Conversations in Philosophy: 'The Will to Believe' by William James

Close Readings

Most of what we believe we believe on faith, even those beliefs we hold to be based on scientific fact. This assertion lies at the heart of William James’s essay ‘The Will to Believe’, originally delivered as a lecture and intended not so much as a defence of religion as an attack on anti-religion. James’s target was the ‘rugged and manly school of science’ and the kind of atheism ‘that goes around thumping its chest offering its biceps to be felt’. In this episode Jonathan Rée and James Wood look at the intellectual environment William James was working in, and against, in the second half of the 19th century, and its parallels in the ‘new atheism’ of today. They also discuss the extraordinary upbringing William (and his novelist brother Henry) received and the advice he offered to anyone contemplating suicide in his essay ‘Is life worth living?’

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Read more in the LRB:

Helen Thaventhiran: William James's Prescriptions

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/helen-thaventhiran/no-dose-for-it-at-the-chemist

Michael Wood: William James and modernism

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n18/michael-wood/understanding-forwards

Richard Poirier: Williams James's pragmatism

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n19/richard-poirier/copying-the-coyote