A Pluralistic Universe.

New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.,, 1909. First edition, first printing, of this series of eight lectures titled "On the Present Situation in Philosophy", originally delivered at Oxford in 1908 and among the author's final published works. A Pluralistic Universe constitutes the most extensive statement by William James (1842-1910) of his philosophical and religious pluralism. "In the course of these lectures James presented some of those metaphysical ideas, though in a popular and informal style appropriate to lecturing... When James addressed his Oxford audience, the time was ripe for the advancement of his own brand of metaphysical pluralism and radical empiricism in opposition to the still-regnant forms of monistic idealism as represented by Bradley, Green, and Royce. The hegemony in the philosophical world long enjoyed by idealism was beginning to break up - something noted by James in his first lecture - due in no small part to the very ideas aired in his lectures and the then newly emerging schools of pragmatism and realism" (Hall, pp. 130-1). Octavo. Original green quarter cloth, spine with printed paper label, grey paper boards, top edge gilt, others uncut. Light bumping and rubbing, slight toning to spine, abrasion to label with minor loss to lettering, cosmetic tear to foot of inner hinge, internally fresh: a very good copy. Richard A. S. Hall, "William James, A Pluralistic Universe: A New Philosophical Reading (review)", The Pluralist, vol. 4, no. 3, 2009, pp. 130-7.