• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

PREVIEW-Episode 22: More James’s Pragmatism: Is Faith Justified? What is Truth?

July 18, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 23 Comments

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/partiallyexaminedlife/PREVIEW-PEL_ep_022_6-24-10.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:43 — 28.2MB)

This is a 31-minute preview of a 1 hr, 38-minute episode.

Buy Now Purchase this episode for $2.99. Or become a PEL Citizen for $5 a month, and get access to this and all other paywalled episodes, including 68 back catalogue episodes; exclusive Part 2's for episodes published after September, 2020; and our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally.

On William James's "The Will to Believe" and continuing our discussion from Episode 20 on James's conception of truth as described in his books Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth, again including Dylan Casey.

Does pragmatism give ground for religious belief, like if I say it feels good for me to believe in God, is that in any sense a legitimate grounds for that belief? Is belief in science or rationality itself a form of faith? Is religious belief a "forced choice," or does it just not matter what you believe?

Also, we sort further through James on truth: truth is created by us, but what does that mean? That only statements actually verified or otherwise useful are true, or can have a truth value (true of false) at all? In saying that we create truth, does that make James a relativist, and if so, is that bad?

Read "The Will to Believe," Pragmatism, and The Meaning of Truth (the most useful chapters for our purposes are 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, and 15).

You can alternately "The Will to Believe" here, and the other two books are packaged in this volume.

End song: "Who Cares What You Believe?" by Madison Lint (2001).

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Podcast Episodes Tagged With: Charles Sanders Pierce, Dylan Casey, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy podcast, pragmatism, William James

Comments

  1. Dan says

    July 22, 2010 at 4:50 pm

    Great podcast! I really like the meat that’s finally sliced up at the end (post mustache tangent). Right around that same time in the cast someone seems to mention that we (Westerners?) are culturally pre-disposed to something… could u help me understand that better? Were you saying we are culturally predisposed to belief in some kind of God-being? Predisposed to religious practice (or non-practice)? I think that’s a really interesting idea.
    If someone raised themselves on an island apart from culture, is there a biological predisposition to faith based ‘truths’ (even if they’re superstitous, etc.)?
    If you have a minute, I’d really like to better understand what you were getting at there.
    Thanks!

    Reply
  2. Dan says

    July 23, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    The reference takes place around the 1:07 mark in regards to God, or Faith, or Spirituality being a ‘live’ option… there are a lot of really significant comments around that time in the cast that suggest that God or religion (are these two confused?) are inherent either because we exist in a culture, or because of human biological make-up. Are these just generally accepted philosophical concepts? That the notion of God is inherent? Or am I misunderstanding anything about that? If you have a chance to add any additional thoughts on that I’d appreciate it. Thanks again!

    Reply
    • Mark Linsenmayer says

      July 23, 2010 at 1:33 pm

      Hey, Dan,

      This was kind of a throw-away comment I made speculating about the relation of what we were talking about to a sentiment I’ve seen in numerous places: “If there was no God, Man would have to invent one.”

      Yes, in this context, I was referring fairly generically to the spiritual, which, e.g. Karen Armstrong (see my recent post here about her) thinks is extremely common and goes very far back historically. However, in the Kant knowledge episode, Wes I think had specifically (in discussing the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” argument from Dawkins often quoted on the web) said that the concept of God in particular was not arbitrary, but had something like a natural place in logic, where I take the definition to be a being that is infinite in every way. Personally, I don’t think that definition is even coherent, but it’s the one that Descartes and Spinoza and all of them run with. It’s certainly not a sufficient concept to give us God as conceived of by some particular religious tradition.

