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