著者

筒井 史緒

出版者

宗教哲学会

雑誌

宗教哲学研究 (ISSN:02897105)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.26, pp.53-70, 2009 (Released:2019-09-18)

---

William James confesses, in a letter to his friend Frances R. Morse, when writing The Varieties of Religious Experience, that it is his own religious act to attempt to make it credible that (1) religious life is based on privately felt experience, not general views of philosophy; and that (2) religious life is mankind’s most important function. That is, his religious philosophy is, in some way, something to interpret his private endeavor as a public theory. We are here concerned with the question how his privately-motivated vision can be accepted as a general philosophy, and why he needs to make the former into the latter. The purpose of this article is to clarify the complex religiousness of James’s religious philosophy, focusing on these questions: how can the world be felt and said essentially religious? ; why should the privately-experienced intention be developed into an official philosophy? ; and why is this attempt to do so his personal religious act? Chapter 1 concerns with Jamesian philosophy of experience in general. Here we will see how general thought is made from personal feeling. Then Chapter 2 examines his view on religion, pointing out that religious feeling can reveal the deepest possibility of the universe, and doing so, that the personal experience must, in spite of its crucial lack of evidence, be established as public religion. Finally in Chapter 3 we will see how his religious philosophy is composed of his own religious intuition and why that is not only justified but essential.

著者

筒井 史緒

出版者

宗教哲学会

雑誌

宗教哲学研究 (ISSN:02897105)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.20, pp.53-64, 2003 (Released:2019-03-21)

---

‘Radical empiricism’, as James calls his own philosophic attitude, suggests that he never ignores any facts that are experienced in this world. But what interests us is that at the same time the element ‘faith’ plays an essential role in his thought. This appears to make a great contrast, for accepting the facts thoroughly means accepting all the worldly contradictions, with which our faith seems to have nothing to do. The contrast is made sharp when the faith is of a religious kind. The problematic of religious faith lies in its excess: it goes beyond the world of touchable facts in two ways. One, it must be held with insufficient evidence, requiring more than the facts can supply. Two, it tells us about the unseen, which is the final good. In this paper, we will see how religious faith acquires its validity in spite of this excess, which takes us into the very heart of James’ world vision. First, there are cases in which our faith itself works as a truth-maker. This process of faith making itself true is called ‘verification.’ Secondly, in religious experiences, the human soul is really connected with the unseen or mystical region via our depth of feeling. And finally, these two make one in the will to believe, to accept our own feeling’s demands and to live the faith. So in James, however seemingly contradictory, to be religious means to live sincerely in this world. This structure directly reflects his world view. The world always has the potential to be revealed, partly by our conduct. We are pressed to answer this potential or urged to act; then the action brings in new facts, which causes the world to put the pressure on us again. Thus we human beings and the world work together to develope the future. James sees this as the best chance for the world’s salvation.