Jeff Jordan
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199291328
- eISBN:
- 9780191710698
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291328.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
What if there is no strong evidence that God exists? Is belief in God when faced with a lack of evidence illegitimate and improper? Evidentialism answers yes. According to Evidentialism, it is ...
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What if there is no strong evidence that God exists? Is belief in God when faced with a lack of evidence illegitimate and improper? Evidentialism answers yes. According to Evidentialism, it is impermissible to believe any proposition lacking adequate evidence. And, if any thesis enjoys the status of a dogma among philosophers, it is Evidentialism. Presenting a direct challenge to Evidentialism are pragmatic arguments for theism, which are designed to support belief in the absence of adequate evidence. Pascal's Wager is the most prominent theistic pragmatic argument, and issues in epistemology, the ethics of belief, and decision theory, as well as philosophical theology, all intersect at the Wager. This book explores various theistic pragmatic arguments and the objections employed against them. It presents a new version of the Wager, the so-called ‘Jamesian Wager’, and argues that this survives the objections hurled against theistic pragmatic arguments and provides strong support for theistic belief. Objections found in Voltaire, Hume, and Nietzsche against the Wager are scrutinized, as are objections issued by Richard Swinburne, Richard Gale, and other contemporary philosophers. The ethics of belief, the many-gods objection, the problem of infinite utilities, and the propriety of a hope-based acceptance are also examined.Less
What if there is no strong evidence that God exists? Is belief in God when faced with a lack of evidence illegitimate and improper? Evidentialism answers yes. According to Evidentialism, it is impermissible to believe any proposition lacking adequate evidence. And, if any thesis enjoys the status of a dogma among philosophers, it is Evidentialism. Presenting a direct challenge to Evidentialism are pragmatic arguments for theism, which are designed to support belief in the absence of adequate evidence. Pascal's Wager is the most prominent theistic pragmatic argument, and issues in epistemology, the ethics of belief, and decision theory, as well as philosophical theology, all intersect at the Wager. This book explores various theistic pragmatic arguments and the objections employed against them. It presents a new version of the Wager, the so-called ‘Jamesian Wager’, and argues that this survives the objections hurled against theistic pragmatic arguments and provides strong support for theistic belief. Objections found in Voltaire, Hume, and Nietzsche against the Wager are scrutinized, as are objections issued by Richard Swinburne, Richard Gale, and other contemporary philosophers. The ethics of belief, the many-gods objection, the problem of infinite utilities, and the propriety of a hope-based acceptance are also examined.
Jeff Jordan
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199291328
- eISBN:
- 9780191710698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291328.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
There are pragmatic theistic arguments different from Pascal's Wager. Some of these pragmatic arguments are found in James Beattie, J. S. Mill, William James, and Jules Lachelier. Some of these ...
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There are pragmatic theistic arguments different from Pascal's Wager. Some of these pragmatic arguments are found in James Beattie, J. S. Mill, William James, and Jules Lachelier. Some of these arguments support the propriety of hoping that theism is true, while others are arguments in support of theistic belief being rational. The permissibility conditions of hope differ from those of belief, and that is a topic of this chapter.Less
There are pragmatic theistic arguments different from Pascal's Wager. Some of these pragmatic arguments are found in James Beattie, J. S. Mill, William James, and Jules Lachelier. Some of these arguments support the propriety of hoping that theism is true, while others are arguments in support of theistic belief being rational. The permissibility conditions of hope differ from those of belief, and that is a topic of this chapter.
Christopher McKnight Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195342536
- eISBN:
- 9780199867042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342536.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines three important strands of progressive thought in the late nineteenth century to reveal the tensions between ideas about progress, religion, and science, and resulting ...
