Talk:Will to believe doctrine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Socrates
Philosophy Portal
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Article title

According to Wikipedia's manual of style, Philosophies, doctrines, and systems of economic thought do not begin with a capital letter. So we could rename the article "Will to believe doctrine", or just "Will to believe". However, I suggest naming it by the title of his essay "The Will to Believe", which was also the title of the collection of essays published in 1897.--Blainster 03:27, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

ATF: This may just be me, but I would go for "will to believe doctrine" rather than "The Will to Believe." James seems to have a tendency to name his books with his positions (e.g. Pragmatism) but there isn't an entry for that work of his either. Plus, I just generally think positions, doctrines and schools deserve primacy over essays and books. - Atfyfe () 18:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "The Will to Believe" chronology

Here is the chronology as reported in James' biographical timeline from William James Writings, 1902–1910 (Library of America), and R. B. Perry's Essays on Faith and Morals by James:

  • Spring, 1896 – Lecture, "The Will to Believe" is given to philosophical clubs at both Yale and Brown Universities.
  • June, 1896 – Essay is published in the New World
  • December 1896 – James signs the preface for the book, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
  • March 1897 – The book is published by Longmans, Green, & Co. However, Perry states in his 1912 preface to Essays in Radical Empiricism and also in the 1942 preface to Essays on Faith and Morals that the book was published in 1898. Evidence mitigates against Perry's late date for several reasons: first, James finished the book by the end of 1896, and press production of three months was more typical for the time; second, both month and date of publication are given by editor Bruce Kuklick in the Writings timeline; and finally, Perry has made just this sort of date error previously. In his preface to Essays in Radical Empiricism he stated that James had deposited the early version of the 12 essay collection bearing that title, to the Harvard Library in 1907. James had indeed written up a list of prospective contents for a book of that name in mid-1907, but he had deposited the collection in the library back in August 1906 for the use of his students in the fall term (the library collection bears the August 1906 date stamp). This is described in the 1976 Harvard critical edition of Essays in Radical Empiricism, p. 200–203. Still, it would be useful to gather some more evidence either way. --Blainster 20:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
ATF: Great stuff! Good digging Blainster. --Atfyfe () 21:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. If it means anything, Googling ("The Will to Believe" 1897) brings up 12,600 hits, but ("The Will to Believe" 1898) yields 893 hits. --Blainster 21:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I just noticed that the 1976 Harvard critical edition of Essays in Radical Empiricism cites The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy on p. xii with an 1897 publication date. With this, I think, definitive support, I will change the date in the article to 1897. --Blainster 22:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Can we quote and put this chronology of the doctrine into the actual entry as a new section? -Atfyfe 03:42, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Intro paragraph

I think the first paragraph could be improved in two ways. It should be an introduction that does not surprise the general reader with graduate level terms like evidentialism and especially hypothetico-deductivism. The casual searcher needs something they can understand without having to resort to checking links or references. It is better to save the big guns for the development of the discussion anyway. Secondly, the subject of the article should have their case presented first, before it is criticized, except perhaps in the instance of obviously extremist or fringe theories. Since James has had a significant influence on American philosophy as well as psychology, I think he deserves a hearing first. The present version delves into judgement and then analysis of the doctrine without explaining what it is. --Blainster 03:44, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

(1) I'll try re-writing the second section so that it does more than just repeat in techincal language the information already presented in the intro. I can give some more history and perhaps turn that into more of a history section. (2) I'll also look to add a good number of references to add. (3) I think the Russell quote should be cited as an example of unfair criticism rather than listed as a serious criticism. - Atfyfe 00:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism Section

While this is a fairly short article, I thought it might be good to add a criticism section, if only because Bertrand Russell offers some great points in his study A History of Western Philosophy and in a lesser known essay by Russell titled "The Ancestry of Fascism". Any objections? --Teetotaler

That would be great! - Atfyfe 18:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned out some (not all) of the POV stuff in the Crticism Section and added another quote, this one from Walter Kaufmann. --Teetotaler{{subst:image source|Image:1897-James-TheWillToBelieve.gif)) Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 00:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC) {{missing rationale|Image:1897-James-TheWillToBelieve.gif

[edit] Feedback about article

I read it. The initial paragraph is understandable. Then the article brings in terms and ways of phrasing concepts that take the level of writing up some distance over my head, and I have a master's degree (in an unrelated field), so I wouldn't say I'm just uneducated. IMHO since this is a general encyclopedia rather than a sophisticated special-purpose reference tool, I, or someone like me, should be able to understand all or nearly all of this article without recourse to other Wikipedia articles, a dictionary of philosophy, or a friend with a degree in the field to do us a favor by rendering the content into upper-middlebrow lay language. Songflower 19:12, 12 July 2007 (UTC)