William James

William James was a leading proponent of religious and philosophical pragmatism which sprung from a peculiarly American mindset at the end of the 19th century, yet his ideas are still salient today. After a hundred years of religious and social development, I still can find no better basis for discerning a basic religious stance than that which he proposed in his 1896 essay The Will to Believe . To put his work in context, it is important …

…in a hundred years, even though America has changed drastically. Of course, it could be that we are really on to some greater fundamental truth, but I have no way of judging this from my perspective. James seems to perfectly express my American mind. Perhaps I can revisit this question after I have lived in another culture for awhile. I plan on living with Mayan Indians this summer. I wonder how they would view this?