An Understanding of Religious Experience in Bernard Eugene Meland’s Radical Empiricism

2016 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 183
Author(s):  
Hiheon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Radical Empiricism

William James

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Slater
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
The United States ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
The Will

William James (b. 1842–d. 1910) was the most influential American philosopher and psychologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the founding father of empirical psychology in the United States. A thinker of unusually broad interests and abilities and a physiologist by training, James rose to international prominence with the publication of his monumental The Principles of Psychology (originally published in 1890), but devoted roughly the last twenty years of his life to popular lecturing on philosophical and psychological topics and to the articulation and development of his philosophical views, the seeds of which can be largely found in Principles. He is perhaps best known to philosophers today as one of the originators of pragmatism (along with Charles Sanders Peirce), and for his defense of innovative and controversial philosophical doctrines such as radical empiricism and “the will to believe.” In addition to Principles, James’s most famous works are The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (published first in 1897), The Varieties of Religious Experience (published in 1902), and Pragmatism (first published in 1907).

William James on How to Study Experience: Integrating Phenomenology of Religion and Radical Empiricism

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 423-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason N. Blum
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Phenomenology Of Religion ◽  
Study Experience

William James stands at the nexus of two intellectual traditions important to religious studies: phenomenology of religion and radical empiricism. Focusing on James’s work, I identify three essential points of contact between radical empiricism and phenomenology of religion: epoché, the affective character of consciousness, and the inevitably open-ended nature of experience. I argue that these resonances allow them to be integrated, thereby furnishing a more robust and defensible understanding of the category of “experience.” This integrated approach responds to recent criticisms of phenomenology of religion, and describes a complimentary relationship between it and other, explanatory approaches to the study of religion and religious experience.

James: Full Self and Wider Fields

2000 ◽  
pp. 101-131
Author(s):  
Eugene Fontinell
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Radical Empiricism

This chapter argues that the relation between the person and God must be such that a belief in personal immortality has experiential grounds—not grounds in the sense of offering a compelling necessity to infer immortality, but in the softer sense of being basically consistent with and open to such belief. In keeping with this experiential methodology, there must be some “justifying” evidence for the extrapolated belief in a divine—human relationship. The principal grounds for such extrapolated belief are found in the view of the self that emerges in James' later writings. The chapter draws mainly upon material from The Varieties of Religious Experience, Essays in Radical Empiricism, and A Pluralistic Universe, without dealing with important differences of concern and context among these works.

A Jamesian Response to Reductionism in the Neuropsychology of Religious Experience

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 307-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Givens Kime ◽  
John R. Snarey
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Constructive Approach ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Neuropsychological Study ◽  
Conversation Partner

The neuroscience revolution has revived interpretations of religious experiences as wholly dependent on biological conditions. William James cautioned against allowing such neurological reductionism to overwhelm other useful perspectives. Contemporary psychologists of religion have raised similar cautions, but have failed to engage James as a full conversation partner. In this article, we present a contemporary, applied version of James's perspective. We clarify the problem by reviewing specific James-like contemporary concerns about reductionism in the neuropsychological study of religion. Then, most centrally, we employ three of James's conceptual tools—pragmatism, pluralism, and radical empiricism—to moderate contemporary reductionism. Finally, we point to a constructive approach through which neuroscientists might collaborate with scholars in the humanities and psychosocial sciences, which is consistent with our conclusion that it is often no longer fruitful to separate neurobiological studies from studies that are psychosocial or sociocultural.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document