William James

William James

Yi Lyu

“Philosophy-etymologically rooted from the Greek for ‘love of wisdom’-can provide the conceptual clarity and rigour of thinking which informs how we see and understand the world and the scope and limitations of our proposals for change” (Reynolds, 1998, p. 150). According to the Oxford dictionary (2013), philosophy is “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline”. It is hard to define philosophy, because there is no unified solution toward philosophy.

The philosopher that I want to talk about is William James (1842-1910) (“William James”, 2013). He was born in clerical family with scientific spirit in New York. His father, Henry James, Sr., urged him and his younger siblings to search for adequate education in European and America. William James wanted to be a painter when he was young, but after he realized that he had little talent in painting, he started to learn chemistry, then went up to study anatomy and psychology. He received his M.D. degree in Harvard Medical School. He had suffered serious illness and depression from 1869 to 1872, after which he began to teach in Harvard. He became an assistant professor of philosophy in 1880.

William was an excellent physiologist, and at the same time, he was an outstanding philosopher. His works that are related to philosophy are “Pragmatism”, “The Will to Believe”, and “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, etc. He built pragmatism together with Charles S. Peirce (“William James”, 2013). He believed there is no absolute truth, because truth will change along with the changing environment.

What’s more, he considered belief as an action, which yields the follow syllogism:

1. We are always morally obligated to act so as to maximize desire–satisfaction over desire–is satisfaction.

2. Belief is an action.

3. Therefore, we are always morally obligated to believe in a manner that maximizes desire–satisfaction...