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WILLIAM JAMES (1842-1910) - Coggle Diagram
WILLIAM JAMES (1842-1910)
CONTEXT
Probably the most famous commentator on religious experience.
Psychologist and Philosopher
Pragmatist
Varieties of Religious Experience (1902),
originally the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh in 1901-1902.
He is not trying to prove religious experience happen or that God exists.
METHOD
He collected many testimonies of people who have claimed to have religious experiences.
Analysed them.
Categorised into types.
Then noted common features.
PRAGMATIC APPROACH
Concerned with actual, practical effects on people, not supernatural speculations
James could not see their actual religious experience but he could see/study their effects.
His method is systematic, methodical, regulated and scientific
DEFINING RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE ACCORDING TO WILLIAM JAMES:
“The feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (Varieties; Lecture 2).
For James, religious experience stands at the very heart of religion. Religious teachings, practices and attitudes are ‘second hand’ religion.
FINDINGS
Commonly, these experiences have a profound effect on people
Life transforming
Positive effects: happier outlook on life, sense of purpose and meaning, benefits to sense of morality, better relationships with others etc.
Distinguished between the ‘healthy minded soul’ and the ‘sick soul’
Healthy minded: open to ideas and possibilities, optimistic and hopeful
Sick soul: cynical and sceptical
Religious experience tends to make people healthy minded
COMMON CORE
JAMES CONCLUDED THAT MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES HAVE A COMMON CORE:
PASSIVE
Undergoing religious experience, no control, taken over, consumed
INFEFFABLE
Most recognised characteristic of religious experience – beyond words
NOETIC
Knowledge and information gained about God/ revelation
TRANSIENT
Experience does not last long but lasting effect on person – well remembered
PSYCHOLOGIST
In James’ day many dismissed religious experiences as the product of a ‘faulty’ mind. (Freud)
James had a more positive interpretation of religious experience.
He was impressed by the certainty of the testimonies of those who had religious experiences. They had a quality that was “more convincing than results established by mere logic.”
James rejects Freud and accepts C. Jung’s theory about religious experiences.
Jung encouraged people to pay attention to how their unconscious life manifests itself in their conscious life because by so doing an individual can become more whole.
Development of our spiritual aspect was essential to psychological wholeness.
Jung was of the view that a religious experience was a precipitation of unconscious contents into the conscious mind and by engaging with it the individual is re-orientating themselves around a new centre of submerged energy.
James suggests that all religion points to the feeling that there is something wrong with us as we stand, and that this is corrected by becoming in touch with something ‘more’ in religious experience.
By ‘more’ he meant something external to ourselves as we usually experience ourselves, and by so doing it can give their life greater meaning and purpose.
Indeed James even suggests that the unconscious may be a conduit of spiritual reality, which we could call abstractly, ‘God’.
PRAGMATISM
Truth is ‘what works’
If believing in something produces useful practical results for us it is true.
For the pragmatist, the test of a thing’s truth is whether believing it produces real effects in your life.
Pragmatism differs totally from empiricism in that it has no “prejudices, no rigid canons of what shall count as proof…she will entertain any hypothesis” as long as its rational benefit can be shown.
DYNAMIC IDEA OF TRUTH
An idea’s usefulness determines its truthfulness
‘Putting the idea into practice is the process by which it becomes true.
An idea is made true by events.
IMPLICATIONS
The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it, rather truth happens to a idea – pragmatic
Truth is distinct from Facts, such as the laws of science.
PRAGMATISM & RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES
James recognised the psychological necessity of humans to hold certain beliefs, particularly religious ones.
Belief in a God is not justifiable as a fact.
But this belief is useful to its believer if it allows her to lead a more fulfilled life or overcome the fear of death.
These things - a more fulfilled life and a fearless confrontation of death become true; they happen as a result of a belief and the actions based upon it.
So belief in a religious experience is true for the believer if it is useful to them.
CRITICISM
Belief in God could be damaging to an individual because you are believing in something without evidence.
If you apply pragmatism to other situations, e.g. someone believes in the idea to kill someone in order to seek revenge. The murderer may believe their actions to be true and show no remorse for their actions. This clearly will cause harm to others such as the family of the victim.
(Whether James would regard their action as useful is another matter because of its effects of the action?)
Freud’s argument that religious experience is a neurotic illness which originates in the mind.
DO RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES PROVIDE A BASIS FOR BELIEF IN GOD OR A GREATER POWER?
HOW CAN JAMES' FINDING BE USED TO SUPPORT THE TRADITIONAL CLAIM THAT GOD EXISTS?
He noted the common features – PINT – these could be coming from the same source – God.
He noted the transforming effects on people and this could be evidence that it was indeed an experience with an actual God. Link with Teresa of Avila
Transient – it is a very short experience but it has a long lasting impact on the person. This could be evidence for God’s omnipotence.
James does not rule out the possibility that it might be an experience of God; he talks about it being ‘something more’.
HOWEVER James didn’t believe in God in the traditional sense so one could be misusing his findings. James’ understanding of the statement ‘God exists’ is very different.
MAIN CONCLUSIONS
Effects are real = real cause. If God is believed to be the cause, then God exists to those individuals. The belief is true for the individual in the sense it is useful
Real and true = positive effects, whereas things that are false have negative effects.
Religious experience has positive effects, so source is more likely to be true
Scripture is often seen as the central source of Churches but James emphasizes the importance of revelation, prayer etc.
This notable change in behaviour is why James suggested that RE was the inspiration and source of religious institutions.
Compared parallels and similarities between Religious Experience and other types of experience e.g. dreams and hallucinations.
Suggested that Religious Experience could be linked to our subconscious ideas.
Concluded that Religious Experiences on own do not demonstrate God’s existence although they can suggest the existence of ‘something larger.’
The visible world is part of a greater spiritual world. (Ambiguous about the existence of a God, but talked about something ‘more.’)
Union with that greater world is our true purpose
Prayer or communion with that world lets energy flow from there to our visible world, resulting in psychological and material effects (wholeness).