Answer the following questions by writing full sentences. If I ask you to discuss an issue, please consider

at least two different views of the issue along with your evaluation of the reasoning for the two different

views. If I ask you to give your personal response to a question or to state what would be personally

meaningful or applicable to you from this material, please be sure to give a full answer rather than a short one.

1.  Define the following: hypothesis, live, option, living or dead, forced or avoidable, momentous or trivial, genuine?

2. Does James accept Pascal's wager argument? What is the wager argument?

3. Why does believing by volition seem vile?

4. What is the last sentence in section 2 which summarizes Clifford's viewpoint? What concept of rationality does

Clifford assume?

5. How does James evaluate Clifford's position?

6. How is belief in truth itself something volitional?

7. What is James's thesis in section 4?

8. How does James reject skepticism in beginning of section 5? Go on to distinguish the empiricist way and the

absolutist way of believing in truth.

9. Justify the distinction between "we must know the truth" and "we must avoid error." It may be necessary to

develop examples.

10. In scientific questions and human affairs in general, why is the stronger commandment "we must avoid error"?

11. Why do moral questions present themselves such that the stronger commandment is "we must know the

truth"?

12. What is the moral question about? (Section 9) How is the question of having moral beliefs decided?

13. What is the point of the example "Do you like me or not?" What do this and other examples similar to it prove

for James?

14. What do science, morality, and religion say? (Section 10) Why is James wise to state the religious perspective

in such a general manner?

15. How does James evaluate the religious hypothesis as an option? Discuss whether or not you agree with

James's evaluation.

Local Link to the Full Text of James' The Will to Believe for Questions Above

 Additional Questions from the Link: Pragmatism: Practicality and Creativity for Questions Below

 11. What does science say about the world in the analysis of James? What does morality say? What does religion

say? Give examples of each.

12. Analyze the example of a moral decision about murder from the pragmatist perspective in order to support

James's view that choosing to believe can help to create the fact (or value) believed in.

13. Analyze the example of economic matters from the pragmatist perspective in order to support James's view

that choosing to believe can help to create the fact (or value) believed in.

14. Analyze the example of a woman declaring her love for a man from the pragmatist perspective in order to

support James's view that choosing to believe can help to create the fact (or value) believed in.

15. Is religious truth created or discovered for James? Explain.

 8. For the material added from Varieties of Religious Experience: how does James evaluate mystical experiences?

9. Develop examples of the five characteristics of religion from your own life or that of someone whom you know.

 10. What is James' statement of the religious hypothesis in Varieties of Religious Experience? Is this

psychologically real in your life? Explain. See link to Its simplest terms are an uneasiness and a deliverance;

description of the deliverances to find out why James believes that there is more than psychological truth to this

religious hypothesis. Is James' statement of the religious hypothesis objectively real in your understanding?

Explain.