Although the chapter from James addresses a number of issues in time perception, its main focus is the idea of the “specious present,” and I have selected sections in part with that in mind. James is writing at the very beginning of psychology as an independent discipline. The two sections I’ve dropped (one on experimental work concerning perception of short time intervals and another in which he speculates about the neural sources of time perception) are the ones tied most closely to the psychology of that era. (If you are curious, a PDF version of the full chapter is on the Moodle site, and the whole book can be found in a number of formats on line.)

James is clear enough that I won’t provide any guidance in approaching him beyond a list of topics to watch for, one for each section (the pages are those of the 1890 edition, which are shown in the margins of the handout):

These are not the only ideas James discusses in these sections and you shouldn’t hesitate to bring to class others you’d like to discuss.