Abstract
William James asserts that philosophy and science will only have something positive to contribute to determining the objective truth of religious claims when they cease to be dogmatic and become experimental. In this chapter, I focus on how James’ anti-dogmatic approach affects his defense of religious belief and psychical research. I conclude that in his efforts to undermine the dogmatic rejection of the very possibility of genuine religious phenomena by positivistic scientists and naturalist non-believers, James appeals to the pragmatic experimental method but is unable to produce convincing evidence. His version of pragmatic anti-dogmatism is then contrasted with John Dewey’s.
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Notes
R. A. McDermott, Introduction to W. James (1986) Essays in Psychical Research ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p. xix.
W. James (1901) ‘Frederic Myer’s Service to Psychology’ in Essays in Psychical Research, p. 197.
W. James (1984) The Varieties of Religious Experience ( New York: Penguin American Library ), pp. 433, 455–6.
W. James (1975) Pragmatism ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press ), pp. 32–3.
C. H. Seigfried (1990) William James’s Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy ( Albany: State University of New York Press ), pp. 238–9.
W. James (1976) Essays in Radical Empiricism ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press ), p. 81.
W. James (1975) The Meaning of Truth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 6–7. James’ claim that relations are directly experienced is defended in
C. H. Seigfried (1978) Chaos and Context: A Study in William James ( Athens, OH: Ohio University Press).
For James’ inability to accept women and other marginalized ethnic and racial groups as fully human, see chapter 6, ‘The Feminine Mystical Threat to the Scientific- Masculine Order’, in C. H. Seigfried (1996) Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press ), pp. 111–41.
See C. H. Seigfried (2000) ‘The Philosopher’s “License”: William James and Common Sense’ in K. Oehler (ed.) William James: Pragmatism (Berlin: Akademie Verlag), pp. 93–110. James always characterizes philosophers as male and takes mysticism as a more typically female experience. See Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, pp. 131–41.
As Sami Pihlström argues, and the preceding pages explain, James’ humanized pragmatism means that no higher perspective on truth and falsity is available to us than our own best, most critical practices. However, it also seems clear that the warrant James seeks would be epistemically as well as religiously convincing. I am arguing that James fails to prove his religious claims according to his own well- founded pragmatist criteria. Pihlström’s recognition of ‘a deep structural analogy between pragmatically reconstructed transcendental arguments and Jamesian will to believe arguments’ seems a promising way to reconstruct James’ position to make it more plausible. S. Pihlström (2008) ‘The Trail of the Human Serpent is Over Everything’: Jamesian Perspectives on Mind, World, and Religion ( Lanham, MD: University Press of America ), pp. 46–7.
Quoted in R. B. Perry (1935) The Thought and Character of William James, Vol. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown ), p. 455.
W. James (1979) The Will to Believe ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press ), p. 141.
R. A. Moody, foreword, in M. Morse with P. Perry (1990) Closer to the Light ( New York: Villard Books), p. xii;
M. Morse with P. Perry (1990) Transformed by the Light ( New York: Villard Books), p. ix.
William James (1981 [1890]) The Principles of Psychology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), Vol. 2, pp. 923–4.
W. James ( 1986 [1901]) ‘Frederic Myer’s Service to Psychology’ in Essays in Psychical Research ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press ), pp. 192–201.
Moody, Closer to the Light, p. xi; and H. Smith (2000) Cleansing the Doors of Perception (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam), pp. xvi, 78.
C. S. Peirce (1982) Pragmatism: The Classic Writings, ed. H. S. Thayer (Indianapolis: Hackett ), p. 64.
In a companion essay to this one, I question James’ sanguine belief that religious beliefs have nothing to fear from scientific scrutiny. I also argue that Dewey took up James’ naturalistic religious project and exposed his biased assumptions and faulty reasoning, while also missing his own subjective assumptions in regard to science. See C. H. Seigfried (2012) ‘Distinguishing Myth from Reality: Are Pragmatic Tools Sufficient?’, Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 66 (260), Special issue on William James, pp. 187–205.
J. Dewey (1957 [1922]) Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Modern Library). He does mention religious experience in passing when he criticizes James’ defense of taking moral holidays, pp. 242–3, and, like James, he thinks that institutional religion fosters dogmatism and intolerance, pp. 301–2.
J. Dewey (1988) Experience and Nature, in Later Works, Vol. 1: 1925 ( Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press ), p. 41.
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© 2013 Charlene Haddock Seigfried
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Seigfried, C.H. (2013). Anti-Dogmatism as a Defense of Religious Belief. In: Rydenfelt, H., Pihlström, S. (eds) William James on Religion. Philosophers in Depth. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137317353_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137317353_3
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