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This chapter examines three important strands of progressive thought in the late nineteenth century to reveal the tensions between ideas about progress, religion, and science, and resulting predictions about America's religious future. This chapter first delineates a populist‐secular group of thinkers, exemplified by Robert Ingersoll, “the great agnostic” proponent of freethinking, whose prophecies blended the older jeremiad form with a heightened emphasis on atheistical science and Enlightment rationality. The second strand of thought explored in this chapter came from the ranks of progressive intellectuals, represented in part by the powerful pragmatic philosophy of religion developed by William James in his book, Varieties of Religious Experience. Finally, this chapter argues for a third diverse group comprised largely of ministers and social gospel activists, such as Walter Rauschenbusch, who attempted to reform the nation along explicitly Christian lines.Less
This chapter examines three important strands of progressive thought in the late nineteenth century to reveal the tensions between ideas about progress, religion, and science, and resulting predictions about America's religious future. This chapter first delineates a populist‐secular group of thinkers, exemplified by Robert Ingersoll, “the great agnostic” proponent of freethinking, whose prophecies blended the older jeremiad form with a heightened emphasis on atheistical science and Enlightment rationality. The second strand of thought explored in this chapter came from the ranks of progressive intellectuals, represented in part by the powerful pragmatic philosophy of religion developed by William James in his book, Varieties of Religious Experience. Finally, this chapter argues for a third diverse group comprised largely of ministers and social gospel activists, such as Walter Rauschenbusch, who attempted to reform the nation along explicitly Christian lines.
David Schlosberg
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199256419
- eISBN:
- 9780191600203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199256411.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
An examination is made of a genealogy of pluralist approaches to multiplicity and difference in the twentieth century, starting with William James (1976 [1912], 1977 [1909]), who began his study of ...
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An examination is made of a genealogy of pluralist approaches to multiplicity and difference in the twentieth century, starting with William James (1976 [1912], 1977 [1909]), who began his study of pluralism with a ‘radical empiricism’ that is opposed to a more singular, monist position. James argued that our experiences of empirical events diverge, and one explanation could never encompass all of those experiences; other political pluralists (Arthur Bentley, Ernest Barker, Harold Laski, Mary Parker Follett) took James’s critique of absolutism and applied it to the state. Post-Second World War pluralists used the concept of heterogeneity in a much more constricted sense to defend and promote self-interested interest groups. However, more recently, there has been a return to multiplicities, and Donna Haraway’s (1988) description of ‘situated knowledges’ and ‘embodied objectivity’, in which she argues for ‘epistemologies of location’ where claims of knowledge can only be considered partial, resurrects James. The argument here is that a return to such original notions of pluralism helps validate the diversity of experiences and knowledges that grow out of the variety of ways we are all situated in any number of experiences, including environmental degradation.Less
An examination is made of a genealogy of pluralist approaches to multiplicity and difference in the twentieth century, starting with William James (1976 [1912], 1977 [1909]), who began his study of pluralism with a ‘radical empiricism’ that is opposed to a more singular, monist position. James argued that our experiences of empirical events diverge, and one explanation could never encompass all of those experiences; other political pluralists (Arthur Bentley, Ernest Barker, Harold Laski, Mary Parker Follett) took James’s critique of absolutism and applied it to the state. Post-Second World War pluralists used the concept of heterogeneity in a much more constricted sense to defend and promote self-interested interest groups. However, more recently, there has been a return to multiplicities, and Donna Haraway’s (1988) description of ‘situated knowledges’ and ‘embodied objectivity’, in which she argues for ‘epistemologies of location’ where claims of knowledge can only be considered partial, resurrects James. The argument here is that a return to such original notions of pluralism helps validate the diversity of experiences and knowledges that grow out of the variety of ways we are all situated in any number of experiences, including environmental degradation.
M. Gail Hamner
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195155471
- eISBN:
- 9780199834266
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195155475.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
William James was an American pragmatist, and this chapter clarifies how his commitments to both scientific respectability and the psychological need for a personal universe to trap him in an ...
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William James was an American pragmatist, and this chapter clarifies how his commitments to both scientific respectability and the psychological need for a personal universe to trap him in an epistemological pendulum swing between monism and dualism. Drawn to dualism (or functional dualism) both because of its tough‐minded empiricism and because it protects the real disjunction (and therefore sanctity) of individual will and action, James nevertheless covers it with a monistic canopy. The monism asserts the reality of spheres of consciousness with which our consciousness continually conjoins, and it functions to guarantee the personal character of the universe. The swing between dualism and monism is shown through James's psychological writings on will and consciousness, through his epistemological struggles within radical empiricism, and through his philosophical presentation of pragmatism. Through each facet of his writings, James exhibits the conviction that the mystery of the world transcends individual experience and, simultaneously, that individual experience is the best manner in which both – to probe and assist the mystery.Less
William James was an American pragmatist, and this chapter clarifies how his commitments to both scientific respectability and the psychological need for a personal universe to trap him in an epistemological pendulum swing between monism and dualism. Drawn to dualism (or functional dualism) both because of its tough‐minded empiricism and because it protects the real disjunction (and therefore sanctity) of individual will and action, James nevertheless covers it with a monistic canopy. The monism asserts the reality of spheres of consciousness with which our consciousness continually conjoins, and it functions to guarantee the personal character of the universe. The swing between dualism and monism is shown through James's psychological writings on will and consciousness, through his epistemological struggles within radical empiricism, and through his philosophical presentation of pragmatism. Through each facet of his writings, James exhibits the conviction that the mystery of the world transcends individual experience and, simultaneously, that individual experience is the best manner in which both – to probe and assist the mystery.
