Andrew's Post

A) I was actually very much intrigued by James concept of consciousness. This could partly be because he vamboozled me with his talk about secondary personalities and direct research on the nature if experience, or maybe because I have an inherent trust of him as a psychologist and a philosophy. Moreover, he captured my affinity for Buddhism with his second and third natures of thought (That it is continuous and always changing). For a mix of all these reasons, his ideas on consciousness really spoke to me. His notion of the ever changing self, one who can never experience the same sensation twice, even sensory stimulation by the same object, is also right up my alley and something that I held as a personal belief long before reading James. His philosophy, on this subject at least, was well organized, well argued and extremely compelling. For these reasons I consider his ideas about consciousness to be more that philosophically adequate, they are downright interesting.

James beliefs about reason on the other hand I was not so impressed by. Following from my vehement disagreement with a purely instrumentalist view of truth, I cannot allow myself to push a concept as important as reason to the realm of pure social construction. James feels that rationality is one more of the “lenses” which we develop to look at the world. He takes it off his perch as the central philosophical tool, and says that it, like everything else, cannot be approached with out us bringing along our experiences as well. It is therefore not perfect, not infallible and not the central method of us getting after truth. It is quite the opposite, a tool or lense that we can use to examine the world. But in using it we change it to fit our conceptions of what it should be. It is therefore not infallible and central to discovering truth, just another expedient concept that mankind has kept around for a long time.

Obviously if James does not agree with the notion of pure reason, he cannot agree with Descartes. James and Peirce have disagreed with Descartes on a number of issues and this is simply one more of them. Descartes would not be comfortable with James’ ideas of the subject bringing its experience to all facets of life, and the repercussions that has on truth. Furthermore, Descartes believed that reason was the paramount way which we could understand reality. James is not in line with this as all.

B) I think the most central tenet of James’ philosophy on belief stems from his “dead hypothesis” theory. I actually found this idea to be very profound, especially his use of it to answer the famous Pascals ontological argument. While it may seem rational to believe in god if the stakes are so high, one cannot bring themselves to believe in the Christian God if they are not already, on some level, programmed to do so. To a Muslim, the existence of the Christian God is a dead hypothesis, and there for not even a considerable option. After rightfully critqueing Pascals wager, things begin to take a turn for the worse.

James begins to use his theories to explain why one would accept a belief without that much evidence. TO show some reasons, James begins to go after science. Here he asserts that science too accepts many beliefs and faiths for similar reasons that religion does. Since scientists believe so strongly in their method, their hopes for certain outcomes effects their experience of them. This is much the same way that religious individual’s experience of the world is shaped by their belief in God. I think this is more of an attack on science than it is a support of belief, an attack that is not entirely unfounded, but one that does not prove belief and faith to be anymore acceptable that it is already seen to be by the rational community. Much like his previous attempts to explain faith, I find this one unconvincing.

Post 5

Of all the pieces we've covered so far, James' "The Will to Believe", has two considerable (and interesting) surprises to offer.  The first of which, this essay appears to be written a nod towards the noble goal of clarity, something notably lacking in some of the previous essays we've tackled.  This is only surprising because the subject matter is, as one might ascertain from the title, faith.  If this is surprising, it is only because a significant amount of the material offered by the discipline of philosophy on the subject of God, tends to be well concealed in haze of poor analogies and circular arguments.  For proof, re-examine Meditation Three (which I did last night, in an attempt to explain the argument to a non-philosophy-student), a experience the agony of attempting definition all over again.

The second surprise in this essay is that James' openly acknowledges that a student of logic is less apt to admit or argue their faith, once they realize the near impossibility in the task.  This immediately reminded me of a statement Dr. Smaw made to a class of freshman philosophy students I witnessed last year.  He told them that, as newly minted logicians, they should avoid engaging in God arguments.  At any point, when the God card was put on the table, they should simply let it go.  From that point, it's impossible to continue logically.  This is surprising simply because it lacks the smattering of philosophical arrogance that usually accompanies a God/faith-related essay.  But then, James isn't really a philosopher, is he?

Those two things aside, James' actual essay approaches the subject from a, yes, truly pragmatic perspective (and one that perhaps only a psychologist could so casually execute).  He establishes the language of the essay, that is, the token words he's going to redefine for the purposes of his discussion.  Then he proceeds to declare an argument made by Pascal to be "dead", or Jamespeak, for one which has no sufficient grounding to appeal to us.  These distinctions are pleasantly practical ones, for they seem to examine faith much like a cultural anthropologist might, rather than a philosopher.  James' resurrects the Pascal argument moments later, however, to introduce the central thesis of his essay.

