"Souls have worn out both themselves and their welcome, that is the plain truth. Philosophy ought to get the manifolds of experience unified on principles less empty. Like the word 'cause,' the word 'soul' is but a theoretic stop-gap -- it marks a place and claims it for a future explanation to occupy.
"This being our post-humian and post-kantian state of mind, I will ask your permission to leave the soul wholly out of the present discussion and to consider only the residual dilemma. Some day, indeed, souls may get their innings again in philosophy -- I am quite ready to admit that possibility -- they form a category of thought too natural to the human mind to expire without prolonged resistance. But if the belief in the soul ever does come to life after the many funeral-discourses which humian and kantian criticism have preached over it, I am sure it will be only when some one has found in the term a pragmatic significance that has hitherto eluded observation. When that champion speaks, as he may well speak some day, it will be time to consider souls more seriously."
William James, A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE, Lecture V, The Compounding of Consciousness
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3 comments:
James' use of the word "innings" surprises me. He does not typically use baseball metaphors, does he? Or does "innings" have some other literal meaning?
The OED reveals that "innings" has a generic, non-sports meaning: "The time during which a person, party, principle, etc. is in possession or in power; a term of, or opportunity for, activity of any kind; a turn." The earliest use it records is in The Pickwick Papers (1836): "It's my innings now, gov'rnor, and as soon as I catches hold o' this here Trotter, I'll have a good 'un."
Henry,
Both the baseball use and the generic use of "innings" derive from its use in an older game, cricket.
According to wikipedia, cricket is documented as far ack as the 16th century.
Intriguingly, in cricket there is no such word as an "inning" singular. Both the singular and the plural are "innings," and the Pickwickian sense is of course consistent with that.
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