M. Gail Hamner
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195155471
- eISBN:
- 9780199834266
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195155475.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
The development of pragmatism is the most important achievement in the history of American philosophy. M. Gail Hamner here examines the European roots of the movement in a search for what makes ...
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The development of pragmatism is the most important achievement in the history of American philosophy. M. Gail Hamner here examines the European roots of the movement in a search for what makes pragmatism uniquely American. She argues that the inextricably American character of the pragmatism of such figures as Charles Sanders Peirce and William James lies in its often‐understated affirmation of America as a uniquely religious country with a God‐given mission, and as populated by God‐fearing citizens. By looking at European and British thinkers whom the pragmatists read, Hamner examines how pragmatism's notions of self, nation, and morality were formed in reaction to the work of these thinkers. She finds that the pervasive religiosity of nineteenth‐century American public language underlies Peirce's and James's resistance to aspects of the philosophy and science of their non‐American colleagues. This religiosity, Hamner shows, is linked strongly to the continuing rhetorical power of American Puritanism. Claims made for and about Puritanism were advanced throughout the nineteenth century as rallying cries for specific political, social, and individual changes. It was in this religiously and politically charged environment that Peirce and James received and reinterpreted non‐American voices. Hamner traces the development of pragmatism by analyzing the concepts of consciousness, causality, will, and belief in two German thinkers (Hermann von Helmholtz and Wilhelm Wundt) and two Scottish thinkers (William Hamilton and Alexander Bain), and by examining how their ideas were appropriated by Peirce and James. The book is arranged in three main parts: Evolution of German psychology; Evolution of Scottish psychology; and Pragmatic reception of European psychology.Less
The development of pragmatism is the most important achievement in the history of American philosophy. M. Gail Hamner here examines the European roots of the movement in a search for what makes pragmatism uniquely American. She argues that the inextricably American character of the pragmatism of such figures as Charles Sanders Peirce and William James lies in its often‐understated affirmation of America as a uniquely religious country with a God‐given mission, and as populated by God‐fearing citizens. By looking at European and British thinkers whom the pragmatists read, Hamner examines how pragmatism's notions of self, nation, and morality were formed in reaction to the work of these thinkers. She finds that the pervasive religiosity of nineteenth‐century American public language underlies Peirce's and James's resistance to aspects of the philosophy and science of their non‐American colleagues. This religiosity, Hamner shows, is linked strongly to the continuing rhetorical power of American Puritanism. Claims made for and about Puritanism were advanced throughout the nineteenth century as rallying cries for specific political, social, and individual changes. It was in this religiously and politically charged environment that Peirce and James received and reinterpreted non‐American voices. Hamner traces the development of pragmatism by analyzing the concepts of consciousness, causality, will, and belief in two German thinkers (Hermann von Helmholtz and Wilhelm Wundt) and two Scottish thinkers (William Hamilton and Alexander Bain), and by examining how their ideas were appropriated by Peirce and James. The book is arranged in three main parts: Evolution of German psychology; Evolution of Scottish psychology; and Pragmatic reception of European psychology.
David A. Hollinger
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691158426
- eISBN:
- 9781400845996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691158426.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter presents a comparative reading of W. K. Clifford's 1877 treatise, “The Ethics of Belief,” and William James' 1897 essay, “The Will to Believe.” It provides an interpretation of each in ...
