William JamesWilliam James1842-19101842-1910
Pragmatic American School of Pragmatic American School of Psychology:Psychology:
Humanistic, Conscious PsychologyHumanistic, Conscious Psychology
Key QuestionsKey Questions
• What was James most concerned with?
• What is our basic existential problem?
• How did James view religion?
Intro William JamesIntro William James
• Concern?
• The worth and growth of the self
• We need to become ourselves
• Key insight?
• b/c of our need for acceptance by others, we are willing to deny the growth of true self
Our Problem?Our Problem?
• Need so much to be loved by significant other, we deny or distort or needs
• Therapy? A process of getting in touch with what and how we actually feel about our experiences
• Religion? Helps us get in touch with our experience of God (which we distort); something we cling to when desperate
BiographyBiography
• Famous family: brother, the novelist Henry James, sister Alice
• Family: grandfather William one of wealthiest in America: Father Henry bit of mystic; did not work
• depressive
• Long interested in the paranormal
Biography continuedBiography continued
• Gifted artist
• Graduated Harvard 1860
• Medical Doctor; taught at Harvard 1872
• Best known for Varieties of Religious Experience (1901)
• Wrote Principles of Psychology (1883-1889): most used textbook in psychology
Characteristics of JamesCharacteristics of James
• Open-minded w/eye of scientist• Many friends but depressive; always sick• Deep need to understand experience• Asked: What is experience trying to teach us?• Father’s influence; “bizarre” but powerful religion• James puzzled/fascinated by this• Varieties attempt to understand this
Views on ReligionViews on Religion
• Distrustful of organized religion
• Sensed something there (God), but no strong sense
• Reduced religion to ideals: Goodness, Truth, Simplicity
• saw as desirable and valuable but incapable of inspiring any passion
Views on Religion contViews on Religion cont
• Religion Man’s most important function
• Pragmatic: What does religion do for us?
• Believed nothing can do for a person what religion can do for a person
James’ Philosophy
• How does James’ overall philosophy influence his understanding of religion?
• Pragmatism and Pluralism
• Varieties of Religious Experience grew out of series of lectures given in Scotland (Gifford Lectures)
Goal of Gifford Lectures
• Understand experience of religion by the person
• Scientific approach
• Approached as Non-believer
• Describes nature of conversionary experience
Lecture #1
• Wants to distinguish (not separate) between:
• Existential judgment (judgment of facts) and…Spiritual fact (judgment of value)
• The “facts” of Bible and its value two different things
• *judgment of fact cannot determine judgment of value
Religion as “Acute Fever”
• Studied religious experience of founding figures of religions
• Interested in religion as an “acute fever” rather than dull habit
• So many living with “second hand religion”, or someone else’s experience
What makes something True?
• “roots” of religion (facts) and fruits (value) of religion
• To know one is not to know the other
• Truth of something is really a spiritual matter
• Truth not in origins but in way it works out as a whole over time (Pragmatic)
Three Criteria for Truth
• 1. Immediate luminousness: “Yeah, that’s right!”
• 2. Philosophical reasonableness: Does it coincide with most of what we already know?
• 3. Morally helpful: Does it aid in living more humanely
Lecture #2: What is Religion Really?
• Not a universal term
• God not universal concept
• No universal religious emotion
• Most think of institution, an organization
• Really more personal
• All religion founded on personal experience
James’ Definition of Religion
• the feelings, acts, and experiences of [individuals] in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves in relation to the Divine
• very American • Religious person has surrendered to
‘Higher Power’• Religious happiness very unique: no
happiness like religious happiness
Lecture #3: Conversionary, “Mystical” Experience
• Heart of James
• We can all sense reality in way that goes beyond the senses. Meaning?
• Extrasensory “sense of a presence”
• Leads to “deep understanding” of reality
Religion About Feeling
• Need to understand God in conceptual terms: God as Father, God as One, Trinity
• James: not how it works: is about feeling
• Connected to our body: “organismically” connected to God
• *Note: opposite to what Freud says about religious experience
Religion as Feeling: Four Keys Things
• 1. Primacy of Feelings: concepts (reason) ultimately based on feelings
• 2. Depth of Feeling: unreasoned, intuition, “sense” of truth: concepts only a surface manifestation of this deeper feeling
• 3. Feelings as Facts: by themselves concepts have no meaning w/o being based on deeper “felt experience”
Religion as Feeling cont.
• 4. Feelings as Knowledge and Truth: feelings are “source of knowledge: Jung took this from James
Two Paradigms of
• Paradigm of Control• Mind: can be explained• Can know about: Great
Mystery, Divine: puts God “in a Box”
• Can learn tradition
• concepts used to control
• Religion: understood in Mind
• Paradigm of Surrender• Mind and Body: cannot
be explained• Become one w/Greater
Mystery• Feelings: relates
organism to community
• Spirituality: understood through Body: becomes experiential “door to the world”
Two Orientations of Self: How can we be religiously happy?
• Healthy-Minded• Born happy• World is good• Not much self-
reflection: not needed
• Sick Souls• Lasting happiness
impossible
• We are evil• There is tragedy, loss,
pain• Only hope is to be
“born again”
Models of Conversion
• From: feelings of loss, depression, lack of meaning,
• To feelings of unity with self, God
Two Basic Temperaments (in people)
• Tender-Minded• Rationalistic (guided
by principles)• Monistic (unity in all
things)• Religious (belief in
principle of unity)
• Tough-Minded• Empiricist (rely on
facts)• Pluralistic (reality is
many, not one)• Irreligious and
skeptical
• Philosophically, James was empiricist and pluralistic
• Goal: combining tough-minded approach (scientific, loyal to observable facts) with tender-minded religious sensibilities
Monistic vs Pluralistic View of World
• Pluralistic View: • world is many
different things often in conflict
• More empirical : fact-based
• Evil seen as separate from the Good and God:
• Monistic View:• assumes deeper
meaning to life’s negative experiences
• Tends to resist concrete facts;
• Evil seen as mysteriously connected to God and the Good
Philosophical Context
• Pragmatism: adopted in U.S. more than anywhere else: looks at practical consequences of supposed truths and actions
• What is a pragmatic view of life?• What is a pragmatic approach to religious
truth?• Practical consequences of viewing world
as one or many?
Nature of Truth: Religious and Otherwise
• What difference does it make if this is true and that is not?– What is true is what works
• But what is goal of held truths (religious)?– Answer must come from somewhere other
than reason and rational: deepest human conviction
• What is true is what proves itself over time
Open-Book Quiz (10 pts)
• 1. Identify and describe the two conflicting concepts of God in James
• 2. Which type (healthy-minded religion or religion of the sick-souled) is attracted to which image of God?
• 3. What is each type (person) expecting from God?
• 4. Describe the religious experience of each • What is the sick soul saved from?• 5. How would you describe your religious
personality
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