The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy [Paperback]

William James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2006

Here, in one volume, are the collected essays of influential American philosopher WILLIAM JAMES (1842-1910), whose justifications of religious faith and explorations of questions of morality made him one of the most popular thinkers of the 19th century. In this volume, first published in book form in 1897, James ponders such conundrums as... . Is life worth living? . The sentiment of rationality . The dilemma of determinism . The moral philosopher and the moral life . Great men and their environment . The importance of individuals . What psychical research has accomplished . and more.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Cosimo Classics (September 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596058919
• ISBN-13: 978-1596058910
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #886,730 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars William James and the Right to Believe, June 6, 2007

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (Paperback)

William James's "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 essays 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."

The collection was published in 1897, after James's "Principles of Psychology" but before the "Varieties of Religious Experience", "Pragmatism", and a "Pluralistic Universe". 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 also shows, in the wake of the "Principles of Psychology", James's increasing concern with religious questions. Early in 1896, James wrote to a friend that "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 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.

The first four essays in the collection, including "The Will to Believe" are the most directly concerned with questions of religious belief and the nature of human rationality. In "The Dilemma of Determinism", James gives his fullest consideration to the question of determinism and chance.
"The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" is perhaps James's most sustained treatment of ethical questions, and he ties the question of different types of moral attitudes to questions of one's religious attitude. The two essays "Great Men and their Environment" and "The Importance of Individuals" argue, for the importance of individual effort and individual leaders in creating and changing human society. These essays still have much to teach in countering various forms of historical determinism. The collection closes with an early essay critical of Hegelian absolutism and an essay showing James's interest in and sympathy for psychical research. A persistent theme of James is that there is more than one way to understand reality.

This book is a pivotal work of James in that it ties together his 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. This is an excellent work with which to begin a reading of William James.

Robin Friedman