The Will to Believe - William James. "The Will to Believe" is a lecture by William James, first published in 1896, which defends, in certain cases, the adoption of a belief without prior evidence of its truth. In particular, James is concerned in this lecture about defending the rationality of religious faith even lacking sufficient evidence of religious truth. James states in his introduction: "I have brought with me tonight ...] an essay in justification of faith, a defense of our right to adopt a believing attitude in religious matters, in spite of the fact that our merely logical...

Essays in Radical Empiricism - William James - Essays in Radical Empiricism by William James is a collection edited and published posthumously by his colleague and biographer Ralph Barton Perry in 1912. It was assembled from ten out of a collection of twelve reprinted journal articles published from 1904-1905 which James had deposited in August, 1906, at the Harvard University Library and the Harvard Department of Philosophy for supplemental use by his students. Perry replaced two essays from the original list with two others, one of which didn't exist at the earlier time. THE present volume...

Noted psychologist and philosopher develops his own brand of pragmatism, based on theories of C. S. Peirce. Emphasis on "radical empiricism," versus the transcendental and rationalist tradition. One of the most important books in American philosophy.

The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature is a book by Harvard University psychologist and philosopher William James. It comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on natural theology, which were delivered at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in 1901 and 1902. The lectures concerned the nature of religion and the neglect of science in the academic study of religion. Soon after its publication, Varieties entered the Western canon of psychology and philosophy and has remained in print for over a century. James later developed his philosophy of pragmatism. There are many...

William James (January 11, 1842 - August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology." 4] 5] 6] Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be one of the major figures associated with the philosophical school...

Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking

must confess I know little, if anything, about the War of 1812 with the USA, which is the subject of this book. For anybody else in the same boat, who wants to learn about it, this 1000-page account will go a long way towards remedying that lack of knowledge. It is a contemporary account, published a few years after the war, which officially ended in December 1814 though hostilities dragged on. As you might expect, the prose is flowery, written at a time when authors were not inclined to simply call a spade a shovel, but rather tended to elaborate and wordy sentences. That said, it is a very...