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The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy and Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine

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I have been asked a number of times which book is the best to read to begin studying William James, and I always recommend "The Will to Believe and Other Essays". (There is also an older paperback edited by Ralph Barton Perry called "Williams James, Essays on Faith and Morals", which I would recommend as an alternative, since it contains some of the same important, famous essays, as well as some stunning later ones and the central "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings", James's seminal plea for intellectual and social tolerance.) Both contain a number of the major essays of James, which are much more popular in style and treatment of subject than his "bigger" books, and present important living ideas and applications of those living ideas that need to be heard in modern times. Their advice and counsel is as unquestionably germane to living in our world as it was to living in James's. Just to refer to one great essay, "Is Life Worth Living?" is one of the greatest pieces of popular philosophic literature ever written, and is a striking and cogent and "sunny" discussion of many of the philosophical themes (particularly existentialism) that came considerably later and came to dominate modern thought. Who could not be stunned, thrilled, and bound to rethink every thought one has ever had when one comes across James's discussion in this essay of the idea that to "deny certain faiths is logically absurd, for they MAKE their objects true" -- all in the midst of calling us to shun pessimism, to live and work with hope for the good and the true? There is James's pragmatism distilled to a single point, right at the end of that beautiful piece. Tears almost come to my eyes when I read that great essay. These pieces also present concise and startling summaries and applications of most of the major themes of James's mature work, though perhaps they do not delve deeply enough for some into the densely philosophical themes that drew James's interest in the last ten years of his life. Speaking from a personal point of view, "The Will to Believe and Other Essays" changed my life, for it opened a struggling Christian to new ways of seeing the world beyond the old interminable philosophical (and, for me, theological) battles. I know a lot of people are sick of debates that cannot end or cannot be resolved, and James's ideas are the answer still. This collection of essays led me to "The Varieties of Reliigous Experience" (one of the five greatest non-fiction books of the century; see my Amazon review of that book) and on to the great "Pragmatism" and then ever further into the ideals of James and pragmatic pluralism. As great as these other works are, the essays of "The Will to Believe" remain touchstones for living according to pluralistic ideals. I look to them often for personal wisdom and for remaking our ideals as a society.

William James is always worth reading. He had a subtle and ingenious mind, and the tolerant, sensible temperament of a true philosopher. This collection includes essays aimed at the general reader, rather than the specialist, covering such topics as "Is Life Worth Living?", "The Dilemma of Determinism," and "The Importance of Individuals," as well as the two title essays. One thing to be aware of is that Amazon has erred in listing the book as only 70 pages long; actually, it's more than 400 pages! The mistake was made because in this edition two of James' books have been bound together, with the original pagination, and the second book is only 70 pages. The first book, "The Will to Believe & Other Essays in Popular Philosophy," is 332 pages. So you get a lot for your money, as is usually the case with Dover editions.

This review is mostly intended to address a common, and I think fair, criticism of The Will to Believe, that being his tendency to make it easy to allow people to believe, in areas of religious metaphysics (and this is an important line to draw), whatever they want. My take is based on a couple of readings of both The Will to Believe, and James' Essays in Radical Empiricism, and is therefore not laborious or scholarly. It is simply my impression as a reader.

The first part of this impression is that James was simply not addressing the right audience for the above criticism to hold much weight. He was lecturing to the philosophy club at a university well known for its theology program; or he was lecturing to the Young Men's Christian Association; or he was speaking to a number of Unitarian ministers. In most cases, his lectures were aimed at those who either already believed in God, or who might want to believe in God if he hasn't been killed by Reason. James repeatedly admits that most of his arguments are negative--that is, they don't provide evidence *for* God (or religion in general), they're meant simply to show that such belief is not necessarily negated philosophically, that there's *room* for religious belief.

Also, in order to understand James' approach, one has to remember that he was a psychologist ("Father of American psychology", in fact) and keep in mind his radical empiricist philosophy and its most obvious consequent, pragmatism. To James, there could be no absolute standard for "proving" or "refuting" such metaphysical ideas as religion is based around. Truth, according to the theory of pragmatism, is defined in terms of the idea's consequences, how well employing an idea fulfills what we want to get out of it (to simplify quite a lot). James certainly didn't think all beliefs were created equal; the proposition "boiling an egg makes cats rain from the sky" is verifiably false by any empirical standards, especially pragmatic ones. It's just that religious consequences are either currently or permanently not subject to any form of empirical testing. Those familiar with Alfred Korzybski's work should know what I mean very well.

