William James's Divided Self and the Process of Its Unification: A Reply to Richard Gale

In The Divided Self of William James, Richard Gale gives us an impressively thorough and detailed analysis of many of the themes that lie at the heart of James's life and work. Gale takes James quite seriously and works out these themes with great care and rigor a method not always followed by James scholars. Just as impressive is Gale's ability to apply his rigorous method in a very playful and witty style. The result is an important and quite entertaining contribution to James scholarship. As much as I value Gale's book, however, and as much as I have learned from it, I find myself in fundamental disagreement with its basic thesis. Gale identifies two personas in James a Promethean pragmatist and an antiPromethean mystic. He argues that these personas clash, resulting in an unresolved and unresolvable tension. According to Gale, this clash results in a number of aporias James was never able to work through, so that the division in James's psyche is deep and synchronic. James is left with no other recourse than to spend his life singing "The Divided Self Blues." This basic thesis of Gale's book I propose to call the "Divided Self Thesis." I hope to show, by means of three objections, why I think the Divided Self Thesis represents a profound and pernicious misreading of James. My first objection is that, although James had mystical leanings (what he called a "germ" of mysticism) and although he had a deep respect for mystical experiences, he himself was not a mystical absolutist. My second objection is that the unresolvability of the clash Gale sees in James's temperament is due, in part, to the intellectualistic way Gale presents the problem. If, in a Jamesian spirit, we treat the problem concretely, much of the contradiction melts away. My third objection is that Gale does not consider powerful textual evidence that indicates real progress James made toward integrating these two parts of his psyche. This evidence supports what I will call the "Integration Thesis." I will begin by giving a fuller account of Gale's Divided Self Thesis, then proceed to sketch out more clearly my objections to it, and conclude by exploring some of the practical