Frederick R. Bauer captures the essence of William James in Science, God's Hard Gift. We have all heard the word "pragmatic." It entered our everyday vocabulary as a result of a series of lectures delivered by William James, the greatest of all great American thinkers. He gave those lectures in 1906, four years before his death at age sixty-eight, in 1910. In the first of those lectures, James described the type of person he wanted to reach, a person not unlike a large number of persons today: "He wants facts; he wants science," James said, "but he also wants a religion." James did not live to see the incredible new scientific discoveries of the 1900s. Those discoveries have led increasing numbers of experts to claim that modern science has made religion "obsolete." Science, God's Hard Gift celebrates this centenary of James's death by updating and expanding his ideas on pragmatism for those contemporaries who want facts and science, but also a religion.

Science, God's Hard Gift

James's Pragmatism Expanded and UpdatedBy Frederick R. Bauer

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Frederick R. Bauer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-6250-7

Contents

Some Introductory Notices.......................................xxiiiPreface.........................................................xxv1. If You Are a College Fresh(wo)man...........................12. Common Sense: Everyone's 1st Philosophy.....................123. Astronomy Isn't the Stars...................................244. Descartes & Rival Systems...................................365. The Rorty Rule..............................................446a. The Experiment: Step 1......................................616b. The Experiment: Step 2......................................626c. The Experiment: Step 3......................................637. The After-Image Experiment..................................648. The Jamesian-Quintalist Framework...........................729. James' Historic Discovery @ Thoughts........................9010. Your Brain: from Outside and Inside.........................11311. Sense-Data: Not Introspected................................12712. You Hear Sounds, Never Words!...............................14813. You See Colors, Never Light or Words........................17014. Reading: Interpreting Visible 'Code'........................20515. Pragmatic Fictions..........................................22716. Memory-Images...............................................25617. The Great Law of Habit Itself...............................29518. What Is Nature?.............................................31519. 'Laws of Nature' Are Useful Fictions........................34820. What is the Cause's 'Structure'?............................37120 (cont.) Science and Sentiment................................404Appendix........................................................429About the Author................................................455Bibliography....................................................457

Chapter One

IF YOU ARE A COLLEGE FRESH(WO)MAN ...

* * *

I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you; and that the most interesting and important thing about it is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds. (W. James, Pragmatism, Lecture I)

A. You Already Have a Philosophy.

Oh, you didn't know that? On Wednesday, November 14, 1906, about five hundred people gathered to hear the first of a series of lectures delivered by a famous American professor from Harvard University, William James. Near the very beginning of that first lecture, James made a momentous announcement to those assembled listeners.

I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you; and that the most interesting and important thing about it is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds. (W. James, Pragmatism, Lecture I)

That may have been the first time in their lives that those people were told they had a philosophy. Do you know that you have one, too?

In his fifth Pragmatism lecture, James described in some detail the philosophy most of them probably had. His name for it was "common sense." Following his lead, this book will call your basic philosophy "common sense."

If you don't think you have a philosophy, that's a problem. It's a very big problem, and one that you will have to solve or dis-solve if you want to get your tuition-money's worth by graduating with a really good college education.

Why don't all high-school graduates know they have a philosophy? The reason James' listeners, like you, probably never thought of themselves as having a philosophy was because no one ever told them. Or it may be that, like you, they had the wrong idea of what philosophy is. Or it may be that, like you, they had the idea, but never heard it called "philosophy," the same way you may have the idea of a gaster but have never heard it called "a gaster."

Take those reasons in order. Most people have never been told they have a philosophy for one very simple reason. The teachers who told them the earth goes around the sun and that, inside their head, they have a brain which they have never seen, were themselves never told that they had a philosophy. How could they pass on to others what they never learned themselves?

The reason most people are sceptical the first time they are told that they have a philosophy is quite simple. They have been brainwashed to think philosophy is a special subject, separate from science, just the same way they have been brainwashed to believe that astronomy, theology, sociology, etc., are special subjects independent of each other. In that case, they simply have the wrong idea of philosophy and, especially, of science.

Finally, you may have the idea but have never heard anyone call it "philosophy." It's like your idea of your gaster. You may never have paged through the 27th edition of Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary and come across the word "gaster." According to that dictionary, "gaster" is another word for what you are used to calling "a stomach." It has a fundus, which you would call "its bottom part." Apply this to philosophy. You already have a lot of knowledge. For instance, do you think stars are out in the woods or that your brain is near the fundus of your gaster? No, you think stars are far off in the sky and that your brain is inside your skull, not at the bottom of your stomach. Once you realize that you have a lot of beliefs about the world, and realize that those beliefs are connected the way your beliefs about your stomach, your skull, and your brain are connected, and realize that those connected beliefs about those things are pretty well 'fixed' in your mind, then put them together and realize that they are a philosophy. Your philosophy. They are your belief-system, your set of beliefs, or simply your worldview.

If you understood the preceding sentence, then you know what James meant by telling those five hundred listeners that they had a philosophy and that 'the most interesting and important thing about their philosophy was the way in which it determined the perspectives in their several worlds.'

You may have gotten out of bed this morning, not realizing that you had a philosophy or that you were relying on it to know what you usually do first: use the toilet, wash your face, and brush your teeth. Beginning now, get in the habit of realizing that you always rely on your philosophy to know what to do next.

You couldn't even read this book if you didn't already have a philosophy. But you are reading it. Therefore you have a philosophy.

Check to see how many of your professors know it better than you. You shouldn't feel bad if you don't know you have a philosophy. Very few of the professors who teach the courses you'll be taking know they have one. Like you, they haven't been told they have one. Or, like you, they've been brainwashed to think it is a separate subject, like the one they once took a course in but can't remember much about. Like you, they certainly have an extraordinarily complex belief-system, but have never gotten in the habit of calling it "my philosophy."

Those facts would be amusing, if they didn't point to a problem. A very knowledgeable college professor once argued that students could...