On A Reductionist Analysis of William James's Philosophy of Religion

William James undertook to steer his way between a rationalistic systemthat was not empirical enough and an empirical system so materialistic that it could not account for the value commitments on which it rested. In arguing against both the absolutists (gnostics) and the empiricists (agnostics), he defined a position of pluralistic moralism that seemed equally distant from both, leaving himself vulnerable to the criticism that he had rescued morality from scientism only by reducing religion to morals. Such criticism, however, ignores distinctions James made between religion and theology and between monistic theology and dualistic theology. When these distinctions are taken into account, it becomes evident that James can be criticized for reducing religion to morality only from the point of view of either absolute monism or religious humanism and that radical empiricism not only embraces a significant number ofnonmoral religious experiences but also leaves open the possibility of belief in the particular historical God of traditional Christianity.     

威廉·詹姆斯与具身认知心理学

威廉·詹姆斯是美国心理学的创始人,被世人称为"美国心理学之父"。他创造了一整套的心理学理论,包括在具身认知兴起的过程中,他也发挥了重要的、不可替代的作用。而具身认知主要指在人们的认知过程中身体发挥着重要的关键作用,亦即认知是人们通过身体的具体体验及其活动方式而产生的。文章主要通过具身认知的兴起来了解在詹姆斯的一整套心理学理论中所包含的具身认知思想以及探究詹姆斯在其中发挥的重大作用。     

On the Significance of William James to a Contemporary Doctrine of Evolutionary Psychology

Academic popularizers of the new field of evolutionary psychology make notable appeals to William James to bolster their doctrine. In particular, they cite James’ remark that humans have all the “impulses” animals do and many more besides to shore up their claim that people’s “instincts” account for their flexibility. This essay argues that these scholars misinterpret James on the instincts. Consciousness (which they find inscrutable) explains cognitive flexibility for James. The evolutionary psychologists’ appeal to James is, therefore, unwarranted and, given the conditions relevant to the public and professional audiences they address, also ineffective as a rhetorical tool for enlisting new recruits.

Fruits of Health; Roots of Despair: William James, Medical Materialism and the Evaluation of Religious Experience

In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James introduces the term “medical materialism” to describe the fallacious attempt by some scientists to argue against the value of spiritual ideas. Two literary case studies will be considered for purposes of better understanding James’ idea. What’s more, it will be shown that, in addition to James’ three criteria for the appropriate evaluation of religious experience, there is another factor not made explicit, namely that of hopefulness. This factor serves to distinguish ordinary from pathological morbid-mindedness, the latter of which has no religious significance.Tadd Ruetenik teaches philosophy at Penn State Altoona. He received his Ph.D. from the English and Philosophy program at Purdue University. Correspondence to Tadd Ruetenik, tlr18@psu.edu.     

Psychology between science and common sense: William James and the problems of psychological language in the Principles

The suspicion that language can become an obstacle to human knowledge is not new in the Western intellectual tradition. Following the empiricist legacy, many authors have suggested the perils and pitfalls of common sense language for science. Applied to psychology, this leads to the issue of the reliability of psychological language for scientific psychology. William James, in his Principles of Psychology, was one of the first psychologists to address this problem explicitly. The goal of this paper is to situate his position and contrast it with contemporary debates over the status of folk psychology. The results indicate that James conceived of common sense psychology in a very complex manner, and pointed to a kind of illusion that remains ignored in the current literature, with negative consequences for psychology. I conclude by suggesting the relevance of James for contemporary debates in theoretical and philosophical psychology.     

Constructing an Aesthetic Weltanschauung: Freud,James, and Ricoeur

I will investigate in this paper what kind of Weltanschauung Freud suggests. Although Freud argues in the lecture XXXV, The Question of a Weltanschauung (1933), that psychoanalysis is incapable of creating a Weltanschauung of its own, I think that he has a certain Weltanschauung, i.e., the aesthetic worldview, which involves his scientific, psychoanalytic, and artistic principles. Furthermore, I will explicate that Freud's aesthetic worldview is ultimately related to the Weltanschauungen of William James and Paul Ricoeur. I will focus particularly on their terms, sympathetic and poetic, which are the crucial elements that constitute the aesthetic Weltanschauung. Finally, I will briefly present my intention in drawing this aesthetic Weltanschauung. I will conclude that throughout the aesthetic Weltanschauung we may accept that everything is precious, pertinent, and worthy to be viewed as a part and a whole, and as home (Heim).     

Natural Realism or Transactionalism: On the Relationships between Putnam and Two Pragmatists,James and Dewey

The relationships between Hilary Putnam and the pragmatists (especially William James and John Dewey) are obvious but subtle.To shed some light on this issue,the author will explore a key issue that not only stands as Putnam's main inheritance from the pragmatists,but that also illuminates the relationships between them more clearly than any other issues.This key issue is the understanding of perception and the philosophical position that arises from this understanding.The author argues that in adopting Dewey's transactionalism (or interactionalism),Putnam advances from James' insight to Dewey's,a shift that is particularly manifest in Putnam's attempt to add another layer of meaning to what he refers to as the second na(i)veté that he detects and appreciates in James' natural realism.     

