William James
Balkenbichibusine Choi, Taylor Orton, Brittany Brunson
Philosophy 1000
4/29/13
Philosophers throughout the ages have raised some very difficult questions—
questions like, what is knowledge? Does the “mind” exist? Do we have free will? Is there
only one reality? Is there a God? What is virtue? Is experience more valuable than
reason, or vise versa? Can we know anything? Many philosophers raise these kinds of
questions, and then don’t give any definite answers to them. Philosophy has a tendency to
destroy beliefs, rather than to clarify or strengthen them. However, in the mid-eighteenth
century, William James came into the picture as the first great American philosopher who
demanded that philosophy be able to answer these kinds of questions and more. James
attempted to answer basic philosophical questions through his teachings on pragmatism,
determinism, and religious belief.
First, it is important to understand William James’s background and upbringing.
The last half of the nineteenth century was a period of great confidence in science. In that
era, especially, in America, it was a period of expansion. People influenced by Darwin’s
theory of evolution, and believed the continuous growing. William James was the most
well-known, and influential American philosopher. Also, he was most original advocate
of pragmatism.
William James’ father was restless man, so William James spent lots of time as
moving about. His entire family moved to Europe in 1855. After his years of moving
about, he entered Harvard as a chemistry major. His interests shifted to biology, anatomy,
and physiology. He was so impressed by Jean Louis Agassiz, one of Harvard’s influential
faculty, so he accompanied Agassiz’s expedition to the Amazon for eight months. During
his school years, he suffered mentally and physically. He was in constant state of anxiety
and dreaded being alone. He was saved by an idea of Chalres Renouvier, who is French
philosopher, and characterized the free will as the ability to hold on to one idea among a
number of possibilities. William James developed an interest in the relationship between
mind and body as his lingering sickness and unhappiness. He completed his education
and taught physiology at Harvard. His interest in physiology then took him into
psychology, and he wrote a textbook for psychology in 1890. He also published his first
philosophy book, The will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy in 1896.
His work became influential, and he altered the shape of American philosophy. In 1907,
the year Pragmatism appeared, He retired from Harvard and spent rest of his life as
resolving to craft a fuller expression of pragmatism.
The basis of William James’s teachings was Pragmatism, which is defined in
Archetypes of Wisdom as “the belief that ideas have meaning or truth value to the extent
that they produce practical results and effectively further our aims” (Soccio, 2007, p.
567). James was always searching for a kind of philosophy that wasn’t just “meaningless
abstractions”, as he called it. He wanted to resist the abstract, and instead deal with issues
that actually face us in our day to day lives. For example, James essentially denounced
the entire branch of metaphysics, because he believed that arguing and disputing whether
the world was material or spiritual, of one or many, fated or free, was pointless for our
lives because they lacked what James called “cash value”. Disputing about metaphysics
doesn’t have any cash value, any practical payoff, and therefore it is entirely more
important to focus on discussing other more worthwhile subjects. Another way that
James determined whether or not an idea was useful in our lives was by saying “true
ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are
those that we cannot” (Soccio, 2007, p. 431). This was his theory for how we gain truth—
which is through the repetitive process of experiment and observation, much like the
scientific method, and much like Kantian Formalism. However one important distinction
is that this truth verification process must be exercised only to reach the end goal of
determining the cash value of beliefs.
Pragmatism was James’s philosophical religion, so to speak. He wanted it to be a
method, rather than a collection of beliefs. This method would be used for feeling more
comfortable or at home in the universe. So what does it mean to feel at home in the
universe? According to James, it doesn’t mean depending on a set collection of
unchanging knowledge, it means depending on things that suit each one of us
individually. James believed there were two categories of people—the tender-minded,
with temperaments such as optimistic, idealistic, and intellectualistic; and the toughminded, with temperaments like pessimistic, materialistic, and sensationalistic. James
thought that previously established philosophies were too strictly one sided, either
completely tender-minded or completely tough minded. He wanted to get rid of this all or
nothing attitude because in reality, most people are a unique mixture of tough and tender.
When we succumb to an extreme, one sided order of beliefs that do not suit us, we are
suppressing important elements of ourselves and over-intensify others. That is why James
advocated finding a cause that speaks to you personally or a personal philosophical
religion. This goes hand in hand with The Will to Believe.
