William James and the Metaphysics of Experience

William James is frequently considered one of America’s most important philosophers, as well as a foundational thinker for the study of religion. Despite his reputation as the founder of pragmatism, he is rarely considered a serious philosopher or religious thinker. In this new interpretation David Lamberth argues that James’s major contribution was to develop a systematic metaphysics of experience integrally related to his developing pluralistic and social religious ideas. Lamberth systematically interprets James’s radically empiricist world-view and argues for an early dating (1895) for his commitment to the metaphysics of radical empiricism. He offers a close reading of Varieties of Religious Experience; and concludes by connecting James’s ideas about experience, pluralism, and truth to current debates in philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and theology, suggesting James’s functional, experiential metaphysics as a conceptual aide in bridging the social and interpretive with the immediate and concrete while avoiding naive realism.

• A new interpretation of a major American philosopher and religious thinker • Relates William James’s philosophical and religious thinking to each other • Treats all of James’s thought from a systematic, integrated perspective

Acknowledgments; Note on the text; Introduction; 1. James’s radically empiricist Weltanschauung; 2. From psychology to religion: pure experience and radical empiricism in the 1890s; 3. The Varieties of Religious Experience: Indications of a philosophy adapted to normal religious needs; 4. Squaring logic and life: making philosophy intimate in A Pluralistic Universe; 5. Estimations and anticipations; Select bibliography; Index.