Pragmatist Truth in the Post-Truth Age

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami Pihlström
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
William James ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
The Will ◽  
Concept Of Truth

It is commonly believed that populist politics and social media pose a serious threat to our concept of truth. Philosophical pragmatists, who are typically thought to regard truth as merely that which is 'helpful' for us to believe, are sometimes blamed for providing the theoretical basis for the phenomenon of 'post-truth'. In this book, Sami Pihlström develops a pragmatist account of truth and truth-seeking based on the ideas of William James, and defends a thoroughly pragmatist view of humanism which gives space for a sincere search for truth. By elaborating on James's pragmatism and the 'will to believe' strategy in the philosophy of religion, Pihlström argues for a Kantian-inspired transcendental articulation of pragmatism that recognizes irreducible normativity as a constitutive feature of our practices of pursuing the truth. James himself thereby emerges as a deeply Kantian thinker.

scholarly journals Transformationen der Kantischen Postulatenlehre im „Cambridge Pragmatism“ (Charles S. Peirce, William James, Josiah Royce)

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 43-75
Author(s):  
Ludwig Nagl
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
The Will ◽  
Josiah Royce ◽  
Modern Experience

The “Cambridge pragmatists”, Charles S. Peirce, William James and Josiah Royce, are at least in two respects significantly indebted to Kant: first, as von Kempski, Apel and Murphey have shown, with regard to the epistemological issues investigated in pragmatism; secondly, with regard to the various pragmatic approaches to religion, something which has been long overlooked. These approaches are best understood as innovative re-readings of Kant’s postulates of freedom, immortality, and God. Since Hilary Putnam pointed out — in his 1992 book Renewing Philosophy — that James’s essay, “The Will to Believe”, in spite of having received a great deal of hostile criticism, is in “its logic, in fact, precise and impeccable”, James’s thoughts are considered by many contemporary philosophers (by Charles Taylor, e.g., and by Hans Joas) as particularly inspiring. James’s approach is based on the modern experience of secularism and interprets Kant’s “postulate” as the “option” to believe. A deepening of the debate on the relevance of Kant’s analysis of the horizon of religious hope with regard to human praxis for a pragmatism-inspired philosophy of religion can be expected from a detailed discussion of the thoughts of Peirce and Royce, of thoughts, which, in complex ways, relate to, as well as criticise, James’s individuum-focused interpretation of religious faith.

Theoretical basis of research of personal mediation of manipuiative tendencies

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-34
Author(s):  
Yu. V. Borets ◽  
◽  
O. V. Palahniuk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Training Process ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
Practical Implications

The purpose of the article. Theoretical analysis of personal mediation of manipuiative tendencies. Methodology. The basis of this study is a theoretical analysis, synthesis, generalization, systematization of available scientific literature on the subject. Results. Manipulation of consciousness is one of the ways to dominate and suppress the will of people by acting on them through the programming of their behavior. This action is aimed at the mental structures of man, which is carried out secretly and aims to change the thoughts, motivations and goals of people in the right direction for a certain group of people. In this case, the purpose of manipulation – hiding their true intentions, to encourage another person to take certain actions, change values, ideas and opinions, etc., while maintaining the illusion of independence in general and independence of decisions or actions. In other words, to motivate a person to what he does not want to do, to distract from what he aspires to, but at the same time to create in him the confidence that he is acting of his own free will. Practical implications. The need to study manipulative tendencies is to determine the main ways and methods of manipulation and ways to protect against manipulative action. To reveal the main features of the manipulator’s personality and the category of people who are most prone to manipulative action. Theoretical materials can be used in the training process of the courses “Psychology of personality”, “Age Psychology”, “Differential Psychology”, “Fundamentals psychological correction”. Originality/value. It was found that the criteria for manipulation are: the attitude of the manipulator to the objects of manipulation as a means to achieve their own goal, the desire to gain unilateral advantage, the hidden nature of influence, use of force, motivation, motivation and skill in the process of manipulative influence. Key words: manipulation, coercion, manipulation, subject of manipulation, projection, Machiavellianism, manipulative influence.

The Hermeneutical Keys to William James’s Philosophy of Religion: Protestant Impulses, Vital Belief

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-316
Author(s):  
David J. Zehnder
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Biblical Authority ◽  
American Psychologist ◽  
Over Time

This essay argues that the American psychologist and philosopher William James should be viewed in the Lutheran Reformation’s tradition because this viewpoint offers the hermeneutical key to his philosophy of religion. Though James obviously didn’t ascribe to biblical authority, he expressed the following religious sensibilities made possible by Martin Luther and his contemporaries: 1) challenge of prevailing systems, 2) anti-rationalism, 3) being pro-religious experience and dynamic belief, 4) need for a personal, caring God, and also 5) a gospel of religious comfort. This essay asks, in one specific form, how religious concerns can hold steady over time but cause very different expressions of faith.

