The article analyzes the concept of psychic reality as a holistic phenomenon in the teachings of William James. His criticism of the methodological consequences of psychophysical parallelism is examined. On the one hand, psychophysical parallelism leads to the devaluation of a person’s emotional and volitional spheres; on the other hand, it results in viewing a person as an entity evolving apart from the living world. The article considers James’s transition from the problem of psychophysical parallelism to psychophysical interactionism, which implies the mutual influence of sensations, emotions, and needs. The work outlines William James’s move away from the paradigm of psychophysical parallelism toward a holistic conception of the human being. The scholar’s adoption of the British empirical tradition in the study of the phenomenon of consciousness is noted. The irrational premises of the absolutist philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel are revealed, which, according to James, affected Hegel’s philosophy of history. The importance of G. Fechner’s teachings for James’s construction of a holistic concept of man is substantiated. A comparative analysis is conducted of the points of agreement and divergence in W. James’s and A. Bergson’s definitions of mental phenomena. In conclusion, the author argues that James’s approach to analyzing psychic reality retains the commitment to objective methods characteristic of classical empiricism, while radically expanding its subject matter to encompass the full spectrum of immediate experience as legitimate data. This expansion marks the decisive shift toward radical empiricism.