Will to Believe

William James

Description

William James was an important American psychologist and philosopher. He was one of the early academics of psychology and his philosophy touched mainly on pragmatism and the religious or mystic experience. The Will to Believe is a lecture he delivered, which argues that personal belief is a valid basis for hypothesis, in the place of evidence. Following this seminal essay are nine other philosophical essays by James.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775417781
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE WILL TO BELIEVE
AND OTHER ESSAYS IN POPULAR PHILOSOPHY
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WILLIAM JAMES
 
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The Will to Believe And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy From a 1912 edition ISBN 978-1-775417-78-1 © 2010 The Floating Press
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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Preface The Will to Believe Is Life Worth Living? The Sentiment of Rationality Reflex Action and Theism The Dilemma of Determinism The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life Great Men and Their Environment The Importance of Individuals On Some Hegelisms What Psychical Research Has Accomplished Endnotes
 
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To
My Old Friend,
CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE,
To whose philosophic comradeship in old times and to whose writings in more recent years I owe more incitement and help than I can express or repay.
Preface
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At most of our American Colleges there are Clubs formed by the studentsdevoted to particular branches of learning; and these clubs have thelaudable custom of inviting once or twice a year some maturer scholarto address them, the occasion often being made a public one. I havefrom time to time accepted such invitations, and afterwards had mydiscourse printed in one or other of the Reviews. It has seemed to methat these addresses might now be worthy of collection in a volume, asthey shed explanatory light upon each other, and taken together expressa tolerably definite philosophic attitude in a very untechnical way.
Were I obliged to give a short name to the attitude in question, Ishould call it that of radical empiricism , in spite of the fact thatsuch brief nicknames are nowhere more misleading than in philosophy. Isay 'empiricism,' because it is contented to regard its most assuredconclusions concerning matters of fact as hypotheses liable tomodification in the course of future experience; and I say 'radical,'because it treats the doctrine of monism itself as an hypothesis, and, unlike so much of the half-way empiricism that is current underthe name of positivism or agnosticism or scientific naturalism, it doesnot dogmatically affirm monism as something with which all experiencehas got to square. The difference between monism and pluralism isperhaps the most pregnant of all the differences in philosophy. Primâfacie the world is a pluralism; as we find it, its unity seems to bethat of any collection; and our higher thinking consists chiefly of aneffort to redeem it from that first crude form. Postulating more unitythan the first experiences yield, we also discover more. But absoluteunity, in spite of brilliant dashes in its direction, still remainsundiscovered, still remains a Grenzbegriff . "Ever not quite" must bethe rationalistic philosopher's last confession concerning it. Afterall that reason can do has been done, there still remains the opacityof the finite facts as merely given, with most of their peculiaritiesmutually unmediated and unexplained. To the very last, there are thevarious 'points of view' which the philosopher must distinguish indiscussing the world; and what is inwardly clear from one point remainsa bare externality and datum to the other. The negative, the alogical,is never wholly banished. Something—"call it fate, chance, freedom,spontaneity, the devil, what you will"—is still wrong and other andoutside and unincluded, from your point of view, even though you bethe greatest of philosophers. Something is always mere fact and givenness ; and there may be in the whole universe no one point ofview extant from which this would not be found to be the case."Reason," as a gifted writer says, "is but one item in themystery; and behind the proudest consciousness that ever reigned,reason and wonder blushed face to face. The inevitable stales, whiledoubt and hope are sisters. Not unfortunately the universe iswild,—game-flavored as a hawk's wing. Nature is miracle all; the samereturns not save to bring the different. The slow round of theengraver's lathe gains but the breadth of a hair, but the difference isdistributed back over the whole curve, never an instant true,—ever notquite." [1]
