Hi, I'm Mike. I am an incredibly slow writer so you might not hear a lot from me, but I'm very grateful to read all of your thoughts. I'm a 10-year phd student in sociology at the uchicago, but I work full time in philly for psychologists at upenn. I'd hardly say that having a better understanding of James is a priority for my career, but James and pragmatism have had a pretty big influence on sociology so this is plausibly career-relevant for me. I used to be happy to describe myself as a consequentialist and a rationalist, but I'm less happy with those labels now. I'm an atheist who thinks religion can be great for people. I'm 33 and married to Canadian born social-worker.

On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 2:25 AM, Eric Purdy <epurdy@uchicago.edu> wrote:

Hey, I'm Eric. I live in Berkeley and work in Mountain View, but Chicago is still my spiritual home.

I have a Ph.D. in computer science. My thesis was on computer vision, which is related to theories about how humans process images. So I'm interested in the brain and what has been said about it.

In terms of the essay-writing fields (i.e., humanities and social studies), I'm sort of a late bloomer. I had a lot of trouble in college with passing those classes.

I'm a big fan of readings@moomers.org, if anyone on this list isn't on it. As someone (possibly Mr. Raber?) said, readings is my religion.

On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 10:45 PM, Andrew Cone <andrew.p.cone@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone! Welcome to the William James discussion list.

Let's each introduce ourselves over email. It's sounds a bit put on, I know, but if we don't do it, we'll each eventually wonder "Who is that person anyway? Should I know them? Am I unpopular? I wish I were popular."

And you can be! Just send out an email saying who you are, which city you live in, anything you'd like to say about your interest in James, and any academic background or life experience that may be relevant.

I'll start. I live in Oakland, CA, and I have no training in philosophy or psychology. Most of my knowledge of James comes from chats and emails with Jesse, and occasional wikipedia reading.

I got the idea to start this list when I was listening to NPR last week, and some neuroscientist was saying how things William James wrote are relevant to the modern understanding of the brain. I thought to myself, "I should really read William James. I know a bunch of people who might want the same. And Jesse knows as much about James as I know about stealing rides on freight trains. Let's make a reading group."

--AC

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--
-Eric

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