The theory of Empiricism maintains that human knowledge arises from the senses or through experience. Empiricism is related to Pragmatism in that it turns our attention to the world of experience.
William James(1842-1910) is considered one of the founders of the Pragmatic movement in nineteenth century America. James believed that we shape and construct reality. Unlike rationalists, who believed that reality is already made, James thought of reality as still in the making. This Pragmatic view relies heavily on Empiricism and experience. James believed that experience is the given, and truth means adequacy to experience, or workability in practice.
James took Empiricism a step further to become the founder of what is known as Radical Empiricism. Radical Empiricism finds connections between experiences in experience itself. James believed that experiences know, believe, and remember other experiences. He considered connections such as these to be intellectual, or conceptual connections. Non-intellectual connections, or "extra-mental" connections, are the connections which have a cause and effect relationship. Connections of this sort have the tendency for one experience to follow another, such as smoke after fire, and pain after intense heat on the skin.
James believed that to be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced. He described Radical Empiricism as a loose universe, where experiences lean on nothing but other finite experiences, but the whole of them, if such a whole there be, leans on nothing.
Radical Empiricism differs from traditional British Empiricism in that instead of focusing on the experience of reality, it focuses on the reality of experience. Also, Radical Empiricism emphasizes the world of experience, whereas British Empiricism emphasizes the experience of the world.
Another major difference between James' Radical Empiricism and traditional British Empiricism can be found in the relations between things in experience. James believed that relations between things in experience are as real as the things that are related, while British Empiricists, such as Hume and Locke, assumed that experience presents itself in separate bits devoid of any relations. James criticized British Empiricists for missing these connections disclosed by experience, and he criticized rationalists and idealists for making those connections transcendental rather than empirical.
James believed that the only reality in the universe is "pure experience". He believed that experiences are carved out of pure experience. James proposed that there is only one primal material in the whole world, and if we call that material "pure experience," then knowing can be explained as a relation into which portions of pure experience may enter. In such relations, one experience knows another.
Phillip Anderson