| This dissertation examines the continuity of fundamental ethical, religious, and metaphysical issues in William James's thought, and offers an interpretation of James's ethics as bound up with and expressive of his efforts to develop a philosophically credible and existentially satisfactory religious Weltanschauung for the modern world. It undertakes to show that the Leitmotiv of James's philosophical project---including his well known doctrines of pragmatism and radical empiricism---is best and most fully understood as a practically motivated attempt to reconcile a naturalistic view of the world with a pluralistic or "piecemeal" form of faith in a wider, supernatural order. Chapter One examines the relationship between religious belief and moral agency in James's thought, and focuses largely on the Will to Believe collection of essays. Chapter Two, in turn, deals with James's views on religious and mystical experience and their value for the moral life as presented in his 1901--02 Gifford Lectures, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Finally, Chapter Three offers a detailed study of the religious, metaphysical, and ethical dimensions of James's doctrines of pragmatism and pluralism, and makes a case for interpreting James's epistemological and metaphysical writings in light of his commitment to meliorism, or his view that philosophy ought to make a practical difference in the lives of human beings. |