This is pluralism, somewhat rhapsodically expressed. He who takes forhis hypothesis the notion that it is the permanent form of the world iswhat I call a radical empiricist. For him the crudity of experienceremains an eternal element thereof. There is no possible point of viewfrom which the world can appear an absolutely single fact. Realpossibilities, real indeterminations, real beginnings, real ends, realevil, real crises, catastrophes, and escapes, a real God, and a realmoral life, just as common-sense conceives these things, may remain inempiricism as conceptions which that philosophy gives up the attempteither to 'overcome' or to reinterpret in monistic form.
Many of my professionally trained confrères will smile at theirrationalism of this view, and at the artlessness of my essays inpoint of technical form. But they should be taken as illustrations ofthe radically empiricist attitude rather than as argumentations for itsvalidity. That admits meanwhile of being argued in as technical ashape as any one can desire, and possibly I may be spared to do later ashare of that work. Meanwhile these essays seem to light up with acertain dramatic reality the attitude itself, and make it visiblealongside of the higher and lower dogmatisms between which in the pagesof philosophic history it has generally remained eclipsed from sight.
The first four essays are largely concerned with defending thelegitimacy of religious faith. To some rationalizing readers suchadvocacy will seem a sad misuse of one's professional position.Mankind, they will say, is only too prone to follow faithunreasoningly, and needs no preaching nor encouragement in thatdirection. I quite agree that what mankind at large most lacks iscriticism and caution, not faith. Its cardinal weakness is to letbelief follow recklessly upon lively conception, especially when theconception has instinctive liking at its back. I admit, then, thatwere I addressing the Salvation Army or a miscellaneous popular crowdit would be a misuse of opportunity to preach the liberty of believingas I have in these pages preached it. What such audiences most need isthat their faiths should be broken up and ventilated, that thenorthwest wind of science should get into them and blow theirsickliness and barbarism away. But academic audiences, fed already onscience, have a very different need. Paralysis of their nativecapacity for faith and timorous abulia in the religious field aretheir special forms of mental weakness, brought about by the notion,carefully instilled, that there is something called scientific evidenceby waiting upon which they shall escape all danger of shipwreck inregard to truth. But there is really no scientific or other method bywhich men can steer safely between the opposite dangers of believingtoo little or of believing too much. To face such dangers isapparently our duty, and to hit the right channel between them is themeasure of our wisdom as men. It does not follow, because recklessnessmay be a vice in soldiers, that courage ought never to be preached tothem. What should be preached is courage weighted withresponsibility,—such courage as the Nelsons and Washingtons neverfailed to show after they had taken everything into account that mighttell against their success, and made every provision to minimizedisaster in case they met defeat. I do not think that any one canaccuse me of preaching reckless faith. I have preached the right ofthe individual to indulge his personal faith at his personal risk. Ihave discussed the kinds of risk; I have contended that none of usescape all of them; and I have only pleaded that it is better to facethem open-eyed than to act as if we did not know them to be there.
After all, though, you will say, Why such an ado about a matterconcerning which, however we may theoretically differ, we allpractically agree? In this age of toleration, no scientist will evertry actively to interfere with our religious faith, provided we enjoyit quietly with our friends and do not make a public nuisance of it inthe market-place. But it is just on this matter of the market-placethat I think the utility of such essays as mine may turn. If religious hypotheses about the universe be in order at all, then theactive faiths of individuals in them, freely expressing themselves inlife, are the experimental tests by which they are verified, and theonly means by which their truth or falsehood can be wrought out. Thetruest scientific hypothesis is that which, as we say, 'works' best;and it can be no otherwise with religious hypotheses. Religioushistory proves that one hypothesis after another has worked ill, hascrumbled at contact with a widening knowledge of the world, and haslapsed from the minds of men. Some articles of faith, however, havemaintained themselves through every vicissitude, and possess even morevitality to-day than ever before: it is for the 'science of religions'to tell us just which hypotheses these are. Meanwhile the freestcompetition of the various faiths with one another, and their openestapplication to life by their several champions, are the most favorableconditions under which the survival of the fittest can proceed. Theyought therefore not to lie hid each under its bushel, indulged-inquietly with friends. They ought to live in publicity, vying with eachother; and it seems to me that (the régime of tolerance once granted,and a fair field shown) the scientist has nothin