WILLIAM JAMES

The Freedom to Believe:A Justification of specific

types of faith

William James (1842 – 1910)

[ Background ]

Father Henry Sr., Brother Henry Jr.

Lifelong Depression

Soft determinism (Brockton murder)

Principles of Psychology 1990

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) and Pragmatism

Central Principle (the thesis)

“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”

Genuine Option - Definition

i) forced (vs. unforced): options span possibility space

ii) live (vs. dead): appears as a real possibility

iii) momentous (vs. trivial): has some appeal to “passional nature”

GENUINE OPTION - Examples

[Decision whether to jump out of car during accident.]

James’ Examples:

morality

making friends mountaineering, and…

THE RELIGIOUS HYPOTHESIS

[Odd] definition:

i) “the best things are the more eternal things”

ii) “we are better off even now if we believe [ i ] to be true”

Calculus [?] of Genuine Options

Two dangers: believing falsely, losing truth.

Two prizes: avoiding error, believing truth.

James’ personal view is an argument that losing truth is worse than believing falsely (or that believing the truth is worth more than avoiding error).

[No proof, or else not genuine option.]

Best Objection

Believing/not believing too coarseMust be replaced with

Degrees of confidence, and Decision calculus under conditions of

uncertainty. E.g.: checking tires when a funny

noise heard.