PHIL-330 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14-15: Heterodoxy, Transcendentalism, Social Evolution
Document Summary
In these two lectures james proposes to judge what absolute value religion adds to life. Gods correspond to contemporary attitudes he argues that judgements on religious matters are subject to common sense, which evolves. Indeed, the gods of the various religions have always corresponded to the current state of human development: After a few generations the mental climate proves unfavorable to notions of the deity which at an earlier date were perfectly satisfactory. James sees the psychological factor as crucial: the original factor in fixing the figure of the gods must always have been psychological. Founders of religions bore witness to gods who had things of psychological (and also social) value to offer. When gods no longer served a useful function on account of changing attitudes, they were replaced. The writer homes in in particular on catholicism: not only the cruelty, but the paltriness of character of the gods believed in by earlier centuries also strikes later centuries with surprise.