 

In the end, James' discussion here is really less about God and more about reconciliation.  The attempt to reconcile the absolutist nature of man with the empiricist tendency he may espouse.  James' spends an enormous amount of his time here, more or less setting up a practical, dare we say pragmatic, argument for the empiricist perspective.  Frankly, this essay might serve as an excellent primer for the argument, if only because it's so perfectly clear.  But James' real question, and the real purpose of the essay, is how to cope with the fact that man (by nature) seems to long for the absolute, even when he acknowledges the virtues of empiricism.  This essay seems to be more or less James' vehicle for attempting to explain how he might still consider himself an empiricist and yet a man of faith.  And, one must admit, the argument is good.  Perhaps it is only good because it is mercifully clear and lacks any sort of tricky absolutes (often hidden under the veil of empiricism).  James' simple argues that for man, faith can be quite pragmatic, because it offers for us a number of unrevealed benefits.  If we believe we may someday reap those benefits, we have acknowledged a pleasant possibility that may ultimately yield an enormous amount of good.  If the benefits of faith prove never to materialize, we've lost nothing from it except the possibility of having been mislead.  James' more or less bases his discussion on resolving the odds of belief.  In the end, he determines that there is no harm, and it is in fact practical, to believe.  The odds are positively split, but the alternative of pure disbelief will never yield any real good.  

It seems, in the end, a critique on the schools of empiricism that may reject faith based on a lack of immediately or conclusive evidence.  James' pleads with the empiricists to understand that a school of thought that would prevent an individual from acknowledging certain truths, should those truths appear evident, lacks the sort of freedom that should define it.  It's a good argument, despite the fact that some that there are some obvious flaws to that kind of reasoning.  But it's not really meant to be the sort of argument one is intended to critique or attempt to tear down to the best of the philosophic knowledges.  It's more of an internal justification.  Or at least I'm electing to view it as such.  The crux of his argument, that there is a practical purpose to weighing the odds on belief, has an odd sort of appealing practicality to it that I find fits extremely well within the pragmatist frame.   

post 5

Rob Hoffman

a) I found James’ account of consciousness to be not only perfectly adequate, but also exceptionally modern. In his disavowal of the existence of consciousness, James is completing the logical steps that begin with a disagreement with Cartesian dualism. Kant, he feels, has argued effectively and convincingly against the notion of dualism, but there are still lingering characteristics in our beliefs and even in our language. Consciousness, James argues and many modern philosophers might agree with, is one such remnant of old, dualistic language. Paul and Patricia Churchland are perfect examples of contemporary philosophers of mind who have been arguing against the notion of consciousness for years.

Previously, consciousness was considered an absolute necessity. Surely we were thinking, and it very much appears that this thinking occurs within a matrix of consciousness. James, ever the pragmatist, views consciousness as something of an unnecessary innovation. It cannot be deduced from anything but itself (2), meaning it has no real effect on anything. Something with no effect is not inclined, given pragmatist views, to be seen as true or worth consideration. Instead of thinking of consciousness as some kind of special function of thinking, James would be likely to agree with the Churhlands and say that what appears to us as consciousness is only our rationalization of ongoing brainstates.

His new take on rationalism could be seen as a result of this new conception of consciousness, as well as a result of the pragmatist views of the limits of our experiential abilities. The fact that rationalism is tailored to get us through the day and is as likely to use false beliefs to do it as true beliefs is obvious in its departures from previous philosophical conventions.

I am actually not as opposed to his conceptualization of rationality as one might expect given my disagreement with him over truth. Again, his work is in line with modern thinking (in part because it helped create the modern thinking) in evolutionary psychology. While there are problems with evolutionary psychology, it does make a good point by stating that our rationality is evolved to keep us alive and make us successful at reproducing, but not necessarily to give us true understandings of the deeper mysteries of the universe. This makes rationality itself fallible, fulfilling one of the pragmatist conventions.

b) Continuing the trend of pragmatists utilizing scientific and experimental terminology, James uses the term “hypothesis” to refer to a proposition which we can either believe or not believe. Some of these hypotheses are ones which we have some natural inclination, no matter how small, to possibly accept; these are called live hypotheses. Dead hypotheses, on the other hand, are those which James claims a given individual does not have any real possibility of accepting. I personally question the existence of dead hypotheses, but as they are not absolutely essential to his final conclusions, I will overlook them for the time being.

