Belief Without Evidence: William James and The Will to Believe

In his essay, The Will to Believe, pragmatist philosopher William James offers a justification for religious faith even without sufficient evidence. James goes over genuine options, our willing nature, truth, risk, and error in order to support his position. In the end, James is even able to tie our search for truth in with religious faith.

Music by Lukrembo

Video Tags: philosophy, philosopher, William James, pragmatist, pragmatism, the will to believe, religious faith, belief, William Kingdon Clifford, theory of knowledge, truth, evidence,

[Eternalised]

Fascinating!

I've always thought of a quote from Nietzsche that he sent to his sister after leaving behind his faith:

"If you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire."

[baiterfish]

I'm studying philosophy in university right now. In the first philosophy class I took, we read and discussed James, Pascal, and Clifford. You did an excellent job of summarizing all of them in this video.

Nice job Amy!

[TheLivingPhilosophy]

I love William James he's someone that's always appealed to me and good to get a taster of him here! As ever great work and congrats on crossing the 2k!!

[nicoleedwarrds]

Thank you so much!! The essay was hard for me to understand, its the first reading I was given in my intro to philosophy course in university. This video helped me get some good notes and actually comprehend the arguments lol...

[davidroberts]

Wonderfully put together. Near the end I began thinking he's speaking of hypothesis and the scientific method, but adding a requirement that intellectual diagnosis cannot be used. Someone makes an educated guess and studies or performs an experiment to test it. But to do the experiment you'd likely believe in some way that it's true (meeting halfway). Or at least that it's true that it will fail, giving credence to some other hypothesis.

[kaykwanu]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:

00:50 *📜 William James's essay "The Will to Believe" explores faith, truth, risk, and evidence, aiming to justify belief in religious matters.*
02:14 *🤔 Options for James consist of two hypotheses: living or dead, forced or avoidable, and momentous or trivial.*
04:08 *🛣️ In the context of faith, a genuine option is one that is living, forced, and momentous.*
06:18 *🧠 James argues that our passionate nature, not just deliberate volitions, influences our beliefs, but these beliefs must still meet the criteria of genuine options.*
08:19 *🛑 James differentiates between knowing the truth and avoiding error, asserting that sometimes being wrong is necessary for pursuing truth.*
11:01 *🙏 Religion offers two main affirmations: eternal truths and present benefits, appealing to our passionate nature and desire for truth.*
12:38 *🎟️ James suggests that sometimes we need to make a leap of faith to discover truth, comparing it to buying a lottery ticket where belief opens the door to potential discovery.*
13:49 *🛕 James justifies religious faith based on individual cultural backgrounds and the notion of a "living hypothesis, " implying different religions hold varying relevance based on personal experience.*
14:59 *🏔️ The lecture ends with a quote urging courage in the face of uncertainty, encapsulating the theme of embracing belief amidst life's uncertainties.*

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[opium]

Very interesting. Yet another banger, Mr. Amygdala.

[lebenergy]

Thank you. I like the content and the graphics

[paulbalog]

You can arguably believe all religions as far as you can throw them, but better to make a choice in belief than be logically compelled to. Taking religion to the logical extreme, for example, a religion that worships an all-caring sky dad, can be easily warped to worship authority and oppression, as logical contradictions in the religion permit this. This is why you can't be logically compelled to believe, only choose to be. The same is true for miracles, real miracles are terrible things, metaphorical miracles are great things. This is why when you question the logical flaws in the Bible that people try to exploit, you generally lose faith in their God or the Bible's God, where any truly real God would be proud of you of questioning this.

[BambiDebbieWoods]

Thanks so much. Sometimes I get burnt out on reading.

[tedshanahan]

i encourage yall to believe in God (due to my experience, it has helped me become happier and more centered) but if you dont, i have to respect your opinion.

[greenbug]

In his mind choice has to start with belief. If an option is multi layered you can not force it, it's difficult to prove and so dead.

So the only option is to force multi layered thinking to the brink of choice. The point of failure that then becomes truth.

Yet.. are all options not truth to begin with? Is the only real failure in you and not the actual information? Progression in this comes from a weak fracture, a disbelief in all other truths. The inability to make sense out of too much information. A settlement that the structure one has already set up in belief hold the only answer to choice.

[zhubajie]

A good explanation to a weak argument, agnostics are, by definition, always open to new evidence, but the truth is provisional, which James seems to object to them being so that is he is suffers from confirmation bias.

[Ransomonious]

That's a cool angle on the pursuit of truth and faith. I like it. I do think, however, that the inundation of access to knowledge complicates the truth seeker with a burdensome sense of homework. But apart from that, the point of belief and disbelief in God not being intellectual...I believe this.

[Rico-Suave_]

Great video, thank you very much, note to self(nts) watched twice …… 13:20

[PhilPhysics]

Aren't religions intelligible enough, insofar as some were invented before or after others, that one could discern that faith in even major religions would have grounds to not "believe" in them?

[chillluhgg]

I believe that nature/God has no will in it, there’re rules/laws but not a will. But I believe when we die we will go back to be what we are before we were born. Sensation, feeling rational, space and time is all about being human. When we die we stop being human so those things are not matter anymore.Thus I can be at peace about my inevitable death without believing in a willing God.

[adrianarreguin]

I have a 6 page analysis essay due in an hour over William James and W.K Clifford. I’m very much struggling I have 2 pages done. I’m keep re reading the articles T__T

[corpsmankind]

In college this essay brought me closer to God.

[rodolfo]

The problem with saying that it is ethically wrong to believe in things that are not based on evidence is that it pressuposes the existence of a ethics based on evidence. But it seems to me that there is no ethics that does not start from axiomatic presuppositions that don't have evidence for.

The most famous person who defends the existence of an evidence-based ethics is Sam Harris and his argument basically goes like this:

All sentient beings avoid suffering,
Therefore, we ought to reduce suffering in the aggregate.

But note that the conclusion does not follow from the premise, this argument would only be valid if we add the following premise:

All sentient beings avoid suffering,
We ought to reduce the aggregate amount of what all sentient beings avoid,
Therefore, we ought to reduce suffering in the aggregate.

But what is the evidence for the proposition "We ought to reduce the aggregate amount of what all sentient beings avoid"? If you accept it, you will already be believing something without having any evidence for.