ORNAMENT AND DISTRACTION: PERIPHERAL AESTHETICS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-255
Author(s):  
Alison Georgina Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
William James ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Related Phenomenon ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Optical Character ◽  
Cognitive Faculties ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Mind

In the section devoted to “Attention”inThe Principles of Psychology(1890), William James describes how the “‘adaptation of the attention’” can alter our perception of an image so as to permit multiple visual formulations (417). In his example of a two-dimensional drawing of a cube, we can see the three-dimensional body only once our attention has been primed by “preperception”: the image formed by the combination of lines has “no connection with what the picture ostensibly represents” (419, 418). In a footnote to this passage, however, James uses an example from Hermann Lotze'sMedicinische Psychologie(1852), to show how a related phenomenon can occur involuntarily, and in states of distraction rather than attention:In quietly lying and contemplating a wall-paper pattern, sometimes it is the ground, sometimes the design, which is clearer and consequently comes nearer. . .all without any intention on our part. . . .Often it happens in reverie that when we stare at a picture, suddenly some of its features will be lit up with especial clearness, although neither its optical character nor its meaning discloses any motive for such an arousal of the attention. (419)James uses the formal illogicality of the wallpaper (its lack of compositional center prevents it from dictating the trajectory for our attention according to intrinsic aesthetic laws) to demonstrate the volatility of our ideational centers, particularly in moments of reverie or inattention. Without the intervention of the will, James says, our cognitive faculties are always in undirected motion, which occurs below the strata of our mental apprehension. Momentary instances of focus or attunement are generated only by the imperceptible and purely random “irradiations of brain-tracts” (420). Attention, for James, is the artistic power of the mind; it applies “emphasis,” “intelligible perspective,” and “clear and vivid form” to the objects apprehended by the faculties of perception, it “makesexperience more than it is made by it” (381). Reverie, a moment when attention has been reduced to a minimum, thus demands an alternative aesthetic analog, where composition is reduced to a minimum too.

scholarly journals JAMESIAN EPISTEMOLOGY FORMALISED: AN EXPLICATION OF ‘THE WILL TO BELIEVE’

Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Pettigrew
Keyword(s):  
Utility Theory ◽  
William James ◽  
Epistemic Utility ◽  
Full Belief ◽  
The Will ◽  
Suspension Of Judgment ◽  
Doxastic States

ABSTRACTFamously, William James held that there are two commandments that govern our epistemic life: Believe truth! Shun error! In this paper, I give a formal account of James' claim using the tools of epistemic utility theory. I begin by giving the account for categorical doxastic states – that is, full belief, full disbelief, and suspension of judgment. Then I will show how the account plays out for graded doxastic states – that is, credences. The latter part of the paper thus answers a question left open in Pettigrew (2014).

William James

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Slater
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
The United States ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
The Will

William James (b. 1842–d. 1910) was the most influential American philosopher and psychologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the founding father of empirical psychology in the United States. A thinker of unusually broad interests and abilities and a physiologist by training, James rose to international prominence with the publication of his monumental The Principles of Psychology (originally published in 1890), but devoted roughly the last twenty years of his life to popular lecturing on philosophical and psychological topics and to the articulation and development of his philosophical views, the seeds of which can be largely found in Principles. He is perhaps best known to philosophers today as one of the originators of pragmatism (along with Charles Sanders Peirce), and for his defense of innovative and controversial philosophical doctrines such as radical empiricism and “the will to believe.” In addition to Principles, James’s most famous works are The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (published first in 1897), The Varieties of Religious Experience (published in 1902), and Pragmatism (first published in 1907).

The Process-Oriented Conception of Truth in William James

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-233
Author(s):  
J. Edward Hackett ◽  
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Process Philosophy ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Process Thought ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Process Oriented ◽  
Concept Of Truth

In this article, I argue that William Jamess concept of truth can be interpreted accurately if we pay attention to the radical empiricism that underlines the notion in all of James's later writings and if we also see radical empiricism as a type of process thought. When we acknowledge these two conditions, we can see how Cheryl Misak is mistaken in reinscribing subjectivism back into Jamess radical empiricism, which attempted to overcome the subject-object distinction in the first place. In reading James through radical empiricism qua process philosophy, then, the background assumptions of James are set into relief yielding a deeper and richer conception of truth.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document