The Will to Believe: An Evaluation of William James’s Pragmatic Defence of Faith
Journal Title: Dini Araştırmalar -Altı Aylık Bilimsel Dergi- - Year 2016, Vol 19, Issue 48
Abstract
Although it has been generally considered that evidential arguments are the only appropriate way to believe that God exists, it has been argued that there are also nonevidential arguments/reasons for belief in God. William James’s “The Will to Believe” is one of the most signifi cant non-evidential reasons in favour of religious belief. James criticises Clifford’s views and asserts that we have the right to believe even if the evidence is inconclusive. According to Clifford, it is wrong to believe any proposition on insuffi cient evidence. James’s primary goal is to show that Cliffordian evidentialism is irrational because it prevents us from acknowledging certain kinds of truth. And James argues that our passional/non-epistemic nature can determine what we believe when an option is a genuine option which means live, forced, and momentous options and cannot be decided on intellectual/epistemic grounds. The argument briefly enables us to say that “Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds”. In this essay, I will discuss James’s “The Will to Believe” and some objections which have been directed to it. First, I will argue that our passional nature is not a reliable guide to truth and that many confl icting religious beliefs can be justifi ed on this ground. And second, I will argue that although James accuses Clifford’s evidentialism of preventing us from acknowledging certain kinds of truth, his argument is equally vulnerable to a similar objection.
Authors and Affiliations
Abdulkadir TANIŞ
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- EP ID EP229257
- DOI 10.15745/da.93324
- Views 106
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