Williams James was a Philosopher in the late 19th and early 20th century who is regarded as the "Father of American Psychology" being the first educator to teach a psychology course in the United States. This post is in regards to one of his works William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and his concept of "Healthy Mindedness" vs the opposite "Morbid Mindedness" which the first having a much more positive outlook on life and the later believing that evil was a necessary part of life. This concept has a lot of written work that is very thick and complex in nature, or it would seem complex at first, but in actuality it is a fairly simple concept. It really just relates to every day life and how each individual perceives things. James states that the "Healthy Mindedness" approach would to have a positive outlook on life and be optimistic and look at the good in things rather than having an unhealthy mindset where everything is bad and the world is naturally an evil place. James goes a step further and examines this role in religion. Naturally if you follow a religion, it should be a pleasurable thing that makes you happy. James instead believes that there are some people who follow certain religions that don't acknowledge bad things that happen and refuse to believe that bad things exist. That would be an example of unhealthy thinking. To explain it a little more plainly here is a video breaking down the very basics of this concept.
James goes onto break down two types of religious optimism: Simple and Complex. Simple being people who are either just not bothered by the sinfulness of this world and mankind and the other being people who are just oblivious to all things bad in general. James is not a fan of these types of people. The Complex religious optimism would be a conscious decision to shut out the evil in this world. This would be a healthy minded decision according to James. At the time of his publication there was a movement going on that was fairly popular called "mind-cure" that plays a big part into his healthy-mindedness thought process. The movement essentially stated that people needed to erase fear from their mind and accept the Ultimate. Here is a quote from his publication "In just the degree in which you realize your oneness with the Infinite Spirit, you will exchange dis-ease for ease, inharmony for harmony, suffering for abounding health and strength." [p 101] This concept of mind-cure is one of a religious nature and parallels itself with ideas from Protestantism. Lastly primitive thought comes into play where it is thought that human minds are solely effected by personal forces, whereas science says the opposite that natural forces influence the human mind.Here is a link to the site that gave me a good summary of this very dense piece of literature:
For those that find this concept helpful or something you might want to implement in your life I will attach the audio book recordings for the fourth and fifth section of his lecture below.
"a conscious decision to shut out the evil in this world" -- James does NOT advocate "shutting it out," he says that unlike many he is "unable to blink the evil out of sight"... His philosophy in many ways is anchored in the clear-eyed admission of evil (suffering, unhappiness) in the world and the resolve to try and do something about that, to ameliorate the human condition. That's his pragmatic "meliorism"...
ReplyDeleteI think James's ultimate point about healthy-mindedness is that it's possible and desirable to admit the world's troubles AND to pursue happiness, for ourselves and for one another. For some, the "once-born," this is easy. For others, like himself, it's a challenge. A worthy challenge, and a reason to live.