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This chapter presents a comparative reading of W. K. Clifford's 1877 treatise, “The Ethics of Belief,” and William James' 1897 essay, “The Will to Believe.” It provides an interpretation of each in the distinctive contexts of England in the 1870s and New England in the 1890s. It argues that Clifford displayed more sensitivity than James did to the consequences of belief. This is an ironic reversal of roles in the story of a great pragmatist who insisted that “the whole defense of religious faith hinges upon” the action that faith requires or inspires. James' “The Will to Believe” should be understood not only as an artifact of its author's agony about the fate of Christianity in the age of science, but also as a product of his political complacency. Clifford had a much more modern understanding than James did of the function of belief systems in society and politics.Less
This chapter presents a comparative reading of W. K. Clifford's 1877 treatise, “The Ethics of Belief,” and William James' 1897 essay, “The Will to Believe.” It provides an interpretation of each in the distinctive contexts of England in the 1870s and New England in the 1890s. It argues that Clifford displayed more sensitivity than James did to the consequences of belief. This is an ironic reversal of roles in the story of a great pragmatist who insisted that “the whole defense of religious faith hinges upon” the action that faith requires or inspires. James' “The Will to Believe” should be understood not only as an artifact of its author's agony about the fate of Christianity in the age of science, but also as a product of his political complacency. Clifford had a much more modern understanding than James did of the function of belief systems in society and politics.
Robert C. Solomon
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195181579
- eISBN:
- 9780199786602
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195181573.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Sartre’s early essay, “The Emotions”, was a frontal attack on the two most prominent theories of emotion in the early 20th century, those of William James and Sigmund Freud. This chapter examines ...
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Sartre’s early essay, “The Emotions”, was a frontal attack on the two most prominent theories of emotion in the early 20th century, those of William James and Sigmund Freud. This chapter examines Sartre’s arguments against James and Freud and discusses and criticizes Sartre’s own analysis of emotions as “magical transformations of the world”.Less
Sartre’s early essay, “The Emotions”, was a frontal attack on the two most prominent theories of emotion in the early 20th century, those of William James and Sigmund Freud. This chapter examines Sartre’s arguments against James and Freud and discusses and criticizes Sartre’s own analysis of emotions as “magical transformations of the world”.
David A. Hollinger
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691158426
- eISBN:
- 9781400845996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691158426.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter interprets William James' entire career in the light of his affinity with the liberal Protestant elite of his time and place on the one hand, and his devotion to the calling of modern ...
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This chapter interprets William James' entire career in the light of his affinity with the liberal Protestant elite of his time and place on the one hand, and his devotion to the calling of modern science on the other. It takes seriously his many references in Pragmatism to religious searching and indeed to “salvation,” so often left out of account by secular students of his thought. It reads Varieties of Religious Experience as the pivotal point in James' turn from a “separate spheres” defense of religion to an effort to mobilize a community of inquiry willing to test religious claims by experience. Against scholars who prefer to read James' corpus as a synchronic whole, the chapter shows that the meaning of his various works is best grasped when his career is approached diachronically, with each text analyzed according to the stage it marks in the development over time of his preoccupation with religion's relation to science.Less
This chapter interprets William James' entire career in the light of his affinity with the liberal Protestant elite of his time and place on the one hand, and his devotion to the calling of modern science on the other. It takes seriously his many references in Pragmatism to religious searching and indeed to “salvation,” so often left out of account by secular students of his thought. It reads Varieties of Religious Experience as the pivotal point in James' turn from a “separate spheres” defense of religion to an effort to mobilize a community of inquiry willing to test religious claims by experience. Against scholars who prefer to read James' corpus as a synchronic whole, the chapter shows that the meaning of his various works is best grasped when his career is approached diachronically, with each text analyzed according to the stage it marks in the development over time of his preoccupation with religion's relation to science.
Jonathon S. Kahn
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195307894
- eISBN:
- 9780199867516
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195307894.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter defines pragmatism and pragmatic religious naturalism through a reading of pragmatists William James, John Dewey, and George Santayana. It shows how Du Bois constructs crucial notions of ...
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This chapter defines pragmatism and pragmatic religious naturalism through a reading of pragmatists William James, John Dewey, and George Santayana. It shows how Du Bois constructs crucial notions of black identity, double consciousness, and black peoplehood with anti-essentialist pragmatist tools such as James's radical empiricism. It goes on to show how Du Bois's religious voice is fully inhabited by four key characteristics of pragmatic religious naturalisms: 1) skepticism of supernatural revelation; 2) conceiving of religion's powers as coming from finite human trusts; 3) finding religion's genius in its pairing of the real with the ideal; and finally 4) a meliorism in which hopefulness only emerges from a frank confrontation with real struggle and loss.Less
This chapter defines pragmatism and pragmatic religious naturalism through a reading of pragmatists William James, John Dewey, and George Santayana. It shows how Du Bois constructs crucial notions of black identity, double consciousness, and black peoplehood with anti-essentialist pragmatist tools such as James's radical empiricism. It goes on to show how Du Bois's religious voice is fully inhabited by four key characteristics of pragmatic religious naturalisms: 1) skepticism of supernatural revelation; 2) conceiving of religion's powers as coming from finite human trusts; 3) finding religion's genius in its pairing of the real with the ideal; and finally 4) a meliorism in which hopefulness only emerges from a frank confrontation with real struggle and loss.
