So. BYU offers quite an odd selection of people to have classes with. I just got finished with William James- a class I’m taking from the same professor that I took Kierkegaard from last semester. I love Professor Paulsen, and I like his emphasis, so I knew I’d like the James course. As I started the reading and went to class (he always does a two-day biographical introduction at the beginning of the semester of the author we’re studying) I discovered that I do, indeed, really enjoy William James. That is, until people begin to talk.
So, a little background. The text we’re concentrating on right now is called “The Varieties of Religious Experiences.” James goes through quite a bit of trouble to make one certain point: the experiences he focuses on in his essay are personal, meaning, not necessarily connected to any church or ecclesiastical organization. Rather, he wants to talk about actual, personal experiences. James himself, interestingly enough, admitted to living a life of rather small amounts of religious feeling or sentiment. He said that he was not of the disposition to often have spiritual feelings or thoughts. For most people, religion is lived because of habit, in imitation of those who do have and exhibit real religious fervor. We’re not talking small names here. He named, specifically, Christ, Mohamed, Buddha. Any person can have direct connection to the Divine- and THAT is what he wants to discuss. The varieties of experiences that a person can have, that are considered religious. We actually began a rather interesting discussion on whether it is doctrine that feeds our experience or experience that feeds our doctrine, and came to the conclusion that for the purposes of James, we’d focus on what HE choose to focus on, as the question can be answered both ways. Experience. At this point, brown-shirt boy decided to interject.
“We keep throwing things around that we haven’t even defined yet. How can we pretend to have a conversation about personal religious experience when we have yet to define what that even means.”
OK. So yes. Freshman year in a philosophy major, people are attacked because they don’t define their terms. It’s true. When you are studying Aristotle and Hegel and all the great, misunderstood philosophers, all in one course, we tend to get our definitions wrong. It becomes fun, even “smart,” to insist that in any argument, your opponent defines the terms as she is using them. That’s probably just a good practice in any argument. But, for the sake of this class- it just so happens that personal religious experience is just what it sounds like. A feeling of peace as you walk though the woods. A surge of urgency to make a difference to someone as you start your day. Anger or indignation at the state of your life, and a choice not to pray. All of these things reflect what we are talking about.
Philosophy can hardly be considered a “practical” science in the same way as chemistry or biology can be considered practical. However, what many people fail to realise, is that philosophy is forever evolving, and that those subjects that we consider “science” actually began as philosophy. Untested theories and ideas about the world around us. Philosophy, then, is the way we try to make sense of the world, our interaction with other people and with God, and the way we understand communication, the way we choose what is right or true, the way we decided what actions or thoughts have value, and which do not. What may seem like fluffy philosophy right now maybe be an idea well on its way to becoming psychology, linguistics, astronomy, or even….dare I say it, law. SO. The point that I’m trying to make with all this is that philosophy in a very real way IS practical- it’s just practicality in such a baby-stage that it’s hard to recognize.
All that said, students (and I say students b/c I have rarely seen professors, that I respect anyway, have this problem) often try to be overly analytical with philosophical text. It’s almost as if, because it is philosophy, they want to make it MORE convoluted and hard to understand than necessary. Often, the author will give you everything you need in the text to understand the position they are taking. A key for their own writings. The problem with undergrads is that they rarely read enough (pages or volumes) to really understand what is being said. Instead of finding the author’s definitions and intentions, they create their own, all the time calling themselves a “brilliant philosopher” with “philosophy skills.” In the words of one of my FAVORITE teachers, you have to be willing to let the tree come to you. Where that phrase comes from, no idea. In essence, there is a tree. It is high, lofty, and full. You can spend forever in the branches and make up a story about where you think the roots could be coming from, OR, you can follow the trunk and see it for what it is in its entirety.
If philosophy is a way to understand life, it won’t be easy to make compact or clean cut. But, a philosopher can be precise in that she can take each separate part for what it is, and nothing else. You can see its relation to other things, but leave it to stand alone. Or, you can leave it tangled up in such a way that it’ll never be free. It just depends on what you’re talking about. William James used the word, “arbitrary” quite a few times, to indicate that he was choosing just one tiny facet- from among all the possible facets that exist- and concentrating his effort on studying just that. A small mind, or an argumentative one, would see the word “arbitrary” as a weakness in an argument. Or, at very least, say that choosing an aspect at random would make your argument so narrow that it couldn’t possibly stand up against all the variations that you could run it though. This was the point that some of the students were trying to make.
Here’s the thing. THEY wanted to do it all once- talk about which type of religious experience is best. Compare and contrast, lump it all in together. James isn’t asserting that the other half of what they need to know doesn’t matter. He is simply giving this half its due- studying it out in full, and waiting to get into the other side of it until he is satisfied that he has considered this part fully. Then, and only then, will he go on to something else. After all the small facets are investigated and thought-out, he can compare. Which argument would you believe more? Someone who tried to look at everything at once and made a hasty decision based on their limited understand of each side? Or someone who took all the time necessary, who was more concerned with a thorough job rather than “getting it done,” and someone who allows the “misty borders” to exist, and who affirms that “we can perfectly well afford to let the minor notes and the uncertain border go.” In saying this, it doesn’t mean we won’t get to it later- so don’t freak out little BYU undergrads. If you want that border clear, you need to start deep inside putting things in order- and find your way out that way.
One of my FAVORITE comments of today was about how William James hasn’t yet included (in the text we haven’t read all the way yet) a lot of examples of what he means by personal religious experiences, as opposed to just plain regular experiences. A guy raised his hand and said, “Maybe he just didn’t have a lot of BYU students running around, willing to offer him a way to talk to people with religious experience.” Yes. Because the only people in the history of mankind who have personal religious experiences are people who attend God’s Great University. And William James…he was writing when? The mid-1800’s-1900’s? Out East? Everyone knows nothing religious of any importance happened out there during that time period.
Seriously.
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