James' arguments following this point are made as a genuine psychologist, focusing not on telling us what we should or shouldn't be believing and what grounds we should make them on (note the "shoulds"). His focus is on how people *will* actually make these kinds of decisions, what the actual conditions of people's belief are. As someone studying social and cognitive psychology right now, I can say that James' work is still relevant and insightful in this area. His conclusions were that most people are going to believe what meets their goals, and that this largely consists of feeling comfortable--for some, even the use of rigorous logic has no other purpose.

But it is also true that James never went as far as he could with his reasoning. He was content to help Christians stay Christian, and focus on using his ridiculously keen mind to make room for religion.

There is, however, a converse side to this that few people notice. He allows people to stay comfortable with their beliefs, but this should also point out that *those* wackos over there are believing their religion on exactly the same foundation as you. He allows you to believe whatever you want, but he also allows you to believe whatever you *don't* want. His philosophy taken to extremes could even undermine the view that any belief is entirely rational. If James had gone farther than his own comfort zone with his philosophy, he could have been a Zen master or a Dionysian figure to rival Nietzsche.

I suggest that questions of which beliefs are "True", and whether you should change yours or not, should be categorically divorced from the scope of this book. My impression is that James was not trying to answer these questions, and that a criticism based on his failure to do so doesn't make sense. This work is epistemological method, not metaphysical conclusion.

My point is ultimately that there's more in James' work than what he himself does with it. His essay on Hegel's philosophy shows an understanding of what Gregory Bateson would call "logical levels" several decades after James' death. His approach to philosophy, ethics, and religion was one of personal responsibility and a purposeful orientation. He's not going to tell you what to believe or what not to believe, except perhaps that you may as well pick whichever beliefs you get the most out of (note that this attitude does not exclude, or even discourage, rational, reasoned decision making). For this, my respect for James increases, as he understood that on a certain epistemological basis, there is no grounds for mandating "Truths" that can never have any solid empirical basis--the world has had enough people doing that, and we don't really need more.

I can't help but think that the two reviewers from Los Angeles have got it wrong. Their claim seems to be that James allows us to believe whatever we desire despite evidence to the contrary. This couldn't be more wrong. One of James' central ideas is that the rational elements of man can only take him so far, that they can't answer all of life's questions, but this is not to say that we ought to do away with rationality. James argues that we have the "right" to make certain decisions (ones that are not answerable by reason alone) on passional grounds (given certain criteria that he goes into in more detail than I can here). In other words, we're using reason as an important guide before taking a non-rational or passional leap. It is important to understand that this is not restricted to matters of religion and in this regard a bit of an example might be helpful: Is it appropriate to wait for incontrovertible proof that someone loves you before you act to extend yourself and love them in return? Of course not, and I think this is the type of thing James is getting at. So, to conclude, I think this is a truly inspiring read and that James would be as critical of adopting beliefs that have little or no rational basis as our previously mentioned reviewers. But hey, maybe I'm wrong too.

An excellent rebuttal to the intellectualist assault on religion. William James, one of the greatest minds in Philosophy and one of the most important influences in psychology, uses his knowledge and dialectical skill to attack philosophers and scientists who belittle those who choose to believe in God. He defends the belief in God as being philosophically sound, and not the basis for condemnation or belittlement.

Throughout his writings as a psycholgist and philosopher, William James was preoccupied with questions of religion. Put simply, James wrestled with questions about whether Darwin's theory of evolution and mechanistic, physiologically -based psychology (which he himself had done much to develop in his "Principles of Psychology) were inconsistent with a spiritual view of life. These questions came to the fore for James in the mid-1890s. In 1896, James wrote to a friend: "I am more interested in religion than in anything else, but with a strange shyness of closing my hand on any definite symbols that might be too restrictive. So, I cannot call myself a Christian, and indeed go with my father in not being able to tolerate the notion of a selective personal relation between God's creatures and God himself as something ultimate." (Quoted in Robert Richardson's "William James in the Maelstrom of American Modernism" at 364-365)

The book under review is a reasonably-priced edition of two works that James edited or wrote contemporaneously with the letter quoted above. In these works, James delved into religious questions and considered the consistency of a spiritual approach to life with a scientific outlook. The first "The Will to Believe and other Essays in Popular Philosophy" is a collection of nine essays written over a course of seventeen years -- from 1879 -- 1896 together with a Preface. The last of the essays is the controversial essay for which the collection is named, "The Will to Believe" which, James admitted, might better have been called "The Right to Believe." The second book, "Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine" consists of the text James delivered as the Ingersoll Lecture on Human Immortality at Harvard in 1897. James subsequently published this lecture as a short book in 1898. Both "The Will to Believe" and "Human Immortality" predate James's masterpiece in the study of religion, "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902).

