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william james and his influences
essay on william james
william james and his influences
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William James in his article, “The Will to Believe” criticized Clifford’s views that suggested that when forming an opinion, one should never go beyond his or her logic. James believes that human reasoning sometimes have to utilize other considerations apart from the available evidence. If our main goal is to have beliefs that are true as opposed to merely avoiding errors, then people should be able to believe without necessarily having to follow the evidence. James applies this to some areas in life, and he comes to discuss his alleged relevance of his view on religious belief in the last section of the article ( 'William James In Focus: Willing To Believe ').
The main thesis of James revolves in his argument that sometimes it is not ethical
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The choice of utilizing any of the two intellectual maxima, if it is not decided in regard to intellectual grounds, it becomes more pronounced ethically. As much as we may constantly take risks in personal lives, a belief that lacks evidence always has a lot of uncertainties some of which may harbor negative consequences in our lives. James does not fully address the question whether the belief should at any time be voluntary. It has always been considered dubious that we may opt to have some beliefs willingly and make the whole conception of James’s will to believe mistaken. However, the pragmatist conception of James seems to create a room for such adoption of beliefs at will. If there exist no contradicting scenarios in our lives, in cases where there is insufficient evidence to the contrary, it is expected that we follow a certain rule of action even if we are unsure of the consequences that may befall us and without the certainty of our course of action. Doubting welcomes experimentation with a hope that our actions will be able to yield the expected and best results in cases where we choose to act without regard to the evidence ( 'William James In Focus: Willing To Believe …show more content…
By pragmatic definition, if people follow the rule of conduct in all cases and circumstances, they would be accepting the will to believe. Consequently, we should all believe that our current conduct and actions have a direct translation to what we expect in future depending on the current situation. In James’s most sustained and longest discussions, he does not fully contest evidence. The truth that is harbored by the religious hypothesis is only a matter of time to decide. Unless a religious belief postulates to yield something different about the world, they all amount to the same belief about actual situations that people encounter in their daily
Unknown, to James at this point he did not realize that he was having a problem with a psychological theory called behaviorism. Now this theory is one that is saying human behavior is developed through learning experiences which in this case would apply to James. His behavior as an adult was reflected by the way he was treated as a kid by his father and mother because they fought all the time. They never truly paid any attention to him, which in terms taught him how to stay out of their way and learn how to steal and burglarize places without getting caught. Therefore, within the psychological theory of behaviorism Behaviorists saw crime as something that is a learned response to life’s situations such as James situation which led him to a life of crime because of his parents. Although, he was never truly mistreated, he did not receive his father attention due to the fact of the way his father was treated as a child growing up an abusive household. Therefore, he did not want to place his son in the same situation. There is also the fact that James could be suffering from the psychodynamic theory which says that a person’s personality can be controlled by their unconscious mental process and that is grounded in them in early childhood. These entire things such as the id, ego, and superego
William Clifford was born on the 4th of May 1845 in Exeter England. He was an English mathematician and British philosopher. At the age of 15, William attended Kings College, London where he achieved a minor scholarship to Trinity College. Later after graduation he was invited to join the Apostles. He became concerned of many religious questions after studying the influential philosopher Thomas Aquinas and he decided to turn away from religion. Clifford’s philosophical standpoint was a major influence for his day. One of his greatest written accomplishments was an essay “The Ethics of Belief”.
William Clifford author of the “Ethics of Belief” creates the argument that it is always wrong for anyone to believe anything upon ‘insufficient evidence’. What does Clifford define evidence as and what is sufficient? Clifford’s argument is more scientific. Basing our beliefs off methodical approaches. If we base all our decisions off sufficient and what we declare to be reliable then what do we stand for? We have our own credentials to believe things even if we do not know why. These beliefs could be innate and
The next question necessarily revolves around the delivery mechanism. Moral realists must argue that moral judgments have at least an initial plausibility, for if grave errors are made in either the causal connection or the delivery mechanism, it would not seem that there would be a valid reason for believing that any of the moral judgments we make are judgments of fact. As David Brink argues, “the degree of credibility of considered moral beliefs probably corresponds more closely with the credibility of these [credible theoretical beliefs] Ö All I claim is that considered moral beliefs have initial credibility.”4
C. Stephen Evans is stating there is a problem with the philosophy of religion having a neutral stance. Evans rejects both fideism as well as neutralism, and believes that by trying to have a, “neutral, disinterested posture,” a person could, “cut themselves off from the possibility of even understanding what religion is all about,” (Evans, 1985 p. 115). Evans notes that the view of faith and reason, by some religious believers think it is an impossibility to have “rational reflection” on religion. After his arguments that disprove many ideas in both fideism and neutralism, he proposes an alternative solution which he has named, “critical dialog”, that he hopes will, “preserve the strengths and eliminate the weaknesses of the initial theories,” (p. 115). “Correct thinking about religion is rather a genuine faith, a personal commitment,” (p. 116).
