Abstract

William James' "The Will to Believe" essay has been the subject of much philosophical and religious discourse in the over one hundred years since its publication. Interpretations of the essay have been varied and numerous. In this thesis, I critique several of the prominent interpretations of "The Will to Believe." I find that each interpretation is lacking in some important way. Most of the interpretations fail to read James' text carefully and faithfully. The interpretations that succeed in reading the text carefully and faithfully fail because they do not provide a useful or helpful strategy to persons who find themselves with questions of belief like those James intended to address. I offer an interpretation of "The Will to Believe" that fails in neither of these ways. I do this by drawing on James' larger philosophical and psychological corpus, using the major struts of his mature thought to develop and clarify several important passages of "The Will to Believe." I conclude that "The Will to Believe," properly interpreted, offers a coherent and powerful strategy to persons confronted with certain types of questions of belief