The essays in "The Will to Believe" originated as lectures which James delivered to philosophical or theological clubs at various universities. The book is dedicated to James's friend, the philosopher Charles Peirce, to whom James says he owes "more incitement and help than I can express or repay." I was struck by how many of James's lasting themes had been developed in this relatively early book -- including his pluralism and what he calls in the Preface to the book his radical empiricism. The book illustrates James's efforts to weave together insights from psychology, philosophy, and religion without great regard for narrow lines of professional specialization.

The book tries to make a place for and show the importance to life of a belief in transcendent reality. James is far from endorsing any specific creed. In the Preface, James points out that his lectures had been addressed to sophisticated college audiences whose members would be troubled by the possibility of religious faith in an age of science and skepticism. James pointed out that if he had been addressing a different kind of audience -- his example is adherents of the Salvation Army -- the focus of his remarks would have been different, as James would have felt himself required to critique a too easy and too full belief as opposed to a skepticism about the possiblity of any belief. The thrust of the essays is thus to defend a right to believe, and it is important to remember that James is directing his remarks to the perceived needs of his hearers.

In making his argument, James discusses the nature and limitations of rationality and of what many people today term scientism -- the belief that only the physical sciences allow us to know what is true. The essays rely on James's psychology in showing the selective character of human awareness and perception. We see and focus upon reality in accordance with the questions we bring to it. James objects to the "monistic" view of reality which sees everything as part of a single interconnected fact or "block". He argues for pluralism and for attention to specific facts and detailed. Reality is not, for James, either an absolute block or a mere sand-heap of unconnected particulars. Rather, it exhibits loose interconnections and a spirit of, in words he would use again in his final essay of 1916, "ever not quite". Arguing against a mechanically deterministic universe, James argues for the possibility of chance using specific and homely examples. It is possible, James argues, that I could walk home down one street rather than another. It is possible, he claims, that a man who had brutally murdered his wife might have done something else, and that some other result would have been morally better than the killing. In understanding reality, James argues, we need to look forward rather than back, and use the energy and activity that may make our lives purposeful. If a person is caught on a cliff and needs to jump to safety, he will be more likely to do so if he believes he is able to do so. If he approaches the moment with trepidation, doubt and fear, fail he will. Thus, based upon a variety of considerations, James argues in these essays that it is rational for to adopt a believing attitude towards a transcendent source in reality and to take the ethical and metaphysical risks attendant upon such a belief. James does not always help himself in his choice of language, and his teaching has been subject to misunderstanding and ridicule. It is a difficult, challenging teaching which takes time to unpack and consider.

As its title suggests, the lecture on "Human Immortality" is more narrowly focused than "The Will to Believe", but its approach is much the same. James does not try to prove the existence or define the nature of an afterlife. He claims instead that his goal is simply to remove to alleged obstacles to a belief in immortality.

The larger part of the essay is devoted to the first obstacle which is based upon physiology and the functional nature of the mind. If the mind is simply a function of electrical-chemical reactions in the "gray matter" of the brain, what reason is there, James asks, for thinking that the mind survives the body. James's answer is based in part upon his reading of the German scientist and philosopher Gustav Fechner, whose work would also play an important role in James's later book, "A Pluralistic Universe." James distinguishes considering mind as a productive function of the brain from considering mind as a transmissive function. In both cases, thoughts in our everyday world are dependent upon neurology. But in the latter case, the universe may be viewed as itself spiritual in character, and that this character of the universe is transmitted through the brain to the individual person during life, and the character of the individual returns as part of this spirit upon death. I found this position intruiging because it seems to me to show that James' thought was greatly influenced by the pantheism or absolute idealism that he generally criticized severely in his writing. James is aware of this objection and tries to distinguish his thought from pantheism or idealism. I am not sure how well he succeeds. "Human Immortality" is a provocative essay, and it shows to me the seams of James' thinking between his commitment to pluralism and science on the one hand and spirituality on the other hand.

The other supposed objection to immortality that James considers is likewise based upon science. James argues that evolution has shown that human beings have developed from earlier forms of life, including earlier forms of humans. He also points to an expanded knowledge of the variety of human life and culture that, he claims, was unknown in biblical or medieval times. According to James, some critics might object to the teaching of human immortality because it would necessarily apply to too large a group. James replies to this alleged objection: "God, we can then say, has so inexhaustible a capacity for love that his call and need is for a literally endless accumulation of created lives. he can never faint or grow weary, as we should, under the increasing supply. His scale is infinite in all things. His sympathy can never know satiety or glut." James thus democraticizes and individualizes the possiblity of heaven. His approach here is similar to the approach he takes in his famous essay "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings".