      Reply
  3. Dan Smart says

    October 10, 2012 at 1:29 pm

    I have some problems with this work. I like his live option and forced option, good distinctions, but it seems that we can use these to justify dishonesty. For instance if I am in love with your wife and I think you might be cheating on your wife. If you are then I must tell her. It seems a live hypothesis, as I am willing to act on it, so I must choose between options. It seems both are live you could be cheating on your wife or not, I am willing to accept both. It seems to be a forced option, if I do not choose then I am effectively letting you cheat on your wife. It certainly is momentous, it matters greatly both for my own bad intentions and for the woman I am in love with. So this seems to be a genuine option. By this reasoning I would be justified in telling your wife you are cheating on her, and the real reason is because I am dishonestly trying to separate you from your wife. If cheating is too easily verifiable, then I could replace that with you are in love with your secretary. Am I misrepresenting or poorly understanding the implications of this reconciliation of faith?

    Reply
    • Mark Linsenmayer says

      October 10, 2012 at 1:39 pm

      I like your connection. We generally think of the choices James gives us in this context as ones that will not hurt others, so it ultimately matters only to us, but like in your example, the actions and motives involved with choosing some (to us) live religious position may be less than pure.

      Reply
      • Dan Smart says

        October 11, 2012 at 7:26 am

        It is not even that the faith of religious people is less than pure, but that if we accept this method of James than it seems we must accept dishonest circumstances like what was written above. It seems we might wish to insert some honesty clause, but that would go against one of the ideas James has about taking a leap of faith and a sort of fake belief until you believe mentality.

        Ultimately I think this defense of faith is flawed and there is a much easier way of describing faith where the believer is justified in believing. Faith is the response to a experience that cannot be adequately tested or verified. This version of faith describes my faith that my fiance loves me or the theists faith in their God. The downside is that they are all equally justified in faith as well as the UFO abductee and the experiences of the insane.

        Reply
        • Dan Smart says

          October 11, 2012 at 12:17 pm

          Want to be clear I am not making a positivist type claim where all things that are not verifiable is metaphysical. I meant faith is the response to a experience that cannot be adequately tested or verified or has been justified with reason. That is something that is personally moving yet cannot hope to convince others.

          Reply
  4. Joel says

    December 16, 2012 at 1:58 am

    I believe one day you guys will cover Richard Rorty but I guess Dewey would have to come first.

    Reply
    • Mark Linsenmayer says

      December 16, 2012 at 6:21 am

      What work by Dewey? Any idea?

      Reply
      • Simon Borrington says

        December 17, 2012 at 6:52 am

        In relation to Rorty, I would have thought a good place to start for understanding Dewey’s influence could be the collection of lectures published as ‘The Quest fo Certainty’. Also, given that Rorty is a wide-ranging philosopher, a good place to start there would be the matter of ‘epistemological behaviourism’ from the ‘Mirror of Nature’ which sort of follows on from Quine’s ‘Two Dogmas’ in an indirect kind of way (if my memory seves me well – it has been a few years since I read this stuff!).

        All the best.

        Reply
        • dmf says

          December 17, 2012 at 11:47 am

          yes good and perhaps some Art as Experience, I’m still hoping for a discussion of Mirror leading into the Contingency book, another short read that would in some ways show where Rorty and Dewey differ would be A Common Faith.
          http://www.wou.edu/~girodm/Dewey.pdf

          Reply
          • Mark Linsenmayer says

            December 18, 2012 at 1:47 am

            Yes, it was my impression now that we were done with Quine and had already had the whole discussion of truth in relation to James that we were OK to just read Mind and the Mirror of Nature at some point in 2013 without further preparation. However, I am separately interested in Dewey, and have Art as Experience sitting on my shelf.

          • dmf says

            December 18, 2012 at 8:27 am

            Dewey is well worth reading on his own and in some significant ways Rorty (as he often did) just dropped much of what the dewey-orthodox consider as what is central, like “experience”, to Dewey’s project and foregrounded what he wanted instead.
            http://www.davidhildebrand.org/research/book-dewey-beginners-guide/

            Experience and Nature, Chps. 1-3 and 5-8

  5. Donald says

    June 21, 2013 at 8:23 pm

    Best episode yet. This is true for me. Lots of cash-value.

