1. WILLIAM JAMES The Freedom to Believe: A Justification of specific types of faith

2. William James (1842 – 1910)

3. [ Background ] Father Henry Sr., Brother Henry Jr. Lifelong Depression Soft determinism (Brockton murder) Principles of Psychology 1990 Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) and Pragmatism

4. Central Principle (the thesis) “Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds”

5. Genuine Option - Definition i) forced (vs. unforced): options span possibility space ii) live (vs. dead): appears as a real possibility iii) momentous (vs. trivial): has some appeal to “passional nature”

6. GENUINE OPTION - Examples [Decision whether to jump out of car during accident.] James’ Examples: morality making friends mountaineering, and…

7. THE RELIGIOUS HYPOTHESIS [Odd] definition: i) “the best things are the more eternal things” ii) “we are better off even now if we believe [ i ] to be true”

8. Calculus [?] of Genuine Options Two dangers: believing falsely, losing truth. Two prizes: avoiding error, believing truth. James’ personal view is an argument that losing truth is worse than believing falsely (or that believing the truth is worth more than avoiding error). [No proof, or else not genuine option.]

9. Best Objection Believing/not believing too coarse Must be replaced with Degrees of confidence, and Decision calculus under conditions of uncertainty. E.g.: checking tires when a funny noise heard.