The Varieties and the Cognitive Value of Religious Experiences

Abstract

When analyzing William James’ philosophy of religion, we often turn to his explicit writings on religion, e.g. in his The Varieties of Religious Experience,² and to his theoretical views on cognition, experience, and epistemology, such as in The Principles of Psychology, A Pluralistic Universe, and Essays in Radical Empiricism.³ There is much debate, however, on what James’ views are on such basic issues as consciousness, experience, and truth.⁴ This chapter establishes whether, from a pragmatist perspective, religious experiences can have cognitive value. Instead of turning to James’ theoretical writings on these issues, however, I analyze his more empirical The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature in answering this question.

I am indebted to the Fulbright Center for a grant that aided in conducting part of my PhD research at Harvard University in the fall semester of 2010, during which I wrote a first version of this chapter. I thank David Lamberth and Parimal Patil for valuable comments on my argument, and the members of Harvard Divinity School’s Colloquium on Theology, Religion, Ethics, Politics and Sociology, under supervision of Francis Fiorenza, for valuable feedback when I had the opportunity of presenting an earlier version of this chapter to them. Finally, I thank my dissertation supervisors, Christoph Baumgartner and Dirk- Martin Grube.