PHIL/RS 335 James, Varieties, Pt. 1

William James  We’ve run into James before, in the discussion of the evidential challenge. In response to concerns about justification of religious belief, James argued that in the absence of a clear justificatory strategy, the transformative implications warrant belief in God.  At the time, I mentioned that James’s position is a result of his commitment to pragmatism, which James defines as, “the meaning of any proposition can always be brought down to some particular consequence in our future practical experience… “ (The Meaning of Truth, 210).

Radical Empiricism  Though James identifies with the Pragmatist tradition, he describes his own particular philosophical perspective as a radical empiricism.  Let’s explore this conjunction:  Empiricism: typically contrasted with rationalism (emphasizes universals; wholes prior to parts). Empiricism focuses on explanatory role of parts (whole merely a collection; universals an abstraction). As James puts it, empiricism is “a philosophy of plural facts.”  Radical: James’ empiricism is not Hume’s, which focuses on atomistic sense-datum). James’s empiricism is radical because it demands that all directly experienced features of our experience–including the relation between things– be included in our investigations.  Conjunctive and disjunctive relations are real elements of experience.

A Postulate, a Statement, and a Conclusion  “Radical empiricism consists (1) first of a postulate, (2) next of a statement of fact, (3) and finally of a generalized conclusion…” (The Meaning of Truth, xii-xiii).  “The Postulate is that the only things that shall be debatable among philosophers shall be things definable in terms drawn from experience.”  This is what James calls the “principle of pure experience,” a “methodological postulate.”  “The statement of fact is that the relations between things, conjunctive as well as disjunctive, are just as much matters of direct experience, neither more so nor less so than the things themselves.”  This statement serves to distinguish radical empiricism from its more traditional brethren.  “The generalized conclusion is that therefore the parts of experience hold together from next to next by relations that are themselves part of experience. The directly apprehended universe needs, in short, no extraneous trans-empirical connective support, but possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous structure.”

A “Mosaic Philosophy”  “To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced” (Essays in Radical Empiricism, 42).  “Life is in the transitions as much as in the terms connected…” (Essays in Radical Empiricism, 86-7).  “Let empiricism once become associated with religion, as hitherto, through some strange misunderstanding it has been associated with irreligion, and I believe that a new era of religion as well as of philosophy will be ready to begin” (A Pluralistic Universe, 314).

The Varieties of Religious Experience  The Varieties was the published version of James’s Gifford Lectures, delivered at the University of Edinburgh during the academic year.  The Gifford lectures are devoted to the topic of natural theology, understood in this particular instance, refers to theological inquiry in its relationship to the human and physical sciences.  Part of the bequest which funds the lectures requires that they be made available to the public in published form. The Varieties is one of the most popular and enduring of these publications.

Lecture 1: Religion and Neurology  After beginning with the usual modesties, James specifies his approach. He is going to offer a descriptive psychological survey of human religious propensities.  What propensities?  Not institutional or conventional. This form of religious experience is dead, "His religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to him by fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit.”  Rather, James is interested in the subjective phenomena of religion, "If the enquiry be psychological, not religious emotions, but rather religious feelings and religious impulses must be its subject, and I must confine myself to those more developed subjective phenomena recorded in literature produced by articulate and fully self- conscious men in works of piety and autobiography” (5).

The Form of Address  In addition to specifying the object of an inquiry, it is also necessary to specify the form that the inquiry will take.  James acknowledges that the focus on religious experience could be pursued in a couple of different ways.  We could inquire into the nature and origin of the propensities in question.  Or we could pursue the issue of their philosophical significance (importance, meaning).  Two orders of judgment correspond to these forms of inquiry. The first he characterizes as existential, the second as spiritual.  James makes clear that he is pursuing the first of these forms/judgments.

Religious Geniuses  As James makes clear, he is interested in the recorded experiences of figures that he describes as “religious geniuses.”  What tends to characterize such genius is the close proximity of profound, extreme religious experience and psychological abnormality (8).  A characteristic example: George Fox (the founder of Quakerism): “Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield!”

Medical Materialism  James is quick to anticipate and defend himself from the criticism that he is reducing religion to pathology or sully it with the merely physical.  James is careful to differentiate his approach from what he calls “medical materialism,” which is essentially the reduction of psychological phenomenon to underlying material causation.  See the examples on pp  It is not that James is denying the appropriateness of this reduction. Rather, he is insisting that it is no measure of the living significance of a particular behavior, idea or state of affairs.  Consider the case of St. Teresa of Avila and the discussion of Maudley and Edwards (21-22, 23-4).

Do we need to be weird?  Despite this distinction, it might legitimately be protested that James’s focus on extreme religious eccentricity distorts the reality of religious experience.  James offers two justifications for his focus.  The focus on abnormality helps shed light on the normal (either by establishing boundary descriptions or by illustrative contrast).  History suggests that psychological instability, when allied with talent or ability, often produces the highest level of human accomplishment.

“A Study in Human Nature”  The subtitle of the work helps us understand James’s aim.  Religious experience is one specific region of human experience, one which is commonly characterized by extreme forms of common psychological phenomena.  An evaluation of religious experience that keeps this in mind thus has the double value of revealing something to us about the specific character of that experience while also helping us understand experience in general (28-9).