William James “Lecture 2: Circumscription of the Topic,” from The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature

2014 ◽  
pp. 47-64
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James

George Fox as a Mystic

1913 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-59
Author(s):  
Josiah Royce
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Direct Influence ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Religious Consciousness ◽  
Ultimate Result ◽  
George Fox

This paper is but a fragmentary contribution to that study of the “Varieties of Religious Experience” which William James has so significantly brought to the attention of students of human nature. I propose to sketch some personal peculiarities of the founder of Quakerism, George Fox, and in the end to show what place was filled in his life by what may be called his experiences as a mystic. Every one knows that the typical Quakers have made prominent amongst their spiritual exercises what they call “silent worship” as conducted in their meetings, and that they have held that this “silent worship” often brings the worshipper under the direct influence of the movings of the Divine Spirit. I have here no concern with any question as to the truth or as to the ultimate merits of this or of any other tenet of George Fox or of his followers. I intend simply to show the place that the experiences of silent worship occupied in the mental life of Fox himself, and why he found this form of what is technically called mysticism a valuable feature of his religious consciousness. This study will bring us into somewhat closer contact with the mental complications of a remarkable personality—a personality in which the normal and the abnormal were in a very interesting way united. We shall see how certain tendencies that, in another context, would have proved highly dangerous to the sanity of their possessor were so combined in Fox that the ultimate result was prevailingly good, both for himself and for his environment. Religious history contains many instances where men whose mental life showed numerous abnormal traits still were so constituted that they retained their essential self-control and accomplished a great work. The study of Fox presents one more such instance, and may also possess genuine psychological interest.Since my discussion deals with Fox as a mystic, I shall first have to explain what one technically means by mysticism in religion. Then I shall have to show that Fox had many traits which were not those of the typical mystic. And, finally, I shall try to point out what part Fox's mystical tendencies played in determining certain aspects of his mind and of his career.

WILLIAM JAMES: “PESSIMISM OF THE INTELLECT, OPTIMISM OF THE WILL”

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-287
Author(s):  
CUSHING STROUT
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Secular World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Point Of Departure

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, centenary edition, foreword Micky James, intro. Eugene Taylor and Jeremy Carrette (Routledge, 2002)Charles Taylor, Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited (Harvard University Press, 2002)William James and a Science of Religions, ed. Wayne Proudfoot (Columbia University Press, 2004)William James has a secure reputation as a pioneer psychologist and as a founding father of the philosophy of pragmatism. In his own time, however, he was best known and most popular among the laity for “The Will to Believe” (1895) and for The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), which were defenses erected on behalf of religion in an increasingly secular world. Religious liberals treated the Bible as one human document among others and Christian faith as one tradition among many, but they “sought to salvage what they could of traditional belief, piety, and ethic.” James was part of this movement that took science, empiricism, and modern philosophy as a point of departure, but his contribution to it was distinctive, original, and (in his own idiom) unusually “tough-minded.”

scholarly journals Consciências Saudáveis e Almas Enfermas: Posturas Éticas Religiosas em William James

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-335
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Barbosa Gomes Benevides
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Sick Soul

Trata-se aqui de examinar as noções de Sick Soul e Healthy-Mindedness de acordo com William James em sua obra Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902). O pragmatismo de James se preocupa com o fenômeno religioso em termos de utilidade de um conjunto de crenças que fundamentam ações no campo ético e, desse prisma,  James percebe a religião como ferramenta fundamental para o equilíbrio psíquico humano. Dito isso, o artigo apresenta os dois tipos básicos de postura ética aludidos, além de definir o que significa religião segundo James.

scholarly journals Conversas de William James com professores e estudantes: lições para a atualidade

Perspectiva ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 961-977 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Sérgio Coutinho Matos ◽  
Marcus Vinicius Cunha
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James

Este artigo analisa as concepções educacionais de William James no livro Talks to teachers on psychology, de 1899, no qual se encontra a noção de ensino como arte. Para ampliar o entendimento dessa noção, recorre-se às reflexões feitas por James no livro The varieties of religious experience, de 1902. O artigo tem por objetivo revitalizar as concepções jamesianas visando a contribuir com autores que discutem criticamente as tendências dominantes hoje na educação.

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