William James is frequently considered one of America's most important philosophers, as well as a foundational thinker for the study of religion. Despite his reputation as the founder of pragmatism, he is rarely considered a serious philosopher or religious thinker. In this new interpretation David Lamberth argues that James's major contribution was to develop a systematic metaphysics of experience integrally related to his developing pluralistic and social religious ideas. Lamberth systematically interprets James's radically empiricist world-view and argues for an early dating (1895) for his commitment to the metaphysics of radical empiricism. He offers a close reading of Varieties of Religious Experience; and concludes by connecting James's ideas about experience, pluralism and truth to current debates in philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and theology, suggesting James's functional, experiential metaphysics as a conceptual aid in bridging the social and interpretive with the immediate and concrete while avoiding naive realism.
| ISBN: | 9780521108973 |
| Publication date: | 12th February 2009 |
| Author: | David C Harvard University, Massachusetts Lamberth |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 272 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought |
| Genres: |
Philosophy of religion |