Jeff Jordan
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199291328
- eISBN:
- 9780191710698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291328.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Six kinds of Pascal's Wager are explored via a look at decision theory and the logic of pragmatic arguments. Of these six, one version dubbed ‘the Jamesian Wager’, in honour of William James's ...
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Six kinds of Pascal's Wager are explored via a look at decision theory and the logic of pragmatic arguments. Of these six, one version dubbed ‘the Jamesian Wager’, in honour of William James's argument in his 1896 essay The Will to Believe, is the focus of an extended treatment throughout the book. It is a primary contention of the book that the Jamesian Wager provides a sound argument in support of theistic belief.Less
Six kinds of Pascal's Wager are explored via a look at decision theory and the logic of pragmatic arguments. Of these six, one version dubbed ‘the Jamesian Wager’, in honour of William James's argument in his 1896 essay The Will to Believe, is the focus of an extended treatment throughout the book. It is a primary contention of the book that the Jamesian Wager provides a sound argument in support of theistic belief.
John Bishop
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199205547
- eISBN:
- 9780191709432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199205547.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Following James — and using his notion of a ‘genuine option’ — it is proposed that doxastic ventures are permissible provided the issue is ‘forced’, of sufficient importance, and essentially ...
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Following James — and using his notion of a ‘genuine option’ — it is proposed that doxastic ventures are permissible provided the issue is ‘forced’, of sufficient importance, and essentially evidentially undecidable. This Jamesian fideism is supra-evidential and contrasts with irrationalist fideism. A ‘degrees of belief’ challenge is considered: practical reasoning never presents a forced choice, since propositions may be given partial belief according to the extent to which the evidence renders their truth probable. In response, it is suggested that theistic framework principles may be of highest-order, and thus present options that are forced and persistently and necessarily unable to be settled by external evidence. Pace logical positivism, such principles may nevertheless be genuinely assertoric. The chapter concludes by formulating a restricted fideist thesis about the permissibility of faith-ventures, i.e., commitments under evidential ambiguity to faith propositions of the kind involved in theistic religion and relevantly similar contexts.Less
Following James — and using his notion of a ‘genuine option’ — it is proposed that doxastic ventures are permissible provided the issue is ‘forced’, of sufficient importance, and essentially evidentially undecidable. This Jamesian fideism is supra-evidential and contrasts with irrationalist fideism. A ‘degrees of belief’ challenge is considered: practical reasoning never presents a forced choice, since propositions may be given partial belief according to the extent to which the evidence renders their truth probable. In response, it is suggested that theistic framework principles may be of highest-order, and thus present options that are forced and persistently and necessarily unable to be settled by external evidence. Pace logical positivism, such principles may nevertheless be genuinely assertoric. The chapter concludes by formulating a restricted fideist thesis about the permissibility of faith-ventures, i.e., commitments under evidential ambiguity to faith propositions of the kind involved in theistic religion and relevantly similar contexts.
B. Alan Wallace
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195173109
- eISBN:
- 9780199849833
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195173109.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book takes a bold new look at ways of exploring the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness within the context of science and religion. It draws careful distinctions between four ...
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This book takes a bold new look at ways of exploring the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness within the context of science and religion. It draws careful distinctions between four elements of the scientific tradition: science itself, scientific realism, scientific materialism, and scientism. Arguing that the metaphysical doctrine of scientific materialism has taken on the role of ersatz-religion for its adherents, it traces its development from its Greek and Judeo-Christian origins, focusing on the interrelation between the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. It also looks at scientists' long term resistance to the firsthand study of consciousness and details the ways in which subjectivity has been deemed taboo within the scientific community. In conclusion, the book draws on William James's idea for a “science of religion” that would study the nature of religious and, in particular, contemplative experience.Less
This book takes a bold new look at ways of exploring the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness within the context of science and religion. It draws careful distinctions between four elements of the scientific tradition: science itself, scientific realism, scientific materialism, and scientism. Arguing that the metaphysical doctrine of scientific materialism has taken on the role of ersatz-religion for its adherents, it traces its development from its Greek and Judeo-Christian origins, focusing on the interrelation between the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. It also looks at scientists' long term resistance to the firsthand study of consciousness and details the ways in which subjectivity has been deemed taboo within the scientific community. In conclusion, the book draws on William James's idea for a “science of religion” that would study the nature of religious and, in particular, contemplative experience.
