William James

Notes

William James (1842–1910) was an American psychologist and philosopher, a founder of both American psychology and pragmatism. The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) is still the starting point for the study of mystical states and conversion: it identifies the four marks of mystical experience (ineffability, noetic quality, transience, passivity) and treats conversion as a psychological event with a natural history. His essay "The Will to Believe" (1896) is the respectable ancestor of Pascal's Wager. He appears here for Religious Experience and the Argument from Religious Transformation.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James

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Argument from Religious Transformation

William James

Religious Experience

The shape of the thing. William James identified four marks of the mystical experience in 1902: it cannot be put into words, it feels like knowledge, it is brief, and it feels as if it happens to you. The second of these, the "noetic quali…

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Faith

…ecause beliefs are not private: they issue in actions, and they are contagious. William James replied that in some cases one must choose without evidence. I side with Cliffo…

Pragmatism

…Pragmatism is the American philosophical tradition founded by and developed by William James and John Dewey, with as its best-known recent voice. Its central idea is that t…