William James and "live options"

[Contarini]

I don’t see the difference between the phrase “live option” and the phrase “works for you”.

You stated that Islam was not a live option for you. I would say that Islam does not work for me. There is no difference between the two phrases.

Theism, especially the Abrahamic religions, do not work for me. They are not a live option for me.

Perhaps you can further explain the difference between the two statements. I can see none.

First of all, I think the problem with the phrase “work for you” is that to many people it implies solely pragmatic criteria such as whether something helps you lead a happy life, etc. People hear it and think that questions of truth or falsehood don’t matter at all–that one could choose a belief system that they had no reason to think was true simply because it would make them happy or help them overcome their psychological problems or even because it was more socially acceptable. I suspect that what James means by an idea “working” is broader than this, but I’m confining myself to what he says in “Will to Believe” because I don’t consider myself to be broadly familiar with James’ ideas.

I was actually sloppy in my citation of James’ language–he defines an “option” as a choice between two “hypotheses” (I was using “option” where he uses “hypothesis”). He defines a live hypothesis this way:

A live hypothesis is one which appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed. If I ask you to believe in the Mahdi (James is talking about a particular Sudanese claimant to the title, but this is an ironically relevant example given Ahmadinejad’s visit last week), the notion makes no electric connection with your nature,–it refuses to scintillate with any credibility at all. As an hypothesis it is completely dead. To an Arab, however (even if he be not one of the Mahdi’s followers), the hypothesis is among the mind’s possibilities: it is alive. This shows that deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, but relations to the individual thinker. They are measured by his willingness to act. The maximum of liveness in an hypothesis means willingness to act irrevocably. Practically, this means belief; but there is some believing tendency wherever there is willingness to act at all.

In other words, a “live hypothesis” for James is one that we find intrinsically believable, at least to some extent. A “living option” is a choice between two live hypotheses. As he notes, different hypotheses are “living” to different people, although he is too bland in his assumption that this is culturally determined, and that none of his readers can possibly be anything except skeptics or Protestants!

Edwin

 

[AgnosTheist]

Contarini, what can you say about this description from wikipedia…

*“The Will to Believe” is the title of William James’s classic lecture (published in 1897) defending our right to adopt beliefs as hypotheses and self-fulfilling prophecies even without prior evidence of their truth. This initial point is uncontroversial, not many philosophers will disagree with James about our right to hypothesize and adopt self-fulfilling beliefs without evidence. However, James extends this point to argue that once beliefs in things like God, freedom, immortality, freewill, possibility, and morality have been adopted using the doctrine, evidence will come to verify these beliefs that we couldn’t have achieved any other way. James is able to hold this more controversial point because he combines it with his pragmatic theory of truth, an account where a belief is verified when its adoption allows us to better interact with the world. So, for example, while no evidence can justify the initial adoption of a belief in God, if we adopt the belief without evidence as a hypothesis, we will come to better succeed in the world and the belief will then be verified as true. That isn’t to say it will be verified for everyone, but **for many people it will make their lives better and will therefore be true for them *(relying on James’ pluralism regarding truth).

 

[Contarini]

The article refers to James’ larger theory of pragmatism, which I do not claim to understand well. However, it seems pretty clear to me that a true belief will help us interact better with the world. It’s possible that I’m not doing justice to just how radical James’ relativism is. But I don’t see why it should be controversial that once you start acting on the basis of a belief, the results of your actions will further confirm (or refute) the belief.

By and large, I think I disagree strongly with James insofar as he claims to be describing the nature of things as they are. But by definition I don’t think he’s doing anything of the sort. He’s proposing a way to deal with the fragmented, incomplete, confusing reality of life in this world. I even think that to some extent it’s compatible with some aspects of the philosophy of Aquinas, principally the insight that all our knowledge is based on sense experience and the teaching that our language about God always fragments the unitary reality of God. Aquinas also saw truth and goodness as closely interrelated, which has some resemblance to James’ insistence that truth was a kind of good.

It seems to me that a lot of conservative Christians jump way too quickly from an affirmation that there is Absolute truth to the assumption that we can access that Truth As It Is. It seems pretty clear to me that we can’t, and therefore that James’ pluralism and pragmatism have considerable value.

However, as I said, I’ve been reading “Will” in isolation from James’ larger philosophy.

Edwin

 

[AgnosTheist]

But I don’t see why it should be controversial that once you start acting on the basis of a belief, the results of your actions will further confirm (or refute) the belief.

maybe because it implies that just about anything could be justified as a true religion based on personal experience. is that what he’s saying?

 

[Contarini]

maybe because it implies that just about anything could be justified as a true religion based on personal experience. is that what he’s saying?

The more I look into it, the more I realize that I don’t have a handle on James. I don’t know how far he took this “pragmatism” business. I probably am distorting his ideas–but that’s surely OK as long as I’m honest about it (i.e., I can learn from him without agreeing with everything)!

I would say that there is an objective reality “out there” and that things that are false will not be justified based on personal experience. However, pretty much no idea or practice is entirely false. So I guess that’s why I find James’ “pragmatism” congenial–I think it’s a good approach to things from our limited perspective. So, for instance, a person may find Wicca to “work” in the sense of making them a better, healthier, happier person. As a Christian, I don’t think that means that Wicca is true for that person and Christianity is true for me (which is probably what James would say), but I think it means that something in Wicca is true, or it wouldn’t be having these beneficial effects on the person’s life. And since my perspective on Christianity is limited, it may even be that my Christianity can learn something from their Wicca.

There certainly are ideas that do not justify themselves in this pragmatic sense–i.e., they destroy people’s lives and fall to pieces when you try to live them. However, yet again this varies from one person to another. And again, because of our limited perspective I have to withhold judgment on this. I would say that if someone practices orthodox Christianity and it doesn’t “work” (of course it may be working in ways that the person doesn’t want, and that’s another issue, but I’m talking about “not working” in the sense of making the person more selfish, despairing, fearful, angry, etc., rather than less), it’s because they are practicing it in the wrong way. But that’s an easy thing to say.

Edwin