The Nation.

The Thought Experimenter

By Jackson Lears

This article appeared in the February 26, 2007 edition of The Nation.

February 8, 2007

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  • Jackson Lears, thank you for the fine essay on William James. And much more: the skewering of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett in favor of a thinker who connected mind with body, wisdom with uncertainty, will with meaning, and psychology with philosophy.

    A retired psychiatrist and sandlot philosopher, I am much in need of WJ--as are the majority of my colleagues who are in effect drugged by the pharmaceutical approach to human suffering. It is entirely probable, as you say, that WJ willed himself out of depression as an extension of the way most of us will ourselves out of bed in the morning.

    E. James Lieberman

    Potomac, MD

    02/28/2007 @ 8:02pm


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