William James's Religion View--Metaphysics And Religion Understood By Pragmatism Method

As the father of the American pragmatism William James (1842 -1910) has very deep religion feelings which relates to his growth environment on the one hand and social historical reality of U.S.A. at that time on the other hand. As his contemporary, William James has already realized the crisis due to blindly believing science. He values the science at the same time believes that the science's flourishing certainly will make people's spirit vanish. Witnessing the emergence of the crisis in belief he published The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy in 1896, The Varieties of Religious Experience in 1902, A Popular Universe in 1909,Pragmatism in 1910. William James expresses his unique religion thought clearly among these works and sets up a kind of new religion philosophy with the pragmatism method.This thesis has explained William James's religion thought from the pragmatism angle of view pointing out the relation ship between the God (sprit) and human being. The thesis is divided into four parts to explain William James's religion view.The first part: The pragmatism of philosophical foundation of the religion view has been probed into tentatively. William James's pragmatism and religion are closely related. Although till 1902, when publishing The Varieties of Religious Experience, his Pragmatism has not been published yet, he remains a kind of pragmatism attitude throughout in his religion thought which is embodied to some extent in The Will to Believe and The Varieties of Religious Experience. For example in the 17th part of The Varieties of Religious Experience, he speaks highly of pragmatism principle and advocates that people should introduce the idea of taking actions in the thought. The argumentation is launched from three respects ontologically, intellectually, methodologically in this chapter, which makes pragmatism be foundation of understanding religion and points out the significance of the pragmatism on William James's religion view.The second part: William James has launched the analysis to the experience of the religion directly cutting from the pragmatism method, pointing out the show to the religious experience (the value of the religion) of individual consciousness from five directions separately. This chapter probes into The Reality of the unseen, The Religionof Healthy-Mindedness, The Sick Soul, The Divided Self and Conversion, finally holding out that the mysticism is the essential feature of the religion.The third part: What is the result of religious experience James asks himself because of the essence of the pragmatism that lies in the result of idea. When answering this question, to begin with, William James points out that the sacred quality is the achievement of'the religion. Secondly, he makes systematic analysis to God's idea and points out again that the inevitable outcome that the pragmatism method analyses about the religious experience is the polytheism.The fourth part: The author of the thesis expounds that William James aims to set up a kind of science of religion that mediates the religion and science, and finally understand the meaning of scientific religion. At last the author points out William James's combination of the religion with the pragmatism has influenced the thought field in American society.