James: The Stream of Thought

For James, he starts off by saying that sensations are the simplest mental facts, howevever rejects the idea of starting off with sensations, and by doing so he rejects the empirical method of investigation. He describes thinking as every form of consciousess that goes on. When defining thought, he states that there are five distinctive characters in the process.

1) Thought tends to personal form: Here James is saying that there is no thought that is not a part of our consciousness. In essence, there are numerous thoughts that are independent of one another however, everything is individualistic in the sense that your thoughts are your thoughts, and a part of your person. There is a barrier that restrains our thoughts, however thoughts are grouped together when a person is conscious. These are the thoughts that are "known by no one, for disaggregated sensations reduced to a state of mental dust are not synthesized in any personality" (James 164). Here he is essentially saying that these thoughts are not necessarily conscious thoughts but they are however thoughts that assume the form of personal consciousness and develops in our memory.

2) Thought is in constant change: Here James is essentially saying that although we may see something that is the same object several times, the thought is not the same. He says that there is no thought that is alike. He says "there is no proof that the same bodily sensation is ever got by us twice." He emphasizes that we get the same object over and over again or the quality repetitively however the thought is not the same.

3) Within each personal consciousness, thought is sensibly continuous: Here James is saying that while weare conscious our thoughts are continous, hence the stream of thought. This would make sense as our brains never stop working or functioning, and although we may not be aware it continues to be active even while we sleep. It never shuts down, which would explain why thought is continuous. Although it may seem as time has interrupted consciousness, it feels continuous. He states that there are changes in the quality of consciousness. Ultimately one idea leads to another. He compares thought to a bird when he says, "As we take, in fact, a general view of wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts. Like a bird's life, it sems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings" (James 171).

4) Human thought appears to deal with objects independent of itself; that is, it is cognitive, or possesses the function of knowing: There are many human thoughts that are related to each same object. He says that"reflective consciousness of the self is essential to the cognitive function of thought" (James 173). In orderto know something, we must distinguish betwen the thing and its self.

5) It is always interested more in one part of its object than in another, and welcomes and rejects, or chooses, all the while it thinks: Here James focuses on what he calls the phenomena of selective attention. He claims that we are not even aware of how our minds work, and how we can switch between objects without realizing it. It is almost impossible to divide our attention impartially among things. James says that we tend to have selective emphasis on parts of place and time (James 178). Ultimately he is saying that we ignore most of the stuff that we come across on a daily basis to a great extent.