This volume attempts for the first time to bring the most influential work for the European reception of American pragmatism to the reader through a focused collection of commentaries that reflect the philosophical conditions of our time. The work at the center of this discussion is "Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking." It consists of eight lectures delivered by its author, William James, in 1906/07 in Cambridge and Boston, and published shortly thereafter. In these lectures, William James confronts long-standing directions in philosophy with the pragmatic method, arguing that philosophical thoughts should be judged based on their relationship to life and their effects in the world of experience. James' arguments have had a profound impact on thinking.