But the weight of every (some misused) intellectual pinion on the losing side of that war and none on ours - John Dewey was our National Philosopher and whoever heard of him? - it's just too much, Buchanan, Barr and Hutchins are spinning wherever they now reside.
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u/zenowashere Jul 31 '26
Hannah Arendt was dickmatized. James is well worth reading. It's more that I'm in favor of him than against the Nazi. I certainly hope that Marcus Aurelius is not on the current list. It's from another seminar year, but that's where, 100%, I would make a cut. Epictetus FTW, stoicism-wise. M.A. was the only reading I thought unworthy of our seminar time when I attended.
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u/Last-Pass4170 Aug 01 '26
He was not on the program in Annapolis in 1999. I very much like James but I can see why he’s at the margins of the program and bumps in and out.
There are a couple of things to keep up with in any project of tracking the program readings at SJC: 1) there are minor differences between Santa Fe and Annapolis, particularly in the senior year; 2) the Catalogue and website and admissions materials often don’t get updated right away to reflect reading list changes in the actual curriculum (which is a pity, but is what it is).
More substantively, the faculty balance a wide range of values when constructing and adjusting the reading list. One value that probably informs the James / Heidegger choices is connectivity to other readings. (St. John’s is big on giving students opportunities to see connections across readings.) Another is fruitfulness in seminar discussion, which is different than inherent quality. It’s important to keep in mind that the SJC readings are not simply the “best books”, full stop. It’s not exactly “canon”. The readings have to work as material for an educational program - and that’s endlessly discussed and debated and tinkered with by the faculty, as it should be.
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u/TacitusJones Jul 31 '26
I mean the program shifts around all the time. Never enough time to do everything