PHIL/RS 335Varieties, Pt. 3

Lectures 4 & 5: “The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness” As we noted last time, James’s treatment of the

religious dimensions of the experience of the unseen culminates in a distinction between two religious moods that we are going to explore today.

Religious experience that is dominated by the first of these moods (happiness) is clearly evident in a consideration of the history of American religion, but James identifies it as a basic, constitutive element of religious experience.

As an initial argument in favor of exploring the simpler forms of the religious experience dominated by this mood, James observes that the connection between religion and happiness is so commonly observed that it serves as the basis an argument to the truth of religious beliefs.

Happiness James sets out to unpack the concept of happiness,

focusing on a typically extreme form: “congenital and irreclaimable” happiness. This is more than mere sunny disposition. James is exploring the

religious experience of those who, “…when unhappiness is offered or proposed to them, positively refuse to feel it, as if were something mean or wrong” (91). See also (92).

James then notes a few features of the religious experience common to people with this psychological disposition. Their religious experience dominated by a feeling of union with

the divine. Adopting Newman’s coinage, James applies the label “once-born”

(93). James fills in this picture by quoting from the writings of a

number of individuals, including as a paradigmatic example of this congenital happiness the life and writings of Walt Whitman.

A Broader Psychological Context James names the psychological situation of which

this sort of religious experience is an instance: Healthy-Mindedness.

He immediately moves to distinguish two forms: Involuntary: congenital optimism. Voluntary: systematic optimism, “an abstract way of

conceiving things as good” (101).

We shouldn’t confuse this voluntary form as a deception. Through cultivation, people can come to “naturally” see the world through this optimistic lens.

Seems naïve, but we can’t just dismiss it (103-4).

Can We See This? James advances the claim that “Liberalism” in

Christianity is a species of this healthy-mindedness.

Current examples include fairly common features of many churches in the united states, like the “WOW” service.

A form is also evident today in what James calls “religion of Nature.” Though he describes the sort of optimism that can accompany an evolutionist perspective, more recently we’ve seen things like the “brights” movement. http://www.the-brights.net/

The Mind-Cure Movement James devotes considerable attention to the so-called “mind-cure

movement,” Characterized by an “intuitive belief in the all-saving power of the healthy-

minded attitudes” (110). Dogma: Gospels, Transcendentalism, Berkeleyan Idealism. Distinctively American contribution (109-10).

Is this religious? (111) James equates the mind-cure movement with Lutheranism and Wesleyanism

(122-3). Form of renunciation: let go, give yourself over to a higher power, etc.

How does it differ from typical senses of religion? Problem of evil (121). Pantheistic in outlook (117).

Method? Suggestion; Emphasis on limiting feature of more conventional religious expression; use of meditative techniques.

What’s it all mean? As James makes clear, he’s taken a close look at

healthy-mindedness because it allows him to address a common argument against religion offered by “scientists” and “positivists.” It’s essentially the argument offered by the Brights

(religion as atavism: triumph of naturalistic viewpoint).

As should already be apparent, James identifies this scientific optimism with the mind-cure movement. Though they seem antagonistic, they converge on a common conclusion.

So what of the ‘atavism’ argument? “…the universe…[is] a more many-sided affair than any sect, even the scientific set, allows for” (137) Science just one among many techniques for handling

our “total experience of the world.”

Lectures 6 & 7: “The Sick Soul” In contrast to the once-born, healthy-minded

stance towards the world, there is another, inverted mood that also has important religious instantiation.

Instead of happiness, this mood is dominated by what could be characterized as existential insecurity (148).

In these lectures, James sets out to explore the contours and religious significance of this

The Morbid Mind As we saw with healthy-mindedness, the analysis of

what James calls the morbid mind (the sick-souled), immediately confronts a distinction between different levels. For some, the significance of evil is ultimately a

maladjustment between them and the world. A more ultimate view would trace evil to the individual

herself.

James offers an interesting metaphor to account for this difference: “misery threshold.” The big question is: doesn’t it make sense that people on

different sides of the misery line would need different things from their religions.

From plain old melancholy Just as with the discussion of healthy-mindedness,

James insists on the continuity of the specifically religious instances of sick-souledness with the mood more generally recognized.

He turns first to a consideration of a range of melancholic and depressive testimony.

This testimony reveals a fundamental ambivalence about existence (156-7). This ambivalence is a constant feature throughout

history: Ancient Greeks (Oedipus), Stoicism and Epicureanism, Positivism and Scientism.

In the most extreme forms, this ambivalence is itself overcome, not by positive thinkng, but as anhedonia (163-4).

To religious melancholy James points to two common responses to this

anhedonic experience: querulousness or religious.

James employs Tolstoy’s My Confession as an example of the latter (“more melting mood”). 2 characteristics:

Anhedonia (“loss of appetite for all of life’s values” (168)).

The experience (as a problem) opened an opportunity for resolution.

These characterisics lead an individual to a point where melancholy becomes temperamental or there is a kind of conversion.

The Face-OffClearly, we have two antipodal moods, both

clear contributors to our common religious context.

What should an impartial observer conclude about the difference between these two? The sick-souled mood is more encompassing (182).

To the extent that healthy-mindedness rules out on principle the sick-souled perspective, while the latter can account for the former, the former is clearly more adequate from a meta-religious standpoint (184).