    And it was most unexpected since all I’d ever heard about William James was how he made belief in God once again a valid rational option or philosophically respectable. This made me assume I was going to hate him. Instead Pierce and James are my new American heroes! So much clearing of the cobwebs here after all those systems builders. Similar to Mark’s comment to the effect of not being able to make himself believe in God even if he tried, that live option loop-hole makes James totally effable.

    I am still rejoicing inside and will have to listen to these two episodes again, and add some of their writings to my meager book collection. My pantheon finally includes somebody besides Nietzsche and the Existentialists. Pragmatism, yay.

    “Religion is like being in love with a twelve year old girl.” In context this was freaking hilarious. Here’s your predicted hate mail: I’d hate to live in a world without you guys.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Pragmatism is a tool of the devil! | The Partially Examined Life | A Philosophy Podcast says:
    July 25, 2010 at 4:21 pm

    […] we see that even though William James gave an extensive defense of religion, apparently naughty pragmatism is a tool of the devil to trick us into disregarding the stark […]

    Reply
  2. Truth, truth, political truth, 9/11, and God | The Partially Examined Life | A Philosophy Podcast says:
    July 31, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    […] recent Partially Examined Life podcasts focusing on pragmatism have got me (re)thinking Truth, truth, science, and method.  Most of my […]

    Reply
  3. The Partially Examined Life: A Philosophy Podcast | Open Culture says:
    September 8, 2010 at 4:13 pm

    […] topics ranging from Plato’s conception of the examined life to Nietzsche’s immoralism, God and faith to the philosophy of mind. Frankly I’m always amazed that there are people who want to listen to […]

    Reply
  4. New Atheist Episode Thoughts: Skepoet, Harris on Faith, Politics and Religion | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    October 15, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    […] Per Kant and William James, faith about matters over which no experiential deconfirmation is even theoretically possible […]

    Reply
  5. David Burrell on Nietzsche and “Trust” | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    August 30, 2012 at 11:51 am

    […] The details of his Burrell’s positive program come out most clearly in the Newman lecture, where he discusses Newman’s (1870) concept of “ratiocination,” which is about rationally coming to a conclusion given particular evidence. He claims that while logic and evidence may be public and agreed upon, what actually drives the moment where a conclusion is reached based on that is very much particular to the person and circumstance; there aren’t general, agreed upon standards for taking away a practical, action-grounding conclusion in the way that we can all agree what constitutes a valid geometric proof. Ratiocination plays a similar role to phrónēsis, or judgment as I’ve been describing it. You can see where “trust” can find its way in here. I can’t say I ultimately buy this view; I’m not hearing a lot of substance in this beyond what was put forward in our discussion of James’s “The Will to Believe.” […]

    Reply
  6. Theologians on Quine | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    November 25, 2012 at 2:15 pm

    […] usefully read Quine into this project. The strategy is certainly stronger than merely arguing as James and Kant/Schleiermacher do that rationality leaves room for faith, and to really get the whole […]

    Reply
  7. Episode 20: Pragmatism – Peirce and James | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    April 21, 2014 at 8:47 am

    […] The episode features then-guest podcaster Dylan Casey; we continued it in episode 22. […]

    Reply
  8. Topic for #129: Is Religious Faith Rational? | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    December 13, 2015 at 9:46 pm

    […] by reference to scientific evidence, then what justification could one have for being religious? We previously explored William James's pragmatic response to this question (if we can't know either way, then hold […]

    Reply
  9. Self-Contradiction: The Wisdom of Emerson Vs. Trump’s Whims | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    March 11, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    […] provided the foundation for the American school of philosophy that would be continued by pragmatist William James, educational reformer John Dewey, and, much later, post-pragmatist Richard Rorty. These days, […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • John Heath on PEL Eulogies Nightcap Late March 2023
  • Randy Strader on Ep. 309: Wittgenstein On Certainty (Part Two)
  • Wes Alwan on PEL Nightcap February 2023
  • Kunal on Why Don’t We Like Idealism?
  • Ronald Cogen on Ep. 311: Understanding the Dao De Jing (Part One)

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in