Philosophy of religion
James also contributed to the philosophy of religion. In his Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh he provided a wide-ranging account of The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and interpreted them according to his pragmatic leanings. Some of the important claims he makes in this regard were the following:
Religious genius (experience) should be the primary topic in the study of religion, rather than religious institutions—since institutions are merely the social descendant of genius.
The intense, even pathological varieties of experience (religious or otherwise) should be sought by psychologists, because they represent the closest thing to a microscope of the mind—that is, they show us in drastically enlarged form the normal processes of things.
In order to usefully interpret the realm of common, shared experience and history, we must each make certain "over-beliefs" in things which, while they cannot be proven on the basis of experience, help us to live fuller and better lives.
A variety of characteristics can be seen within a single individual. There are subconscious elements that compose the scattered fragments of a personality. This is the reflection of a greater dissociation which is the separation between science and religion.
Religious Mysticism is only one half of mysticism, the other half is composed of the insane and both of these are co-located in the "great subliminal or transmarginal region".
American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia classes him as one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world."
James was an advocate of theistic finitism, which he used to explain the problem of evil.
James devoted much of his career to the psychological investigation of mysticism. This led him to experiment with chloral hydrate (1870), amyl nitrite (1875), nitrous oxide (1882), and peyote (1896). Inspired by a report by Benjamin Paul Blood in 1874, James experimented with inhaled nitrous oxide, upon which he experienced a "tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical illumination" in which "every opposition ... vanished in a higher unity" and "the ego and its objects ... are one." Having been an ardent anti-Hegelian, James claimed that it was only when he was under the influence of nitrous oxide that he was able to understand Hegel. He concluded that while the revelations of the mystic hold true, they hold true only for the mystic; for others, they are certainly ideas to be considered, but can hold no claim to truth without personal experience of such. He was powerfully affected by the event and struggled greatly to interpret it. His journey of self discovery instigated by the experience is largely what inspired his later in-depth investigations of mysticism.
James provided a description of mystical experience in The Varieties of Religious Experience. He posits four criteria as "sufficient to mark out a group of states of consciousness" which may be called the "mystical group".
These criteria are:
Ineffability – no adequate report of the contents of the experience can be given by words. This was the "handiest" of descriptors for James, and illustrates the necessity of direct, first-hand experience to actually understand a mystical state of consciousness.
Noetic quality – "...mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge." Mystical consciousness generates a feeling of insight into truths inaccessible to ordinary reasoning. These intuitions or insights are often felt as authoritative both during and after they are experienced, but are necessarily confined by the first criterion of ineffability, and are thus inexpressible in words.
Transiency – the mystical state is unable to be sustained for long periods of time. They are, however, recognisable upon re-experience, and can be further developed over multiple occasions.
Passivity – a feeling of suspension of control of one's personal will, occasionally as if grasped by a superior power.
For James, the first two attributes, ineffability and the noetic quality, "will entitle any state to be called mystical, in the sense in which I use the word." The qualities of transiency and passivity are "less sharply marked, but are usually found". He uses a number of historical examples to illustrate the presence of these attributes in geographically and temporally disparate instances, concluding that the mystical experience "is on the whole pantheistic and optimistic, or at least the opposite of pessimistic. It is anti-naturalistic, and harmonizes best with twice-bornness and so-called other-worldly states of mind" (original italics).
In line with his pragmatism, James asserted that the epistemological authority of mystical consciousness for the individual who experiences it is may be rightfully justified, but that others are under no obligation to accept that authority uncritically. Importantly, however, the mere existence of mystical states necessarily indicates an incompleteness in the epistemological authority of the non-mystical. He would continue to advocate for the acceptance of mystical states as a fruitful subject of psychological research and source of knowledge. In his book The Pluralistic Universe (1909), James would expand upon his notion of "radical empiricism" in arguing for the possible association of empiricism and religion in the study of human spirituality. In viewing mysticism from a psychological perspective, he believed that the limits of our being extend far beyond what is ordinarily accessible by our sense perception, and that our finite beings are affected by unconscious forces, "But that which produces effects within another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal."