James then goes into some detail about the nature of our beliefs and whether or not we have the capacity to change them. He agrees with the modern, anti-Cartesian position that we cannot simply begin to believe that “the two one-dollar bills in our pocket must be a hundred dollars” (231). We can say such things, but to accept it as a belief would undermine much of our coherence view of what we know. To this end, he uses the example of Pascal’s wager and Pascal’s famous conclusion that to bring ourselves to believe in religious doctrine in which we do not currently believe, we need simply to spend enough time around it and act for long enough as though we believe it. James includes Pascal’s wager so that he might undermine and ridicule it. He claims that this type of belief will never actually come to fruition, for the nonbelievers who try to convert themselves will find that the religious convictions were always a dead hypothesis for them (232).

While reliance on the concept of a dead hypothesis is troubling enough, James then begins establishing his justification for believing in unsupported hypothesis on what I consider to be rather shaky ground. He claims that by our nature, we are inclined and even required to “decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot be decided on intellectual grounds” (234). Using this, James then goes on to begin making justifications for self-fulfilling prophecies and hypotheses for which we cannot find proper evidence until we have accepted them. He argues that this is just as in the sciences; he claims that if scientists had not adopted hypotheses that they were trying to get confirmed, we would not have made nearly as much scientific progress as we have. He goes on, “The most useful investigator, because the most sensitive observer, is always he whose eager interest one side of the question is balanced by an equally keen nervousness lest he become deceived” (237).

This idea of science flies in the face of everything that science has espoused for the last century. Experiments are not conducted with the hope of a certain outcome; the ideal scientist is not committed to one outcome, but rather open to any possibility. Psychology has been especially firm about this point. The experimenters themselves are often kept as totally in the dark as possible about the experiment so as to not allow their personal biases to influence the outcome (or perceived outcome) of the experiment.

These same objections undermine the end of his line of argumentation. James is trying to justify adopting evidentially unsupported hypotheses by claiming that, similarly to the scientist who favors one side, we might actually need to have adopted the beliefs in order to find evidence for them. This is the worst kind of science, and likewise it is the worst kind of epistemological investigation. I think James is assuming that we would not be swayed by our personal opinion or desire to find evidence, even if we had to confabulate it, for our unsupported beliefs; if this is the case, though, James fails to understand human psychology very well. It is psychologically difficult to maintain unsupported beliefs, and the human mind will find reasons, no matter how bad, to support it if there are none.

Post 5 Presentation

William James’s work “The stream of thought” presents a fascinating piece that explores the physiology of the mind from a pragmatic standpoint. James’s begins his piece by stating that previous attempts to explore physiology were invalid because they started with sensations which he argues aren’t the basic building blocks of the mind. He also argues that a simple sensation doesn’t really exist. James argues that instead of sensations we must approach the mind from the stand point of thoughts. Thoughts, James’s argues go on through five distinct “characters”.

The first “character” that he refers to is the idea that “Thought tends to personal form”. By this James means that thought is localized with an individual conscious. Thought’s don’t leave Mike’s head and enter John’s, they don’t trade between consciousnesses, and they certainty don’t collide with one another from different consciousnesses. In fact James’s says that the divide between consciousnesses is one of the greatest gulfs in nature. James also says that thoughts can’t come into being without being associated with a personal consciousness.

James’s second “character” refers to the idea that thought is in constant change. James doesn’t mean that thoughts only have a limited duration. What he means is that thoughts can never reoccur precisely as they did the first time. In other word’s he’s saying that every thought has to be different. This concept really isn’t that surprising if you consider that even small changes can have a big impact on future events and that when something is carefully examined it is changed. James believes that sensations and thoughts only appear identical and repetitive because our mind averages them in order to bring order in a chaotic world. Another way of looking at this is too say that our mind isn’t able to tell the difference between two similar sensations and it only possesses the resolution to tell the difference between objects. This would be akin to looking at two different pieces of ocean from a distance and not being able to tell the difference between the two. One of the reason’s James gives for this is that past experiences ensure that future thoughts are processed in a different manner.

The third “character” of thought relates the fact that consciousness is a stream like flow rather than a choppy gap filled path. James describes this as “within each personal consciousness, thought is sensibly continuous.” To James this means that consciousness feels unbroken from the prospective of our mind, and that even after we sleep we can resume our previous stream of consciousness and only our own stream. He also infers that this means that thought ebbs and flows in a pattern of transitions that lead to conclusions. This means that the transitions between different thoughts are seamless and fluid with each thought leading to new thoughts and conclusions.