The two works in this book tie together James's work in psychology with his ongoing interests in religion and philosophy. The beauty of James's prose should not blind the reader to the complexity of James's thought. These works require careful reading. This is an excellent work with which to begin a reading of William James.

Robin Friedman

What I am writing here relates only to ' The Will- to - Believe'. I will say however that I believe all of James worth reading and considering , whether one agrees with him or not.
And this when I believe I am not alone in saying his greatest work is ' The Varieties of Religious Experience' and if I were to choose one James' work it would be that one.
I only want to make one point about ' the Will to Believe'. And that is I believe that James very rational approach to religious belief, his recommendation that we make a choice, his conception that the ' will' is at the heart of it misses most religious experience as I know it. My own sense that is that it is out of deep need, and often an inner compulsion that pewople choose the religious option. It is not a matter of ' will' at all. And the recommendation to make the ' will ' primary will only appeal to a small minority. So I think that his whole approach is somehow mistaken. Religious believers do not come into the world generally through will and decision of the kind he recommends.

Philosophers are notorious for not feeling a work worthy of attention unless it is poorly written and arcane. Karl Popper was ignored, so was George Santayana, so was Arthur Schopenhaur. In the world of philosophy, it doesn't so much matter what you say- If it did, Wittgenstein and Hegel wouldv'e been dismissed out of hand- but how poorly you say it. This collection of essays, while garnering more attention than the above authors, might've been taken more seriously if it wasn't so easy and fun to read.

In these essays we find a man who is what the philosopher should be. His ideas describe the way we think and act instead of conceptualize the way we 'should' think or act. The first few essays are on religion, the validity of which James does not confirm nor deny. Simply put, James sees religion as a handy tool for action. God makes the world more manageable. It synthesizes a world that appears random, it explains- however truthfully- a world than seems in need of explanation. James, I believe, is an agnostic in the truest sense. Experience can confirm or deny God and as long as one is open to experiential evidence, the pendulum can concievably swing either way.

The next essays give a basic outline of what would later be pragmatism. Ideas, James conjectures, are tools for action. We not only act because we think, but think exclusively because we act. The essays here are a bit repetitive, but James' prose is so crystal-clear that you'll want to keep reading.

Finally, we come to the last two essays that deal with 'mysticism' and the 'supernatural' phenomena that psychologists, philosophers, and scientists would rather not even consider. Both the believer and sceptic will find use in these essays as they dismiss both the scientists snap-denial of 'psychic' phenomenon and the believer's untested belief. Neither party, it seems to James, wants to examine evidence and come to a responsible conclusion, what ever that conclusion is.

James has been admired, chastised, name-called, idolized and scrutinized for his unbridled agnosticism. Whether you come to admire or discard James' unique thoughts about thoughts, these essays are clearly written, accessable, erudite and witty. If you're not a philosopher, read this. If you are one, read it but don't tell anyone you did so!

Then look no further, you have found what you want (with a few trivial restrictions). James doesn't think you need to bother with things like evidence; as long as it is a "genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds", believe what you want!

What does it take to be a genuine option? Not much; James defines an hypothesis as "anything that may be proposed to our belief; and just as the electricians speak of live and dead wires, let us speak of any hypothesis as either live or dead. A live hypothesis is one which appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed."

He continues: "Next, let us call the decision between two hypotheses an option. Options may be of several kinds. They may be-1, living or dead; 2, forced or avoidable; 3, momentous or trivial; and for our purposes we may call an option a genuine option when it is of the forced, living, and momentous kind."

His thesis in his words:

"The thesis I defend is, briefly stated, this: Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds; for to say, under such circumstances, "Do not decide, but leave the question open," is itself a passional decision,-just like deciding yes or no,-and is attended with the same risk of losing the truth."

To be "living", all it takes is for you to be willing to think it possible, which will apply to just about anything you want to believe. To be "forced", just oppose it to rejecting what you want to believe (because you are "forced" to either believe what you want or you will not believe it; there is no other alternative). To be "momentous", it has to be important to you, which will apply to everything that really matters to you that you want to believe. Now, all you have to do is pick something for which you can have no evidence, and then you can believe it, according to James. So he is telling you, practically, believe whatever you want to believe, as long as it is beyond the reach of any evidence.

