Proudfoot on James on RE

Proudfoot on James on RE Kinds of Religious Experience Feeling: Friedrich Schleiermacher: ego being swallowed by the infinite. Rudolph Otto: experiencing the numinous… William James: the primary source of all religions Perceptual: (William Alston) Identifying a non-sensory experience of God by comparing with how we experience sensible things. Interpretive: (Wayne Proudfoot) Experience as an interpretive account that, from the perspective of the subject, requires a religious explanation. What matters is “how it seems at the time” and not “how things are in reality” (= nonrealism) Schleiermacher on R.E. Religious experience is “a feeling of absolute or total dependence upon a source or power that is distinct from the world.” Religious experience is entirely affective: non-cognitive, non-conceptual. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) (Halle, Berlin) [Friedrich Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1821)] Otto on Religious Experience God’s essence can be grasped only by way of feeling — intuitively, not conceptually. God as “tremendous mystery” Numinous experience takes three forms: (1) Utter creaturely dependence. (2) Dread/awe of the divine power. (3) Intense longing for God. Rudolph Otto (1869-1937) (Marburg) [Rudolph Otto, Das Heilige (1917)] James on Religious Experience A religious experience is: (1) Ineffable: it cannot be adequately expressed in words (more like a feeling than thought). (2) Noetic: the subject feels that she has learned something from the RE. (3) Transient: the RE is temporary (4) Passive: the RE just happens to the subject; the subject can engage in a practice that might encourage an RE, but otherwise has no control over it. William James (1842-1910) (Harvard University) [William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)] James on Religious Experience The epistemic authority of religious experience: (1) Absolute authority over the subject. (2) No authority over 3rd parties. (3) Lessen the authority of non-religious experience. William James (1842-1910) (Harvard University) [William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)] James on Religious Experience The epistemic authority of religious experience: (1) Absolute authority over the subject. (2) No authority over 3rd parties. (3) Lessen the authority of non-religious experience. Question: Is a religious experience, for the subject, best thought of as a rational or as a nonrational cause of whatever religious belief that might arise from the experience? William James (1842-1910) (Harvard University) [William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)] Proudfoot: Problems with James James claims that the RE is prior to, and formative of, religious belief. RE is a basic feeling imposed on the subject (despite being noetic or knowledge-bearing), and so its origin is not relevant in our evaluation of the RE. A sensation or simple feeling of X should be assessed on its own merits. Proudfoot counters that an RE is “more than a feeling”. What seem like raw feelings are actually interpretations provided by the subject; the “religious aspect” of the feeling is not a given by some “other”, but is added by the subject, and so this subjective source is relevant to our evaluation of the RE. Wayne Proudfoot (b. 1939) (Columbia University) [Wayne Proudfoot, Religious Experience (1985)] Chisholm on Appearance Chisholm distinguishes between two uses of appearance-type words. “The table appears round” might be taken in either of two ways: Comparative: I report the image I have of the table (the raw, uninterpreted image). Epistemic: I report my belief about the actual shape of the table (this interprets the raw image as how it would look to someone properly positioned). Roderick Chisholm (1916-1999) (Brown University) Our normal use is epistemic, and contains the noetic aspect noted by James. [Wayne Proudfoot, Religious Experience (1985)] C. S. Peirce on Beliefs James appeals to his close friend Peirce’s claim that we must distinguish between the justification (the rational cause) and the explanation (the non-rational cause) of one’s belief. Peirce rightly notes that a belief should be judged on its own merits (how it can be justified) and not on its origins. James concludes that REs should likewise be judged on their “merits” (e.g., a feeling of the divine). Proudfoot argues that the “religious” part of the experience is subjective, an added interpretive element, not part of the original objective feeling. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) (Harvard University) [Wayne Proudfoot, Religious Experience (1985)] What is a Religious Experience? More than just religious content. It must be identified by the subject as such (interpreted as such): an experience that can be explained in no other way than religious. All experience is an interpretation of one kind or another. Wayne Proudfoot (b. 1939) (Columbia University) Description vs Explanation [Wayne Proudfoot, Religious Experience (1985)]