Darwinism plays a major role in jamesian psychology. In fact, the concepts of variation and selection provide a way to escape from both physiological and sociological determinism. Moreover, Darwinism allows James to show the function and the causal efficacy of consciousness in the evolution of human beings. By means of an historical and conceptual analysis, we discuss these questions which inform the first scientific psychology developed in the United States.
darwinism; evolution; variation and selection; consciousness; William James