William James: the Will to Believe

[Archaea]

William James, an important psychologist and philosopher, wrote a famous essay on the Will to Believe. In light of many discussions here and elsewhere, I find it pertinent and interesting.

Here is a link.

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~omearawm/ph101willtobelieve.html

Here is an outline.

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/phi...isc/james.html

Discuss if you wish. This essay bolsters much of what I believe, at least, philosophically.

Here is a little about James.

http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/...ook/c2853.html

[Sleeping in EQ]

This is a great article and well worth the read. Let's not allow this thread to languish!

[Archaea]

I would really like to hear from our disbelieving group on this thread, or anybody else. What is your impression of James's argument in favor of the will to believe?

[ChinoCoug]

My professor (Davis Paulsen) was a big William James fan.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

My professor (Davis Paulsen) was a big William James fan.

David was great. Did you know David Bohn as well?

[Archaea]

The Crux of one of the arguments of James, what think ye?

"
Believe truth! Shun error!-these, we see, are two materially different laws; and by choosing between them we may end by coloring differently our whole intellectual life. We may regard the chase for truth as paramount, and the avoidance of error as secondary; or we may, on the other hand, treat the avoidance of error as more imperative, and let truth take its chance. Clifford, in the instructive passage which I have quoted, exhorts us to the latter course. Believe nothing, he tells us, keep your mind in suspense forever, rather than by closing it on insufficient evidence incur the awful risk of believing lies. You, on the other hand, may think that the risk of being in error is a very small matter when compared with the blessings of real knowledge, and be ready to be duped many times in your investigation rather than postpone indefinitely the chance of guessing true. I myself find it impossible to go with Clifford. We must remember that these feelings of our duty about either truth or error are in any case only expressions of our passional life. Biologically considered, our minds are as ready to grind out falsehood as veracity, and he who says, " Better go without belief forever than believe a lie!" merely shows his own preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe. He may be critical of many of his desires and fears, but this fear he slavishly obeys. He cannot imagine any one questioning its binding force. For my own part, I have also a horror of being duped; but I can believe tbat worse things tban being doped may happen to a man in this world: so Clifford's exhortation has to my ears a thoroughly fantastic sonnd. It is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf. At any rate, it seems the fittest thing for the empiricist philosopher."

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

David was great. Did you know David Bohn as well?

I've heard about him. Teaches in the western political heritage, funny clothes, kinda liberal?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

I've heard about him. Teaches in the western political heritage, funny clothes, kinda liberal?

Here he is.

http://fhss.byu.edu/Faculty/deb7/

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Here he is.

http://fhss.byu.edu/Faculty/deb7/

yup, that's him.

[BarbaraGordon]

I'm not sure what to think. It's a compelling argument, and it provides someone like me with a sort of ex post facto justification of the decision to believe.

I like that he understands that belief is not a rational matter. It seems to me belief is almost entirely a matter of family history and personal revelation. Pascal's wager and other appeals to reason have always seemed empty to me.

...The state of things is evidently far from simple; and pure insight and logic, whatever they might do ideally, are not the only things that really do produce our creeds. ...

But it seems he intends this argument as a defense of simple theism. I'm not sure it could be used to defend a subscription to organized religion, where (given the dangers of dogma when embraced en masse) the consequences of erroneous choice may be so much greater.
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My apologies...that makes sense in my head but it doesn't look like it makes any sense in pixels.