The Will to Believe: William James on Will, Reason and Religious Belief

In this show, philosophy professors Hope May and Michael Russo focus on how James' pragmatic theory of truth pertains to religious beliefs and his notion of "healthy mindedness." Indeed, one of the primary motivations for James' theory of truth is to allow religious beliefs to be justified, and in his "The Varieties of Religious Experience," he discusses the so called "religion of healthy mindedness." We will focus on this aspect of James' thought.