SOURCE: "Peirce and the 'Will to Believe'," in The Monist, Vol. 63, No. 3, July, 1980, pp. 342-50.

In the following excerpt, Gavin examines common conclusions drawn by Peirce and William James on the nature of religious faith.

The multi-dimensionality of the term 'pragmatism' is by now a well-known phenomenon. Much has been made of the Peircean pragmatic theory of meaning vis-à-vis the Jamesian pragmatic theory of truth. Sometimes the contrast is made too quickly. This results in the undervaluing of important similarities between the two thinkers.

It is often said that the Jamesian position appealed to the affective dimension in life, in the sense of our having the "right to believe" in a hypothesis when the situation is unsolvable, yet forced, living, and momentous. Going further, James's metaphysics of "pure experience" involves more than just theoretical knowledge. He held the position that the human being is capable of experiencing...