The Will to Believe

by William James, Fredson Bowers, Frederick Burkhardt, Edward H. Madden, Ignas K. Skrupskelis

Overview

The Will to Believe addresses several of the most important and perplexing problems of philosophy. In ten lucid essays James deals with such subjects as causality and free will, the definition of the good life and the Good itself, the importance of the individual in society, and the intellectual claims of scientific method. Linking all these essays, most of which were delivered as lectures to popular audiences, is James's deep belief that philosophy does not operate in a vacuum but is influenced by our passional and volitional natures. As Edward H. Madden points out in his substantial introduction, these essays, written over a span of seventeen years, represent not so much a fixed system of ideas as a patient searching, an organic development of James's thought in response to his own criticism and that of others. This is the sixth volume to be published in The Works of William James, an authoritative edition sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674952812
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	05/28/1979
Series:	The Works of William James , #20
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.45(d)

About the Author

Frederick Burkhardt, formerly a professor of philosophy and then a college president, is President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies.

Fredson Bowers is Linden Kent Professor of English, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia.

Ignas K. Skrupskelis is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction by Edward H. Madden

The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy

Index

Notes

A Note on the Editorial Method