詹姆斯心理学的现象学阐释

必须从詹姆斯的人格和他的思想作为整体及其统一性的背景出发,才能有效地理解詹姆斯心理学的真髓。詹姆斯思想的内核是彻底经验主义。他以彻底经验主义为基础的心理学思考,与胡塞尔的现象学思考作为思想态度是同质的,因而表现出明确的现象学特征。文章指出了对詹姆斯心理学进行现象学阐释的根据,并结合心理学史探讨了詹姆斯的思想方法对心理学作为整体而言的理论意义。     

Intimate distances: William James’ introspection, Buddhist mindfulness, and experiential inquiry

The recent and growing interest in ‘mindfulness’ and ‘mindfulness meditation’ across disciplines in the West presents us with a unique opportunity to reconsider whether Buddhism has anything to offer our contemporary psychological investigations. I argue that the Buddhist-inspired practice of mindfulness has potentially profound implications for the ways in which we conduct our investigations as psychologists, and that, as a style of experiential inquiry, it has at least one Western antecedent in the early introspectionist method of William James. Both are practices of becoming aware of experience; and paradoxically becoming intimately distant with our experience. I present a non-dualistic approach in which introspection and mindfulness are seen not only as psychological but also as social practices, operating simultaneously at the boundary of the individual/inner and social/outer, collapsing such distinctions in practice, and radically undermining the distinction between self and other. While there are similarities between James’ practice of introspection and mindfulness, there are also differences, and I suggest that they should not be easily conflated. Clarifying their relationship should be helpful, not only in distinguishing them from one another, but also in pointing to how mindfulness might allow a broader application than James’ introspection once did.     

Going with your gut: How William James' theory of emotions brings insights to risk perception and decision making research

The basic premise of William James' theory of emotions – that bodily changes lead to emotional feelings – ignited debate about the relative importance of bodily processes and cognitive appraisals in determining emotions. Similarly, theories of risk perception have been expanding to include emotional and physiological processes along with cognitive processes. Taking a closer look at The Principles of Psychology, this article examines how James' propositions support and extend current research on risk perception and decision making. Specifically, James (1) described emotional feelings and their related cognitions in ways similar to current dual processing models; (2) defended the proposition that emotions and their expressions serve useful and adaptive functions; (3) suggested that anticipating an emotion can trigger that emotion due to associations learned from past experiences; and (4) highlighted individual differences in emotional experiences that map on well with individual differences in risk-related decision making.     

Freedom in the Body: The Physical, the Causal, and the Possibility of Choice

Abstract. In Minding God Gregory Peterson takes a careful look at the kind of freedom that human persons have. He concludes that humans are constrained to be free and unpacks this into a version of compatibilism. That is, humans are not metaphysically free under current existence because of the causal determination inherent in their physical nature, but they can take credit for the origination of selfforming decisions because the causes occur inside of us. Peterson does advocate an eschatological hope looking forward to the breaking of causal determination by God's own action. Thus, Minding God presents an eschatologically limited compatibilism. Compatibilism of any kind, however, presents serious challenges to most Christian theologies and to many religious traditions broadly considered. After I interpret Peterson's position I make the argument that compatibilism is neither desirable nor required for a theological anthropology intent on serious engagement of cognitive science.     

In the Spirit of William James

In this essay, I identify several ways in which James Dittes extended the spirit of William James in his writings on psychology of religion. Like James, Dittes gave minimal attention to psychological theory and God-talk. Both authors located their reflections on religion within a philosophical, as well as a psychological, perspective. Both employed a discourse that was personalist, pluralist, and pragmatist. In the last section, I briefly note some of the ways in which Dittes moved beyond William James in the spirit of William James.     

Psychological and Religious Perspectives on Emotion

This article is devoted to examining theoretical issues on the interface of the psychology of religion and the psychology of emotion, something which recently has been surprisingly neglected. The broad range of psychological components involved in emotion, and the importance of emotional processes in religion, make it a particularly relevant area of general psychology as far as religion is concerned. The first issue to be examined is the centrality of emotion (or feeling ) in religion and the extent to which religion can be conceptualized as a kind of emotional state—an idea that can be found in different forms in Schleiermacher and James. Though both psychology and emotion are now seen as less private than previously supposed, the analogy remains potentially fruitful. The second issue arises from the notable tendency in the psychology of emotion to see emotion as functional, even rational, rather than disruptive. The view of Averill is endorsed that emotions can be psychologically creative when used appropriately. This leads to a review of attitudes toward emotional aspects of religion and religious attitudes to everyday emotions, where a positive but discriminating approach to emotions seems appropriate.