Lawrence A. Scaff
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691147796
- eISBN:
- 9781400836710
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691147796.003.0009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Population and Demography
This chapter examines the significance of Max Weber's time in Pennsylvania, and particularly his experience of the Fifth Day Quaker service, to his thesis about the Protestant ethic. It first ...
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This chapter examines the significance of Max Weber's time in Pennsylvania, and particularly his experience of the Fifth Day Quaker service, to his thesis about the Protestant ethic. It first describes Max and Marianne Weber's itinerary in the District of Columbia before discussing Max Weber's two engagements: a meeting with the president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), Samuel Gompers; and an opportunity to observe the religious service of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church. It then considers some of the main arguments put forward by Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism, and how the Quakers' Fifth Day service influenced his written work. It also analyzes Weber's meeting with scholar William James in Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with their thoughts on two fundamental issues: the problem of the relationship between ideas and action, and the question of the “rationality” of experience.Less
This chapter examines the significance of Max Weber's time in Pennsylvania, and particularly his experience of the Fifth Day Quaker service, to his thesis about the Protestant ethic. It first describes Max and Marianne Weber's itinerary in the District of Columbia before discussing Max Weber's two engagements: a meeting with the president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), Samuel Gompers; and an opportunity to observe the religious service of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church. It then considers some of the main arguments put forward by Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism, and how the Quakers' Fifth Day service influenced his written work. It also analyzes Weber's meeting with scholar William James in Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with their thoughts on two fundamental issues: the problem of the relationship between ideas and action, and the question of the “rationality” of experience.
M. Gail Hamner
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195155471
- eISBN:
- 9780199834266
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195155475.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
The chapters in part III of the book (on the American pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce and William James) began with psychological concepts and ended with discussions of self, God, and nation, but ...
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The chapters in part III of the book (on the American pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce and William James) began with psychological concepts and ended with discussions of self, God, and nation, but this chapter inverts the direction of analysis, and offers a close reading of lectures written almost contemporaneously by James and Peirce. First, James's Puritan image of self, God, and nation is clarified, and then it is argued how these visions arise out of and/or parallel to James's understandings of consciousness, causality, will, and belief. Having established that Jamesian pragmatism delineates a strong version of the myth of the American self, the chapter concludes with a reading of Peirce that demonstrates how his pragmatism offers an alternate version of this myth. Peirce stands as the operative unthought of James; his views on self and nation engage the Puritan imagery as surely as those of James, but with less triumphalism and more humility. Perhaps the recent renewed interest in Peirce's complicated vision of the world can be attributed, at least in part, to precisely this sobriety and to the alternative genealogy he offers of the self and its relations to community and the cosmos.Less
The chapters in part III of the book (on the American pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce and William James) began with psychological concepts and ended with discussions of self, God, and nation, but this chapter inverts the direction of analysis, and offers a close reading of lectures written almost contemporaneously by James and Peirce. First, James's Puritan image of self, God, and nation is clarified, and then it is argued how these visions arise out of and/or parallel to James's understandings of consciousness, causality, will, and belief. Having established that Jamesian pragmatism delineates a strong version of the myth of the American self, the chapter concludes with a reading of Peirce that demonstrates how his pragmatism offers an alternate version of this myth. Peirce stands as the operative unthought of James; his views on self and nation engage the Puritan imagery as surely as those of James, but with less triumphalism and more humility. Perhaps the recent renewed interest in Peirce's complicated vision of the world can be attributed, at least in part, to precisely this sobriety and to the alternative genealogy he offers of the self and its relations to community and the cosmos.
Andrea Knutson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195370928
- eISBN:
- 9780199870769
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195370928.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
Chapter 4 examines the impact that Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and its demonstration of probabilistic thinking had on William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience (Varieties) and ...