James once gave a famous lecture called The Will to Believe, but he said later that
he ought to have rather called it The Right to Believe. James believed in a couple distinct
rules, first that each of us has the right to believe in something, and those beliefs are
unique products of our own individual temperaments and experience. The second rule is
that we’re constantly forced to make decisions in life—to act and to respond. James
brought these two rules together by saying that the basis of our actions and decision
making should be our beliefs, not our understanding. If we only acted on that which we
totally and certainly understood, we would not be able to do very much. Another element
of James’s teachings on beliefs is that our beliefs are constantly subject to change, as we
learn and grow and experience. This is especially true when it comes to beliefs about
morals and religion. The model for gaining new beliefs starts with a new idea, and then as
we practice and test out that idea against past experiences, it becomes true. Or in different
terms, as James put it, “truth happens to an idea”. This model goes completely against the
rationalist’s model, which is that truth is universal, unchanging, and contextless. James
thought that this was entirely unhelpful and unrealistic when you consider how
individuals can be in changing situations and have various temperaments. Truth, in order
for it to have cash value in our lives, must be alive, growing, and personal.
Another one of the topics that James discussed in his lectures was determinism.
Determinism is the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately
determined by causes external to the will. Meaning that everything will happen exactly
the way it does since all matter obeys the laws of cause and effect. Determinism should
not be confused with pre-determinism, which is the idea that the entire past, as well as the
future, was determined at the origin of the universe. Determinism is the philosophical
idea that every event or state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the
inevitable and necessary consequence of previous states of affairs. For everything that
happens there are conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could happen.
William James believed, as most philosophers, that free will is a crucial component for
moral responsibility; however, acts of will are determined by preceding events. Take for
example Jean Valjean from the musical Les Miserables, who went to jail because he stole
bread when he was starving. According to determinism, the event of starving caused the
robbery of bread. He had his free will, he could have chosen not to steal the bread; but he
had to steal the bread because the condition of starving to death gave him no other option.
James’ theory does pose the question, ‘is determinism in accordance with veritable
feelings?’ An honest person feels remorse after doing something dishonest; however,
according to determinism, regardless if Valjean felt remorse or not, it doesn’t really
matter. There is no room for moral feelings because given the past conditions, it was
inevitable.
William James had deep concern about religion. Religious faith is important on
pragmatic ground. He thought a religion as the thing enriches people’s lives and
something has “cash value.” He believed that people in all culture believe in God (or
Gods) who gets things done, not like passive, ineffective God. So, he claimed, “If people
do not believe in God, it might be because God is not doing anything.” He also thought
that a religious belief is more effective than non-religious because it is broader. It covers
a wider range of experiences, and more expansive consciousness than a purely secular
point of view. The textbook, Archetypes of Wisdom said that “In his study of religious
experience, James distinguished between two basic personalities, the ‘healthy-minded’
and the ‘morbid-minded.’ Healthy-minded people ‘look on all things and see that they are
good.’ Such people are vital, enthusiastic, and exuberant. In contrast the attitude of the
morbid-minded person is ‘based on the persuasion that the evil aspects of our life are its
very essence, and that the world’s meaning most comes home to us when we lay them
most to heart.’” (Soccio, 2007, p. 443) By end of his life, he linked “true” with “useful.”
He claimed that “sometimes psychological survival rest on the will to believe whatever is
necessary.” He believed that the beliefs are the adaptations, and truth is always personal.
In his view, usefulness is the main value instead of the truth, but usefulness in the moral
sense of producing healthy results. He also practiced his own rule: “Better a necessary lie
than a destructive, and unnecessary truth.”
So what is knowledge? Does the mind really exist? Do we have free will? Is there
a God? What is more valuable, reason or experience? How do you know that you know
something? Thanks to William James’ determination to step up the game of philosophers
we can answer these questions for ourselves, and not for the whole world. Because of
James we can strengthen our beliefs without having to defend them; and they can hold
true for us as individuals. Philosophy changed for the better after William James, because
he gave us so many valuable things. He gave us room to grow, the opportunity to learn
from our mistakes. He gave us the responsibility of our actions but validation for our
choices. He gave us comfort through his pragmatic method of religion. Most importantly,
he gave philosophy a middle ground, a grey area, so it didn’t have to be only black or
white.
Bibliography
Soccio, D. A. (2007). Archetypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy (Seventh
Edition ed.). Wadsworth.