1.) In William James’ essay, “The Will to Believe”, he discusses the distinction between rationalist and empiricists – closely aligning himself with the latter. He discusses the ways in which we, as thinking humans, come to hold beliefs. Do we believe something is true simply by an effort of the will? He argues that this is irrational, and theorizes that Pascal’s argument -- simply by willing yourself to believe in God, you will actually believe in Him – is false.
Although James believes that reason undoubtedly plays an important role in what a person chooses to belief or deny, he doesn’t think that reason acts alone. Sometimes we hold strong beliefs and are unsure of the exact reasons. I’m sure that if Socrates suddenly attacked my beliefs with questioning, they would fall very short of being rationally based. Many factors influence our choices in what to believe such as “fear and hope, prejudice and passion, imitation and partisanship, the circumpressure of our castes and set” (233). James argues that although we form our belief on some-what shaky grounds, if we were to wait until all our beliefs were justified wholly, they would never be significant or fully formed.
Sometimes we must rely on our passionate/emotional senses in lieu of our intellectual. Frequently we go beyond static evidence and use non-intellectual sources to decide what to believe. This is why, he argues, that rationalists, who insist “we not only can attain to knowing the truth, but we can know when we have attained to knowing it” (234) are missing out on key components that allow our beliefs to be fulfilled and flourish. It is must more rational to be empiricists, who say “although we may attain it, we cannot infallibly know when” (234), because their beliefs are not set in stone, and therefore can consistently reflect upon them, leading them closer to the truth.
James also points out the fallibility of rationalism; certainties held by the past have been proven, presently, to be false, and there is no doubt that things we hold to be True today, will be falsified tomorrow. He further points out that Religious belief that was thought to be “certain” has resulted in the torture and persecution of millions.
We should continue to search for truth, but we should give up on finding certain truths. James shows the distinction of aiming to believe the truth and aiming to shun error by a military analogy: “It is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of the battle forever than to risk a single wound” (236).
We do not always have sufficient time to find out the Absolute Right or Truth of a given situation. James gives the example of moral questions; it is almost unfathomable to ever find rational proof of moral Right and Wrongness. Sometimes we have to use our best judgments and follow the heart, for “The heart has its reasons that Reason doesn’t understand” (237).
I believe that James’ view on rationality is philosophically adequate. I think that, although we would all love to see things in a completely unbiased, rational way, it is impossible. Numerous people have dedicated countless hours to the discourse on Truth, and yet, we have come very little in terms of Absolutes. The world would move at a snails pace if we all carefully evaluated every decision, thought and belief that popped into our heads; although I strongly believe that you must have a foundation based on facts and logical analysis, I believe that many other factors contribute to the final decision of whether or not the adopt or deny a belief.
James’s essay, “The Stream of Consciousness”, describes his ideas on thought and consciousness. He beings by stating that most books start with simple sensations, taken as facts, and proceed constructing each high stage rationally or deductively; he argues that this impedes the empirical method of investigation. Since our consciousness is constantly being bombarded by things (people, art, smells, etc.), it is impossible that a “simple” sensation could exist at all. The only thing that we can deduce is that “thought goes on” (161). He describes the five characters in Thought as being: “1. Every thought tends to be part of a personal consciousness 2. Within each personal consciousness thought is always changing 3. Within each personal consciousness thought is sensibly continuous 4. It always appears to deal with objects independent of itself and 5. It is interested in some parts of these objects to the exclusion of others and welcomes or rejects all the while” (161-162). It is interesting that James argued that consciousness is continuous because it directly opposed the traditional Aristotelian worldview which viewed it as a series of links like a train or chain; James’ consciousness was compared to a stream – constantly moving and flowing.
Consciousness also begins to establish a person’s identity or “Me”. It exists in your personal nature; the thoughts that exist within it are your thoughts. Our thoughts and our neighbors may be similar, but they will never be identical, making consciousness a uniquely personal thing.
Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of Reason” argues against the American surge in “anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and “anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”). The issues that Jacoby is fighting against, anti-rationalism mainly, stems from the American philosophy / pragmatism that James helped to develop. He argues that although having True knowledge would be beneficial, it is entirely unpractical. We are still unqualified, as fallible human beings, to obtain the Absolutes that have eluded us for centuries. Americans today are ignorant of basic scientific, global, and cultural information; after more that three years into the Iraqi war, only twenty-three percent of those with some college could locate
2.) James argues that having faith-based beliefs are ultimately important. He defines religion as having two elements: “the best things are the more eternal things” (239) and “we are better off even now if we believe the first affirmation to be true” (239). Religion is a unique topic – if aspects such as heaven and hell turn out to be real, then the non-believing agnostics, waiting for a factual sign that God exists, won’t benefit from their continuous questioning, but the true believers will – simply by relying on their heart and faith. The agnostic approach of Religion, James asserts, could disqualify us from experiencing the Truth that we have been anxiously searching for. He says: “I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there would be an irrational rule.” In this case, being a stickler for facts and absolute evidence could actually prohibit finding absolutes, and therefore, adopting an absolutist (or agnostic) viewpoint would actually be detrimental and illogical.
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