The fourth “character”, “thought appears to deal with objects independent of itself; that is, it is cognitive, or possesses the function of knowing” simply means that a single object is the target of many human thoughts and that the human conscious thinks about the object differently then it thinks about thoughts of the object.

The final “character”, “It is always interested more in one part of its object than in another, and welcomes and rejects, or chooses, all the while it thinks” refers to an idea that many people are unaware of. The idea is that we ignore most of the sensory inputs that are given to us and instead look for the inputs that are most important. A great example of this is driving and seeing red. When we see red it signals us to stop even if we aren’t paying attention to all the other details of what is happening around us. This idea also transcends art and philosophy because artists reject anything that doesn’t belong in their masterpiece and philosophers are in search of the supreme idea.

Does Consciousness Exist?

Rachael Dziechciarz

The short answer is no. For James, consciousness does not exist as an entity, but more as a function of how humans "know" things in the outer world. However, since this is hard to grasp intuitively, more explanation is necessary to understand what exactly James means. Consciousness is impersonal, and merely shows that humans have an "awareness of content" (James 2) of what rests around them and what happens to them.

Before James' radical view of consciousness, many philosophers and psychologists held the idea that consciousness undeniably existed, yet they could offer no proof as to how it came to be or what it exactly is. James feels that his definition of what consciousness actually is, both a thought and a thing, is a more pragmatic way of defining how people relate their experiences of the past and present. He uses an example of how we are conscious of the room that we are sitting in. The room is both physically in front of us, and simultaneously in our minds. There are two ways to process the external world, both of which are important and "whole" in their own ways. The first is a personal biography, which is your own experience or memory of the room. The second is the history of that which is related to the room, like the house where the room is located. This compiles a lot of information about practically everything related to the room, from the history of the house to the neighborhood that the house is in. Both are valid ways to process the room, and both constitute our awareness or 'consciousness' of the room. There is only one room, yet there are two ways in which to be aware of it.

This analogy relates to human 'consciousness' because James argues that everything is pure experience, yet this can still be divided into thoughts and things. I think that the quote in James' piece by Professor Munsterberg best sums up this idea: "The object of which I think, and of whose existence I take cognizance without letting it now work upon my senses, occupies its definite place in the outer world as much as does the object which I directly see." In short, thoughts and the things that are thought about are one and the same. Both require a relationship with the past and the present, as well as a relationship with the outer and inner world where they exist (simultaneously).

Expected arguments against James and his rebuttal:

Argument: If experience has no 'consciousness,' then what is it?
Reply: Pure experience is everything, basically whatever it is you are conscious of. There is no universal element to consciousness, instead it is particularly and directly related to the specific thought or thing (for example: heavy, purple, sharp, etc.).

Argument: If thought and thing are the same "pure experience" in two different realms, then why are they so fundamentally different?
Reply: The difference between thought and thing lies only in the consequences. Each has the same "pure experience," yet as a thing the outcomes are real, and as a thought the outcomes can be whatever you choose. James uses the example that "mental knives may be sharp, but they won't cut real wood." (James 8)

Argument: How can you deny the existence of consciousness, when I know that I am conscious of what I do and who I am, and I can feel the thought and flow of consciousness within me?Reply: The ideas behind ‘consciousness’ (thought up by philosophers) come from the same continuous action of breathing. It is a convenient way to describe the mental processes that are present every moment, but should not suggest that an actual 'conscious' entity exists within the human being.

James' best sums up his argument for the non-existence of consciousness at the end of his essay, " That entity [consciousness] is fictitious, while thoughts in the concrete are fully real. But thoughts in the concrete are made of the same stuff as things are."This reiterates James' view that the 'consciousness' that people think they are aware of is more of the way they experience the world and relate experiences in the world. Furthermore, he states again that the dichotomy of thought and things is not what it was in the past. After all, isn't a thought merely a thing in our mind?

James v. Jacoby

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 Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map (Cohen, Patricia). This shows a blatant disregard for all things foreign or outside of our personal selves – part of the reason may be the empiricist method – we relying so heavily on our own heart, senses, beliefs, etc. and disregard scientific fact, geography, etc. I think that Jacoby could argue that this Jamesian way of thinking may be partially to blame for our country’s academic downfall.

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.