William James’ “The Will to Believe” (1896/1979) continues to attract scholarly attention. This might seem surprising since James’ central claim—that one may justifiably believe p despite having inconclusive evidence for p—seems both very clear and also very wrong. I argue that many of the interpretive and substantive challenges of this essay can be overcome by framing James’ thesis in terms of what Tamar Gendler defines as “alief.” I consider two readings of James’ position (one charitable, the other super-charitable) and conclude that the “will to believe” rests on a misnomer. “The Will to Alieve” is more accurate—though the “Right to Alieve” is even better still.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Aikin Scot . (2013) “A Dilemma for James’s Justification of Faith”. William James Studies 10, 1–5.
Aikin Scott . (2014) Evidentialism and the Will to Believe. London: Bloomsbury.
Aikin Scott & Talisse Robert . (2018) Pragmatism, Pluralism, and the Nature of Philosophy. New York: Routledge.
Albahari Miri . (2014) “Alief or belief? A contextual approach to belief ascription”. Philosophical Studies 167, 701–720.
Baldwin James . (1976/2011) The Devil Finds Work. New York: Vintage International.
Brown Jessica . (2018) Fallibilism: Evidence and Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press.
Campbell James . (2017) Experiencing William James. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.
Dianda Alexis . (2018) “William James and the ‘Willfulness’ of Belief”. European Journal of Philosophy 26, 647–662.
Engel Mylan . (1992) “Personal and Doxastic Justification in Epistemology”. Philosophical Studies: 67, 133–150.
Engel Pascal . (2005) “Belief as a Disposition to Act: Variations on a Pragmatist Theme” Cognitio 6, 167–185.
Fuller R. (1996) “‘The Will to Believe’: A Centennial Reflection”. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64, 633–650.
Gendler Tamar Szabó . (2008a) “Alief and Belief”. Journal of Philosophy 105, 634–663.
Gendler Tamar Szabó . (2008b) “Alief in Action (and Reaction)”. Mind and Language 23, 552–585.
Haack Susan . (2013) “‘The Ethics of Belief’ Reconsidered”. In H. Rydenfelt and S. Pihlström (eds.) William James on Religion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), 111–127.
Hick John . (1990) Philosophy of Religion. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Hobhouse L.T. (1904) “Faith and the Will to Believe”. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 4, 87–110.
Honnold A . (2018) How I Climbed a 3,000-foot Vertical Cliff — Without Ropes [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/alex_honnold_how_i_climbed_a_3_000_foot_vertical_cliff_without_ropes?language=en.
Hookway Christopher . (2011) “James’s Epistemology and the Will to Believe”. European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 3, 30–38. https://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/865.
Jackman Henry . (1999) “Prudential Arguments, Naturalized Epistemology, and the Will to Believe”. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 35, 1–37.
James William . (1890/1952) The Principles of Psychology. New York: Dover.
James William . (1896/1979) The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
James William . (1907/1975) Pragmatism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Klein Alexander . (2015) “Science, Religion, and ‘The Will to Believe’”. Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 5, 72–117.
Koopman Colin . (2017) “The Will, the Will to Believe, and William James: An Ethics of Freedom as Self-Transformation”. Journal of the History of Philosophy 55, 491–512.
Kriegel Uriah . (2012) “Moral Motivation, Moral Phenomenology, And The Alief/Belief Distinction”. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90, 469–486.
Mandelbaum Eric . (2013) “Against Alief”. Philosophical Studies 165, 197–211.
McCormick Miriam Schleifer . (2018) “Responding to Skepticism about Doxastic Agency”. Erkenntnis 83, 627–645 .
Misak Cheryl . (2013) The American Pragmatists. New York: Oxford University Press.
Misak Cheryl . (2015) “Klein on James on the Will to Believe”. Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 5, 118–28.
Nagel Jennifer . (2012) “Gendler on Alief”. Analysis 72, 774–788.
Nossiter Adam . (2015a) A Shot, a Glimpse of an AK-47, and U.S. Servicemen Pounced on Gunman on Train to France. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/world/europe/americans-recount-gunmans-attack-on-train-to-france.html.
Nossiter Adam . (2015b, August 23) Americans Resist Hero Label After Foiling Train Attack. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/24/world/europe/americans-france-train-attack-spencer-stone-alek-skarlatos.html.
Nottelmann Nikolaj . (2007) Blameworthy Belief: A Study in Epistemic Deontologism. Dordrecht: Springer.
Pace Michael . (2011) “The Epistemic Value of Moral Considerations: Justification, Moral Encroachment, and James’ ‘Will To Believe’”. Noûs 45, 239–268.
Reisner Andrew . (2008) “Weighing Pragmatic and Evidential Reasons for Belief”. Philosophical Studies 138, 17–27.
Russell Bertrand . (1909/1994) “Pragmatism”. In Philosophical Essays (New York: Routledge), 79–111.
Schwitzgebel Eric . (2015, Summer) “Belief”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/belief/.
Tessman Lisa . (2017) When Doing the Right Thing is Impossible. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fraassen Van , Bas . (1984) “Belief and the Will”. Journal of Philosophy 81, 235–256.
Venables Stephen . (2000) Everest: Alone at the Summit. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press.
Zimmerman Aaron . (2018) Belief: A Pragmatic Picture. New York: Oxford University Press.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 785 | 173 | 33 |
Full Text Views | 42 | 3 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 70 | 9 | 0 |
William James’ “The Will to Believe” (1896/1979) continues to attract scholarly attention. This might seem surprising since James’ central claim—that one may justifiably believe p despite having inconclusive evidence for p—seems both very clear and also very wrong. I argue that many of the interpretive and substantive challenges of this essay can be overcome by framing James’ thesis in terms of what Tamar Gendler defines as “alief.” I consider two readings of James’ position (one charitable, the other super-charitable) and conclude that the “will to believe” rests on a misnomer. “The Will to Alieve” is more accurate—though the “Right to Alieve” is even better still.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 785 | 173 | 33 |
Full Text Views | 42 | 3 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 70 | 9 | 0 |