A piece of evidence that he gives is that reason cannot be the motive to moral action; if reason doesn't have the ability to motivate any sort of action, it ultimately cannot motivate moral
Upon reading Will to Believe, there is no doubt we will all begin to question how we’ve gotten to our beliefs and why we believe what we do. William James argues against forced beliefs and expresses the importance of choice. The idea of choice is one I strongly agree with. Although we are easily influenced by others, when it comes to beliefs free will must come into play. As far as the science method, which I have discussed, a belief is just as valid whether there is evidence or not because most scientific methods will never be one hundred percent proven and they will change over
It is crucial that every belief must be thoroughly explored and justified to avoid any future repercussions. Clifford provides two examples in which, regardless of the outcome, the party that creates a belief without comprehensive justification ends up at fault. It is possible to apply the situations in The Ethics of Belief to any cases of belief and end up with the conclusion that justification is of utmost importance. Justifying beliefs is so important because even the smallest beliefs affect others in the community, add to the global belief system, and alter the believer moral compass in future decisions.
William James, a philosopher in the late 18th and early 19th century shared his view on the common misconceptions of pragmatists account for the truth. Although I am only going to reinforce James views on a couple of these, there were in fact eight misunderstandings in his eyes. There is a passage written by James on his thoughts of what he called an automatic sweetheart.
Clifford’s claims. Clifford believes that everything must be believed only on the basis of sufficient evidence, including belief in God (Feinberg 139). Clark’s issue with this statement, is that Clifford emphasises that adequate evidence is necessary for all beliefs and in every circumstance (Feinberg 139). Personally, I do not think it is necessary to hold every belief to the same standard of evidence because of the existence of faith and the fact that not everything has to be seen to exist. In John 20:29 it says, “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’” (NIV Bible). In this passage, Jesus is saying that believing without the visual evidence is particularly harder than having the evidence, but more importantly, it is possible and blessed. Additionally, in 2 Corinthians 5:7 it reads, “For we live by faith, not by sight” (NIV Bible). It is important to notice that in this verse it does not say that we only live by faith and not by sight when it comes to belief in God, but instead we can in every area of life. One reason why we live by faith and not by sight or complete evidence is because it is more practical because as humans we have limited knowledge about the vastness of the universe and every individual thing. Furthermore, in conjunction with Clark’s example against Clifford, it would not
James’ focus on the mystic experiences that religion entails was characterized by four circumstances. These four circumstances were ineffability, a noetic quality, mystical states are transient, and people can’t control when the experiences come and go. For ineffability, the experience must be had by a person and cannot be transferred to another. By noetic quality he was stating that the mystical state came as a state of knowledge to the individual. James goes on to ask if these states are “windows through which the mind looks out upon a more extensive and inclusive world” (Varieties, 428).
Religion is a fundamental aspect of human life that cannot be ignored even with the advances in science as noted by James stating that “Through prayer, religion insists, things which cannot be realized in any other manner come about: energy which but for prayer would be bound is by prayer set free and operates in some part, be it objective or subjective, of the world of facts” . It is a control mechanism, a defining factor and guide to humans despite the many differences that exist. This is seen in the works of James and Kierkegaard who acknowledge that religion plays an important role in shaping the life people live. The works of William James’ "Varieties of Religious Experience" and that of Soren Kierkegaard "The Sickness Unto Death" are
In the article, "The Will to Believe", William James responds to W.K. Clifford who argued
Pope John Paul II once said, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” (Fallible Blogma) Based on this significant and powerful quote, one can infer that faith and reason are directly associated and related. It can also be implied that the combination of faith and reason allows one to seek information and knowledge about truth and God; based on various class discussions and past academic teachings, it is understood that both faith and reason are the instruments that diverse parties are supposed to use on this search for truth and God. There are many stances and viewpoints on the issues of faith and reason. Some believe that both of these ideas cannot and should not be combined; these parties deem that faith and reason must be taken as merely separate entities. However, this writer does not understand why both entities cannot be combined; both terms are so closely compatible that it would make sense to combine the two for a common task. Based on various class discussions and readings, there are many philosophers and theologians who have certain opinions regarding faith, reason and their compatibility; these philosophers include Hildegard of Bingen, Ibn Rushd, Moses Maimonides, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The following essay will examine each of the previously stated philosopher’s viewpoints on faith and reason, and will essentially try to determine whether or not faith and reason are ultimately one in the same.
Some of the objections, such as the ones made by Edmund Gettier, claim that three conditions are not nearly enough to justify a true belief, and that at the very least a fourth must be added. Gettier presents a very valid criticism of the JTB theory of knowledge, and his counter examples highlight flaws in the JTB theory that make it an inadequate theory of knowledge. Gettier claims takes an issue with the third part of the JTB theory, which states that proposition P must be true. Gettier makes the interesting observation that person S may very well be justified in believing in proposition P even if P is false