Il pragmatismo di william james, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica Il pragmatismo di william james e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! introduction William James has been an important and innovative figure in the philosophical panorama of the 19th century. He has deeply influenced the cultural movement of American Pragmatism, giving his personal views of things. I focused my attention on the particular perspective that he had of ideas, theories and beliefs, paying more attention to the remarkable entity that is God. James considered God as a fact in which it is possible believe or not, but that it can’t be demonstrated on a scientific level, because it only exists as a psychic fact. I’ll try to show how he arrives at this conclusion and also the different steps that his philosophy went through. THE PRAGMATISM OF WILLIAM JAMES William James was born in the United States in 1842 and he died in 1910. He was born in a rich and well-educated family: his father was a philosopher who belonged to the philosophical movement of Transcendentalism; his brother was a very successful writer and psychologist. So, his family had been widely relevant for the development of Northamerican culture and more generally in global culture. According to William James, Pragmatism is the meeting between philosophy and psychology. Among all his works we pay more attention on: - “The Principles of Psychology” written in 1890; - “The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy” written in 1897; - “The Varieties of Religious Experience” written in 1902; - “The Meaning of Truth” written before dying, in 1909. Starting from his work “The Principles of Psychology”, William James describes the psychic life of an individual as a stream of emotions, feelings and thoughts that flow in a constant and continuous way; it is called “stream of consciousness”. This theory was an innovation in the psychological panorama of the 19th century, because at that time was still prevalent the theory of “associationism” which describes emotions as something that followed each other in a mechanical way, remaining clear, distinct and independent. Moving from the theory of stream of consciousness, James develops the one of the “Reflex-action”, which believes that every single psychic act is strongly connected to a stimulus that derives from the surrounding environment; the psychic life of an individual is constantly influenced by the environment and at the same time the psychic life influences the external environment. So, to resume it, we can say that there’s an outside reality which influences the psychic life, that in conclusion becomes the reflex action to a stimulus and that will affect the environment too. It is a circle. The human mind and the natural world are in a symbiosis. The pragmatism of William James is extremely original and characterizes a rupture with the past. It is not a mechanistic and deterministic theory, but on the contrary it gives possibilities and it is characterized by spontaneity. His pragmatism is based on two prerequisites: - The first directive is the practical outcome of a psychic action (ideas/theories): establishes that each idea or theory (that derives from the outside world) has a practical outcome. - The second one is the future orientation that produces an idea, which in addition to having a practical outcome, also directs actions towards the future. Furthermore, James has developed the “theory of truth”. It says that the validity of an idea is given by its capacity to stimulate an effect on the individual that himself expects. If the effects are realized, the theory processed can be considered valid. To James, the truth deals with its individual practical effectiveness. If a theory realizes the effects that are awaited from the individual, for him it comes true. His pragmatism is strongly connected to his doctrine of “The Will to Believe”. It says that men can believe in something according to the personal and emotional disposition they assume towards the belief considered, so men don't need to wait for an empirical and pragmatic verification of their belief. The fact of not deciding to believe or not in something, waiting for a rational demonstration, is considerate as not believing in it, giving up the good things that a particular belief could have brought. “There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.” James did two clarifications: - First of all, in order to be legitimate believing in something, it is necessary that the belief isn’t immediately denied by the scientific, storical or empirical experience, otherwise it would be impossible to assume it as true. - Secondly, a belief needs to have the possibility to be denied, it has to have the doubt inside itself, so that it can be a choice to believe in it or not, allowing different possibilities. If it has these characteristics, the individual can give his emotional adherence to a belief. William James thought about God as a belief that cannot be denied scientifically; he says that if an individual believes in the existence of God is because he has decided to give his personal and emotional adherence to him, without expecting an imminent and practical outcome. A man that truly believes in God, takes decisions and makes actions in which the will of belief has a radical impact. The will to believe brings the individual to realize the belief, mobilizing him at the emotional and psychical level, and bringing him to adopt behavior or to do actions that have as final step the realization of his purpose.