It should be no surprise that many people would welcome such garbage, since James appears to justify believing what you want. The trouble is, people believing what they want and ignoring evidence and reason has led to crusades, witch burning, the Inquisition, etc. (After all, what test can you have to determine whether or not God wants you to expel the 'infidels' from the 'holy land', or whether someone is a 'witch' or not, or whether someone is a 'heretic'? You'll never believe any such stuff if you base all of your beliefs upon evidence, and consequently you will not be as much of a danger to society.) Of course, James wrote after many of those activities, so we cannot blame him for what others did before he wrote his essay. However, following his advice, one could do all of the above. We can blame him for that.

James is very good at making people feel comfortable with their current prejudices, and for that, many praise him.

A rather basic demonstration of one of the problems of following James comes up as soon as one asks which set of beliefs one wants to believe. Should you be a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Moslem, an agnostic, an atheist, or something else? Well, James is absolutely no help in finding out which of these might be true; he basically tells you to believe whichever one you want. Such advice is useless for discovering the truth about such important matters; he is telling everyone to just go along with whatever prejudices they prefer. And if your preferred prejudice leads to the torture and killing of 'infidels', well, James has nothing to say about that. He tells you to believe at your own risk what you will, but ignores the rather obvious risks to others. It is difficult to imagine a worse essay than "The Will to Believe".

If someone tries to defend James by claiming that you need to understand James' "pragmatism" to understand "The Will to Believe", you should realize that pragmatism is not mentioned in this essay, which was first given as a lecture, and is the first essay in the book THE WILL TO BELIEVE AND OTHER ESSAYS IN POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. James developed those ideas later (PRAGMATISM came out many years later). Furthermore, James mentions in "What Pragmatism Means" (in PRAGMATISM) that no one knew what pragmatism was at the time when "The Will to Believe" came out (he does not mention the essay by name; you have to compare the dates he mentions with the date of this essay). So James did not require an understanding of pragmatism to understand this essay.

There have been several books that have exposed James, but they have generally been expensive academic books that go out of print in no time at all, after practically no one has read them. James is around because he is easy to read, in an inexpensive edition, and tells people what they want to hear.

If you want to think, and if you really want to find out the truth about things rather than engage in wishful thinking, James gives extremely poor advice. The three-part essay "The Ethics of Belief" by William Kingdon Clifford is far better (it is often reprinted in philosophy anthologies in a severely edited form). But since Clifford advises people to think rather than simply believe what they want to believe, he is far less popular. I believe it was Bertrand Russell who said: "Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do." Unfortunately, Russell was right about this. The popularity of James and the relative obscurity of Clifford is a rather telling proof of this.

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Edited to add (July 14, 2008):

A more modern example of problems with James' position is the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. The belief that God is against the U.S. and that the attack was therefore right and proper is something that may not be a "live" hypothesis to most people reading this, but it is a "live" hypothesis to some other people in the world (including, obviously, the people who did it). This religious belief about God's will has the same "disconnect" with evidence as any other typical religious belief. One either believes that it was right and in accordance with God's will or one does not. It is fairly obviously momentous. If one agrees with James, then if one is consistent, one must believe that those people were right to have such beliefs. Certainly, according to James' position, they were fully justified in believing what they did. And obviously, once one has the belief that it is the right thing to do, doing it is a rather natural and obvious result. And therein lies the problem with James. The religious zealot terrorists perfectly followed James' advice. Encouraging people to do as James suggests is encouraging more actions like this.

Most people who read James with approval like how they are told that they are right to keep their own religious prejudices without bothering with evidence or being reasonable, but they forget that other people keeping their religious prejudices can be problematic.

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People occasionally say that one must sometimes act before one gets enough evidence to know the truth about something. However, just because one may need to take quick action, that does not mean that one must first believe that one is right. For example, if you are crossing the street, and you see a car speeding toward you, you may not know which way is best to run. But you need to act, as staying in the path of the car is not a good idea. So you choose. However, this does not require that you believe that you are making the right choice before you act; this simply requires you to make a choice about what to do. You may choose right or wrong, but believing that you are right isn't going to keep the car from running you down if you made the wrong choice of which way to run. So you don't need any belief ahead of the evidence in such a case, you simply need to get out of the way of the car. And for that, one has ample evidence.

In other cases, there will be times when one cannot know something. For example, is there life in the solar system of the star that is the closest to us (after the sun)? You cannot know this now, but it is stupid and dishonest to simply have "faith" that there is or that there isn't life there; the intelligent and honest thing to say is that one does not know. If, however, the matter is important to you, then, according to James, one should believe whatever one wants about whether there is life there or not. Basically, James' position supports being stupid and dishonest. It really is hard to imagine a more pernicious essay than James' "The Will to Believe".