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Chapter 4 examines the impact that Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and its demonstration of probabilistic thinking had on William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience (Varieties) and demonstrates the central role the conversion dynamic plays in James’s work, focusing on his development of a psychology of religious experience in the Varieties and of pragmatism as a philosophy whose claim that “truth is what happens to an idea” affirms the process of belief as conversional. Conversion finds a conceptual home in modern philosophy as James’s pragmatic hermeneutic, a habit of mind tying conversion to the process that drives consciousness. James characterizes conversion as the experience of the gap between a fact and its interpretation responsible for the ongoing work of establishing beliefs in the face of uncertainty. Through the gathering and arranging of countless testimonies in the Varieties James anchors the process of conversion and the constituting and reconstituting of beliefs and bodies of knowledge in discourse and various discursive communities. In doing so he foregrounds an individual’s continual efforts at reaching these “stages” of personal and cultural renewal through the adoption of the empirical method, which he claims encompasses all scientific and religious enquiries and is “founded in feeling.”Less
Chapter 4 examines the impact that Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and its demonstration of probabilistic thinking had on William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience (Varieties) and demonstrates the central role the conversion dynamic plays in James’s work, focusing on his development of a psychology of religious experience in the Varieties and of pragmatism as a philosophy whose claim that “truth is what happens to an idea” affirms the process of belief as conversional. Conversion finds a conceptual home in modern philosophy as James’s pragmatic hermeneutic, a habit of mind tying conversion to the process that drives consciousness. James characterizes conversion as the experience of the gap between a fact and its interpretation responsible for the ongoing work of establishing beliefs in the face of uncertainty. Through the gathering and arranging of countless testimonies in the Varieties James anchors the process of conversion and the constituting and reconstituting of beliefs and bodies of knowledge in discourse and various discursive communities. In doing so he foregrounds an individual’s continual efforts at reaching these “stages” of personal and cultural renewal through the adoption of the empirical method, which he claims encompasses all scientific and religious enquiries and is “founded in feeling.”
Edlie L. Wong
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479868001
- eISBN:
- 9781479899043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479868001.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Chapter 2 broadens our understanding of Reconstruction to encompass the West and its “Chinese Question.” It builds upon the analytics for articulating racial difference—differential thinking—honed in ...
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Chapter 2 broadens our understanding of Reconstruction to encompass the West and its “Chinese Question.” It builds upon the analytics for articulating racial difference—differential thinking—honed in U.S. race and ethnic studies to illuminate an early politics of comparative racialization. Chinese American activists and writers such as Wong Chin Foo and Yan Phou Lee struggled to disarticulate the powerfully racializing discourse of heathenism that helped sustain the dialectic of black inclusion/Chinese (and Native American) exclusion. Black writers such as James Williams and William H. Newby wrote against Chinese exclusion, representing it as an outgrowth of the racial proscriptions that they had faced during legalized slavery. In juxtaposing lesser-known figures from early African American and Asian American print histories, this chapter investigates the analogization of blacks and Chinese in popular discourse and how these writers negotiated and contested these homogenizing racial representations in oratory and print journalism.Less
Chapter 2 broadens our understanding of Reconstruction to encompass the West and its “Chinese Question.” It builds upon the analytics for articulating racial difference—differential thinking—honed in U.S. race and ethnic studies to illuminate an early politics of comparative racialization. Chinese American activists and writers such as Wong Chin Foo and Yan Phou Lee struggled to disarticulate the powerfully racializing discourse of heathenism that helped sustain the dialectic of black inclusion/Chinese (and Native American) exclusion. Black writers such as James Williams and William H. Newby wrote against Chinese exclusion, representing it as an outgrowth of the racial proscriptions that they had faced during legalized slavery. In juxtaposing lesser-known figures from early African American and Asian American print histories, this chapter investigates the analogization of blacks and Chinese in popular discourse and how these writers negotiated and contested these homogenizing racial representations in oratory and print journalism.
John Bishop
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199205547
- eISBN:
- 9780191709432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199205547.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter sets out a model of (theistic) faith as doxastic venture — understood, not as believing ‘at will’, but rather as taking a proposition to be true in one's practical reasoning while ...
