James' Veto of Intellectualism

"If the [religious] hypothesis were true in all its parts, including this one, then pure intellectualism, with its veto on our making willing advances, would be an absurdity; and some participation of our sympathetical nature would be logically required. I, therefore, for one, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking [i.e. Clifford's Rule], or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule." (P 118a)


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Richard Lee, rlee@uark.edu, last modified: 21 January 2003