PHIL 1110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Logical Disjunction, Aith
Notes on William James “The Will to Believe” (or “Justification by Faith”)
Hypothesis: “anything that can be proposed to our belief”
Live hypothesis: “one that appears as a real possibility to him [or her] to whom it is proposed”
“deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, but relations to the individual
thinker”
Option: “the decision between two hypotheses”
(1) Living (as opposed to dead) option: “both hypotheses are live ones”
(2) Forced (as opposed to avoidable) option: “every dilemma based on a complete logical
disjunction, with no possibility of not choosing, is an option of this forced kind”
(3) Momentous (as opposed to trivial) option: where one must choose within a given time
frame: “He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he tried
and failed”
(4) Genuine option: live, forced, and momentous
What “the will to believe” is NOT
(1) we are not psychologically capable of simply willing to believe anything we want
(2) accepting Pascal’s wager is not possible for those for whom belief in “masses and holy water”
is not a live option
(3) intentionally disregarding evidence (compare Clifford’s ship-owner example)
“Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must decide on an option between propositions,
whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds [alone]”
A dual maxim concerning belief: “Believe truth! Shun error!”
When an option is not momentous (e.g., scientific inquiry) then emphasis should be placed on the latter:
“in our dealing with objective nature we obviously are recorders, not makers, of the truth; and decisions
for the mere sake of deciding promptly and getting on to the next business would be wholly out of place”
Clifford in all cases emphasizes the latter at the expense of the former. But this is a “passional matter” –
which one we emphasize (when it comes to genuine options) depends on our passional/willing nature.
Examples of momentous decisions where it is wise to emphasize the former:
(1) Moral questions
(2) Friendship
(3) Religion
“[F]aith in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which should say that faith
running ahead of scientific evidence is the ‘lowest kind of immorality’ into which a thinking being can
fall”
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Document Summary
Notes on william james the will to believe (or justification by faith ) Hypothesis: anything that can be proposed to our belief . Live hypothesis: one that appears as a real possibility to him [or her] to whom it is proposed . Deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, but relations to the individual thinker . Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must decide on an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds [alone] . When an option is not momentous (e. g. , scientific inquiry) then emphasis should be placed on the latter: In our dealing with objective nature we obviously are recorders, not makers, of the truth; and decisions for the mere sake of deciding promptly and getting on to the next business would be wholly out of place . Clifford in all cases emphasizes the latter at the expense of the former.
