Article ID: CBB000670852

William James on Divine Intimacy: Psychical Research, Cosmological Realism and a Circumscribed Re-reading of The Varieties of Religious Experience (2006)

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William James's interest in psychical phenomena spanned his entire career as a scholar, yet is has been largely neglected. Few if any have adequately incorporated this quirky side of James into their critical studies of his scholarly contributions, not only in religious studies but also in philosophy and psychology. Psychical research was nevertheless very much part of James's intellectual endeavors and, as this article shall argue, sheds light on an evolving, complex, and contradictory Jamesian cosmological realism. I will contextual James's widely discussed Varieties of Religious Experience, relying on his voluminous correspondence, and will explore various articulations of pragmatism, vis-à-vis James, John Dewey, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty, particularly as those articulations apply to scholarship in religious studies and as they shed light on a Jamesian cosmology. I will then conclude with a discussion of psychical research as it relates to epistemology and the (scientific) study of that cosmos.

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Authors & Contributors
McGranahan, Lucas Robert
Leary, David E.
Belzen, Jacob A.
Sarin Marchetti
Rattray, David
John J. Stuhr
Concepts
Psychology
Pragmatism; instrumentalism
Philosophy
Scientific study of religion
Science and religion
Discipline formation
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
Places
United States
Netherlands
Russia
France
China
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