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Disbelief and the Will to Believe

The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (Illustrated)

I'll here continue yesterday's discussion on William James' skepticism about  the argument from design, which was in turn continuing a discussion from the week before.

In my recent exchange in the comments section of this blog with Henry, I observed that there has been an alliance, in the development of the philosophy of religion, between fideists and unbelievers.
A fideist by standard definition is one who embraces a religious creed and who sees that embrace (Faith) as valuable in itself, and again who sees it as "in some sense independent of, if not outright adversarial toward, reason."

James's essay on the "will to believe" is a rather moderate expression of fideism. He is certainly not advocating an adversarial relationship with reason, but he does argue that there are matters reason doesn't decide, and that in these matters an intellectualized expression of human will -- Faith -- may and in fact must step in. It is good that Faith plays such a role: it may save a mountain climber from death in a crevasse.

Fideists like James (and long before him Pascal, and long before him the monk Gaunilo, and long before him the Church Father Tertullian) have something in common with those who disbelieve the creed altogether (and, in terms of any creed that involves belief in a God, Henry tells us he ranks as a disbeliever). What they have in common is that both fideists and disbelievers  dispute arguments intended to prove, by reason, the creed in question. They are both alike opposed to, say, Josiah Royce or long before him St. Thomas Aquinas or long before him St. Anselm or long before him Philo of Alexandria. This commonality of the opposition shows up in some mutual borrowing of the counter-arguments of fideists and disbelievers.

I gather that Henry, as a disbeliever, rejects such an alliance. I admire his go-it-alone resolution.

As to James' own fideism, I will make a couple of further points. First, even in the notorious will-to-believe essay it was qualified, as noted. He is not among those who would boast of believing something because it is absurd.

Second, it is more thoroughly qualified by the arguments in Varieties of Religious Experience.  Here, James has his own experiential argument (not a proof or even an attempted proof) for the existence of a God: an argument based on subliminal consciousness, mysticism, and psychic phenomena. He advanced the hypothesis that these three data were related: that our subliminal consciousness is continuous with a "more" that may be a source of knowledge not obtained through ordinary channels, and that may in turn at the rare deeper levels of mystical experience put us in touch with God. 

"Who says 'hypothesis' renounces the ambition to be coercive in his arguments" he said in this connection.

His argument against the supposedly coercive proofs of a Designer is part of that renunciation.
 


Comments

  1. Christopher,

    I’ll comment on two of your points: (1) my rejection of an alliance with fideists, and (2) James’ argument in Varieties.

    (1) It is true that fideists and I both deny that reason can prove the existence of God, but you do not say whether fideists do so, like me, because they have concluded that reason cannot prove the existence of God. You say that they do so because they prefer to faith to reason, at least for this purpose. That leaves open the question whether they believe that reason, whether or not they choose to use it, can prove the existence of God.

    You say that James said that, where reason cannot decide a question, faith must step in. If one’s goal, however, is to establish the truth of an assertion, such as that God exists, then faith is unhelpful. If one’s goal is to feel better, then, for some people, faith may work. If a person believes that his life would be meaningless if God does not exist, and that person would become depressed, or need to escape from life into alcohol or drugs, without faith that God exists, then I would not begrudge him his faith, but I would consider it unfortunate that he needed to fool himself by believing something for which he had no evidence.

    Here I think of Hawthorne’s report of a visit from Melville, when “Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had ‘pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated’; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief. ... He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality than most of us.” (I take “annihilated” to mean to concede that there is no life after death; please let me know if you read it differently.) I feel for Melville because he did not have the comfort of one who can believe, or one who, like me, is comfortable in his unbelief. Incidentally, I consider myself fortunate in being comfortable in my unbelief; I take no credit for it.

    (2) I have not read Varieties for 25 years, so I do not know whether you do justice to what you call James’ “experiential argument” for the existence of God. If you do, then it is question-begging, in the correct use of that term, because it assumes what it is trying to prove, namely the existence of God. But you say that an experiential argument is not a proof or even an attempted proof. In that case, how can it even be an argument? It is merely an experience.

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  2. I recommend this essay, "Why I am an Atheist," by Colin McGinn: http://mcginn.philospot.com/index.php?story=story100111-211826

    McGinn is a wonderfully clear writer, so don't be put off by the length of the piece; I predict that, once you start, you'll find it difficult to stop. Here is a sample from it:

    "People believe in the reality of their own God but they are not similarly credulous when it comes to other people’s gods—here their disbelief is patent and powerful. They do not preach agnosticism about those other gods; they reject them outright. I am with them on this point, but I extend it to their God too. My point is that they are as “dogmatic” as I am in their atheism; we are just atheists about different gods. I am an atheist about all gods; typical theists are atheists about the majority of gods believed in over the centuries by human beings of one tribe or another. I find their disbelief thoroughly sensible; I would merely urge them to push it one stage further."

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  3. Henry, three quick points:

    1) fideists offer quite rational counter-arguments to arguments for the existence of God: Guanilo's early reply to Anselm's "ontological proof" is an outstanding example of this. So, I would contend, is the Jamesian argument I've been discussing of late countering the argument from design.

    2) as to whether fideists believe rational proof of God's existence is impossible in principle: that very much depends upon the fideist. Kant certainly thought it impossible in principle, because if there is a God He is not part of the phenomenal world whence all proofs arise -- He is noumenal and thus shadowy. I don't think that was James' position -- he would say that all the particular arguments known to him were inadequate as proofs, and he offered explanations why, but no general argument that they MUST be. Kierkegaard -- another one of the usual suspects in discussions of fideism -- you probably know better than I do.

    3) of course there are arguments that aren't proofs. Even good arguments that aren't proofs. We see this in non-metaphysical contexts all the time. A meteorologist will likely understand that his argument that a hurricane will hit the coast of Florida next week is only a matter of probability, not of proof. If the hurricane goes a bit to the north and hits Georgia instead, the meteorologist was wrong but it does not follow that he was irrational.




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  4. Regarding your 3), I did not say that James' experience was an argument that did not constitute proof; I said that it was not an argument. The only experience you mention on which James based his alleged argument was his experience of "subliminal consciousness" (if one can experience that). How can that or any mere experience constitute an argument? Would it make any more sense to say that the experience of coughing constitutes an argument for the existence of God?

    Admittedly, one could have an experience of witnessing a person walk on water or resurrect a corpse, and argue from that experience that God exists. But that isn't a mere experience; it is an experience of witnessing an event outside oneself.

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  5. I didn't mean to say it was an argument based on his experience, alone or especially. I called it an "experiential argument" because it is an argument based on the range of human experiences. I gather I didn't do justice to it, and will try to do so another time. What I will say now is this: we can certainly "experience" the consequences of our subliminal knowledge in a convincing way. We can come to be aware of something in a way that leads us also to believe that we've know it in some sense for some time. You've probably had such experiences yourself.

    A very non-Jamesian example here: If you're looking for your car keys, and suddenly your cat brushes up against your foot and you say "AHA! I left the keys next to the litter box!" then you have had an experience of something you must already have stored away subliminally, crossing that limit into full awareness. I chose a deliberately pedestrian example because James' point is that even such incidents as that are part of the range that also includes the mystics' union with what he reports as God.

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