Williams James and the Therapeutic Context

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 1999

Philosophers frequently endorse the ‘evidentialist’ view that the degree to which we believe any proposition should always be directly proportionate to the evidence we have for its truth, and William James’s “The Will to Believe” has typically been viewed as criticizing the evidentialist position by arguing that beliefs can be justified not only by evidence in favor of their truth, but also by the benefits associated with holding them. This reading of James seems to hand ‘epistemic’ rationality over to the evidentialist, leaving the appeal to the legitimate use of other sorts of rationality (most noticeably prudential) in belief formation as the only way to criticize evidentialism. However, what James is doing in “The Will to Believe” is criticizing precisely the assumption that epistemic rationality should be understood in evidentialistic terms. Rather than merely pointing out that our beliefs fall within the domain of prudential as well as epistemic rationality, James argues that evidentialism should be rejected because it presupposes an unrealistically one-sided picture of epistemic rationality itself.

In the Preface to his The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel to 'Pragmatism,' first published in 1909, the radical empiricist and pragmatist William James (1842-1910), picking up from what he wrote in his earlier book, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907), asks the question: "What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?" 1 He replies: "…The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process, the process namely of its verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its validation…Any idea that helps us to deal, whether practically or intellectually, with either the reality or its belongings, that doesn't entangle our progress in frustration, that fits, in fact, and adapts our life to the reality's whole setting, will agree sufficiently to meet the requirement. It will be true of that reality. The true, to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as the right is only the expedient in the way of our behaving…expedient in the long run and on the whole, of course." 2 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. states in his Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought that "with William James, pragmatism becomes a form of subjectivism, thus defined in the Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, revised by the members of the Société française de philosophie and published by M. A. Lalande, Alcan, in 1926: 'A doctrine according to which truth is a relation, entirely immanent to human experience, whereby knowledge is subordinated to activity, and the truth of a proposition consists in its utility and satisfactoriness.' 3 That is true which succeeds." 4 J. A. Mourant writes that "James held that truth was pragmatic, that the true is that which is the practical and the best (Pragmatism, New York, 1907). Truth is utilitarian; man's ideas are true insofar as they are useful and practical in resolving his problems. For James, truth is something relative, expedient, useful and practical. James not only applied these criteria of truth to metaphysical problems, but he was also greatly concerned to show how such a pragmatic conception of truth could be used to justify religious ideas and confirm religious experience…As a philosophy Jamesian pragmatism's most serious difficulties are its anti-intellectualism, its relativism, its appeal to the expedient in ethics, and its justification of religious belief solely upon the value of such beliefs to the individual." 5 In his description of the immanentist, anti-theoretical, anti-speculative, practical consequentialism of the philosophy of pragmatism, Juan José Sanguineti writes: "Pragmatism is the philosophy that reduces the value of theoretical truth to its practical consequences. By theory or speculation is intended knowledge insofar as it indicates that which is; instead, the practical truth indicates that which must be done. For realism the ultimate foundation of action is found in the nature of things, since something acts insofar as it is (agere sequitur esse). In pragmatism no truth is theoretical, in the sense that no truth indicates being: truth is reduced to a human conception that serves action (theory as a function of the praxis). Then it is clear that pragmatism is the consequence of every

CLCWeb : Comparative Literature and Culture, 2024

Pragmatic theories of truth are usually associated either with C.S. Peirce’s proposal that true beliefs will be accepted “at the end of inquiry” or with William James’ proposal that truth be defined in terms of utility. More broadly, however, pragmatic theories of truth focus on the connection between truth and epistemic practices, notably practices of inquiry and assertion. Depending on the particular pragmatic theory, true statements might be those that are useful to believe, that are the result of inquiry, that have withstood ongoing examination, that meet a standard of warranted assertibility, or that represent norms of assertoric discourse. Like other theories of truth (e.g., coherence and deflationary theories) pragmatic theories of truth are often put forward as an alternative to correspondence theories of truth. Unlike correspondence theories, which tend to see truth as a static relation between a truth-bearer and a truth￾maker, pragmatic theories of truth tend to view truth as a function of the practices people engage in, and the commitments people make, when they solve problems, make assertions, or conduct scientific inquiry. More broadly, pragmatic theories tend to emphasize the significant role the concept of truth plays across a range of disciplines and discourses: not just scientific and fact-stating discourse but also ethical, legal, and political discourse as well.

Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1986

James's theory of truth has engendered a great deal of discussion and, to be sure, controversy. The most common criticism of Jamesian pragmatism is that this theory of truth is, in effect, a license for waywardness in the sphere of belief.' In response t o this charge, James insisted that:

Critics and defenders of William James both acknowledge serious tensions in his thought, tensions perhaps nowhere more vexing to readers than in regard to his claim about an individual’s intellectual right to their “faith ventures.” Focusing especially on “Pragmatism and Religion,” the final lecture in Pragmatism (1906), this chapter will explore certain problems James’ pragmatic pluralism. Some of these problems are theoretical, but others are practical in the sense of bearing upon the real-world upshot of adopting James quite permissive ethics of belief. The chief theoretical puzzlement we will explore is the tension constituted on the one side by James supporting the general function of religious “overbeliefs” as valuable for the meaning and moral motivation they afford to people, and on the other side by his insistence on the speculative and passion-driven nature of these beliefs.

In Search of a New Humanism, 1999

Episteme, 2016

Famously, William James held that there are two commandments that govern our epistemic life: Believe truth! Shun error! In this paper, I give a formal account of James’ claim using the tools of epistemic utility theory. I begin by giving the account for categorical doxastic states – that is, full belief, full disbelief, and suspension of judgment. Then I will show how the account plays out for graded doxastic states – that is, credences. The latter part of the paper thus answers a question left open in (Pettigrew 2014).

Press, New York), the foundational error of the pragmatic humanism 1 of the philosopher (and eugenicist) Ferdinand Canning Scott (F. C. S.) Schiller (1864-1937) lies in its rejection of an immediate knowledge of real, extra-mental, sensible things in the external world (as held by metaphysical realism/methodical realism/moderate realism grounded in an act of being [esse as actus essendi] realist metaphysics), in favor of an idealistic experientialism 2 formulation of the principle of immanence, a phenomenistic idealism or phenomenalistic idealism where human knowledge is confined to the enclosed sphere of conscious states, mental states, 'ideas,' 'phenomena' (phenomena in the immanentist, not metaphysical realist, sense), and that this idealistic enclosed sphere of conscious states, mental states, 'ideas,' phenomena, which human consciousness pragmatically fashions as world as useful for human well-being, is

Journal of Religious Ethics, 2008

Pragmatism is often thought to be incompatible with realism, the view that there are knowable mind-independent facts, objects, or properties. In this article, I show that there are, in fact, realist versions of pragmatism and argue that a realist pragmatism of the right sort can make important contributions to such fields as religious ethics and philosophy of religion. Using William James's pragmatism as my primary example, I show (1) that James defended realist and pluralist views in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion, and (2) that these views not only cohere with his pragmatism but indeed are basic to it. After arguing that James's pragmatism provides a credible and useful approach to a number of basic philosophical and religious issues, I conclude by reflecting on some ways in which we can apply and potentially improve James's views in the study of religion.

Essays in Philosophy, 2012

Pragmatism may be the aspect of William James’s thought for which he is best known; but, at the same time, James’s pragmatism may be among the most misunderstood doctrines of the past century. There are many meanings of word “pragmatism,” even within James’s own corpus. Not a single unified doctrine, pragmatism may be better described as a collection of positions which together form a coherent philosophical system. This paper examines three interrelated uses of the term: (1) pragmatism as a temperament, (2) pragmatism as a philosophical method, and (3) pragmatism as a “humanistic” and “concrete” theory of knowledge and truth. Some critics infer that pragmatist truth is relative or subjective. This paper concludes with a consideration of James’s responses to such critics. Though James maintains truth is something both “made” and “satisfying,” he just as clearly affirms that as it develops, truth is ever constrained by the elements of extramental reality as well as previously vetted t...