James viewed mysticism as the structuring aspect of religion. While he grants that religious experience reveals the possibility of a union with something greater than oneself, he clarifies that mysticism and philosophy identify that something as an "all-inclusive soul of the world" that he does not deem wholly necessary for a practical and fulfilling religious life. As elsewhere in his work, James is averse to any dogmatic or absolutist doctrines, within religion and without, and thus values mysticism as a unique method of personal acquaintance with a larger reality.
James was a founding member and vice president of the American Society for Psychical Research. The lending of his name made Leonora Piper a famous medium. In 1885, the year after the death of his young son, James had his first sitting with Piper at the suggestion of his mother-in-law. He was soon convinced that Piper knew things she could only have discovered by supernatural means. He expressed his belief in Piper by saying, "If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, it is enough if you prove that one crow is white. My white crow is Mrs. Piper." However, James did not believe that Piper was in contact with spirits. After evaluating sixty-nine reports of Piper's mediumship he considered the hypothesis of telepathy as well as Piper obtaining information about her sitters by natural means such as her memory recalling information. According to James the "spirit-control" hypothesis of her mediumship was incoherent, irrelevant and in cases demonstrably false.
James held séances with Piper and was impressed by some of the details he was given; however, according to Massimo Polidoro a maid in the household of James was friendly with a maid in Piper's house and this may have been a source of information that Piper used for private details about James. Bibliographers Frederick Burkhardt and Fredson Bowers who compiled the works of James wrote "It is thus possible that Mrs. Piper's knowledge of the James family was acquired from the gossip of servants and that the whole mystery rests on the failure of the people upstairs to realize that servants [downstairs] also have ears."
James was convinced that the "future will corroborate" the existence of telepathy. Psychologists such as James McKeen Cattell and Edward B. Titchener took issue with James's support for psychical research and considered his statements unscientific. Cattell in a letter to James wrote that the "Society for Psychical Research is doing much to injure psychology".
James studied closely the schools of thought known as associationism and spiritualism.
Associationism is the view that each experience one has leads to another, creating a chain of events. The association does not tie together two ideas, but two physical objects. This association occurs on an atomic level. Small physical changes occur in the brain which eventually form complex ideas or associations. Thoughts are formed as these complex ideas work together and lead to new experiences. Isaac Newton and David Hartley both were precursors to this school of thought, proposing such ideas as "physical vibrations in the brain, spinal cord, and nerves are the basis of all sensations, all ideas, and all motions...". James disagreed with associationism in that he believed it to be too simple. He referred to associationism as "psychology without a soul" because there is nothing from within creating ideas; they just arise by associating objects with one another.
Spiritualism, on the other hand, is the view that mental events are attributed to the soul. Whereas in associationism, ideas and behaviors are separate, in spiritualism, they are connected. Spiritualism encompasses innatism, which argues that ideas cause behavior. Ideas of past behavior influence the way a person will act in the future, and all these ideas are all tied together by the soul. Therefore, an inner soul causes one to have a thought, which leads them to perform a behavior, and memory of past behaviors determine how one will act in the future.
As a pragmatist, James took the view that one should use the parts of theories that make the most sense and can be proven. Therefore, he recommended analyzing spiritualism and associationism and using those of their parts making the most sense. Influenced by Emanuel Swedenborg, who introduced him to the idea, James believed that each person has a soul, which exists in a spiritual universe, and leads a person to perform the behaviors they do in the physical world. James stated that, although it does appear that humans use associations to move from one event to the next, this cannot be done without this soul tying everything together. For, after an association has been made, it is the person who decides which part of it to focus on, and therefore determines in which direction following associations will lead. Associationism is too simple in that it does not account for decision-making of future behaviors, and memory of what worked well and what did not. Spiritualism, however, does not demonstrate actual physical representations for how associations occur. James combined the views of spiritualism and associationism to create his own way of thinking. James discussed tender-minded thinkers as religious, optimistic, dogmatic, and monistic. Tough-minded thinkers were irreligious, pessimistic, pluralists, and skeptical. Healthy-minded individuals were seen as natural believers by having faith in God and universal order. People who focused on human miseries and suffering were noted as sick souls.