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This chapter sets out a model of (theistic) faith as doxastic venture — understood, not as believing ‘at will’, but rather as taking a proposition to be true in one's practical reasoning while recognizing its lack of adequate evidential support. This doxastic venture model is contrasted with alternative models of specifically Christian faith (such as those of Calvin and Aquinas) that locate the venture of faith elsewhere. The conceptual and psychological possibility of doxastic venture is defended by appeal to William James's notion of ‘passional’ causes for belief in The Will to Believe. The possibility, raised by Richard Swinburne amongst others, that faith may involve only sub-doxastic venture (acting on the assumption that God exists without actual belief) is also acknowledged.Less
This chapter sets out a model of (theistic) faith as doxastic venture — understood, not as believing ‘at will’, but rather as taking a proposition to be true in one's practical reasoning while recognizing its lack of adequate evidential support. This doxastic venture model is contrasted with alternative models of specifically Christian faith (such as those of Calvin and Aquinas) that locate the venture of faith elsewhere. The conceptual and psychological possibility of doxastic venture is defended by appeal to William James's notion of ‘passional’ causes for belief in The Will to Believe. The possibility, raised by Richard Swinburne amongst others, that faith may involve only sub-doxastic venture (acting on the assumption that God exists without actual belief) is also acknowledged.
Robert C. Fuller
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195369175
- eISBN:
- 9780199871186
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369175.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter explores the leverage that the body exerts on humanity's propensity toward religion. Recent research in the emotions, neurobiology, sexuality, pain, and the chemical components of ...
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This chapter explores the leverage that the body exerts on humanity's propensity toward religion. Recent research in the emotions, neurobiology, sexuality, pain, and the chemical components of thought or feeling all shed light on the varieties of human spirituality. Studying religion “in the flesh” furnishes a new set of critical terms that bring a fully interdisciplinary perspective to bear on understanding the most elusive forms of embodied experience.Less
This chapter explores the leverage that the body exerts on humanity's propensity toward religion. Recent research in the emotions, neurobiology, sexuality, pain, and the chemical components of thought or feeling all shed light on the varieties of human spirituality. Studying religion “in the flesh” furnishes a new set of critical terms that bring a fully interdisciplinary perspective to bear on understanding the most elusive forms of embodied experience.
John Bishop
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199205547
- eISBN:
- 9780191709432
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199205547.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Can it be justifiable to commit oneself ‘by faith’ to a religious claim when its truth lacks adequate support from one's total available evidence? After critiquing both Wittgensteinian and Reformed ...
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Can it be justifiable to commit oneself ‘by faith’ to a religious claim when its truth lacks adequate support from one's total available evidence? After critiquing both Wittgensteinian and Reformed epistemologies of religious belief, this book defends a modest fideism that understands theistic commitment as involving ‘doxastic venture’ in the face of evidential ambiguity: practical commitment to propositions held to be true through ‘passional’ causes (causes other than the recognition of evidence of or for their truth). It is argued that the justifiability of religious faith-ventures is ultimately a moral issue — although such ventures can be morally justifiable only if they accord with the proper exercise of our rational epistemic capacities. The book canvasses issues concerning the ethics of belief and doxastic voluntarism. William James's ‘justification of faith’ in The Will to Believe is extended by requiring that justifiable faith-ventures should be morally acceptable both in motivation and content. The book conducts an extended debate between fideists and ‘hard line’ evidentialists, who maintain that religious faith-ventures are never justifiable. It concludes that, although neither fideists nor evidentialists can succeed in establishing their opponents' irrationality, fideism may nevertheless be morally preferable, as a less dogmatic, more self-accepting, even a more loving, position than its evidentialist rival.Less
Can it be justifiable to commit oneself ‘by faith’ to a religious claim when its truth lacks adequate support from one's total available evidence? After critiquing both Wittgensteinian and Reformed epistemologies of religious belief, this book defends a modest fideism that understands theistic commitment as involving ‘doxastic venture’ in the face of evidential ambiguity: practical commitment to propositions held to be true through ‘passional’ causes (causes other than the recognition of evidence of or for their truth). It is argued that the justifiability of religious faith-ventures is ultimately a moral issue — although such ventures can be morally justifiable only if they accord with the proper exercise of our rational epistemic capacities. The book canvasses issues concerning the ethics of belief and doxastic voluntarism. William James's ‘justification of faith’ in The Will to Believe is extended by requiring that justifiable faith-ventures should be morally acceptable both in motivation and content. The book conducts an extended debate between fideists and ‘hard line’ evidentialists, who maintain that religious faith-ventures are never justifiable. It concludes that, although neither fideists nor evidentialists can succeed in establishing their opponents' irrationality, fideism may nevertheless be morally preferable, as a less dogmatic, more self-accepting, even a more loving, position than its evidentialist rival.
