The Will to Believe

William James

Edited by Frederick Burkhardt

Edited by Fredson Bowers

Edited by Ignas K. Skrupskelis

Introduction by Edward H. Madden

    The Will to Believe addresses several of the most important and perplexing problems of philosophy. In ten lucid essays James deals with such subjects as causality and free will, the definition of the good life and the Good itself, the importance of the individual in society, and the intellectual claims of scientific method. Linking all these essays, most of which were delivered as lectures to popular audiences, is James's deep belief that philosophy does not operate in a vacuum but is influenced by our passional and volitional natures.

    As Edward H. Madden points out in his substantial introduction, these essays, written over a span of seventeen years, represent not so much a fixed system of ideas as a patient searching, an organic development of James's thought in response to his own criticism and that of others.

    This is the sixth volume to be published in The Works of William James, an authoritative edition sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies.

  • Cover: The Will to Believe

Frederick Burkhardt, formerly a professor of philosophy and then a college president, is President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies.

Fredson Bowers is Linden Kent Professor of English, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia.

Ignas K. Skrupskelis is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina.