The Varieties of Religious Experience - Softcover

James, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0020859708 ISBN 13: 9780020859703

Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD, 1985

Synopsis

1961 Coller Books MASS MARKET PAPERBACK, 20th printing. William James (Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking). "The Varieties of Religious Experience" is William James's philosophical and psychological examination of the nature of religion in human civilization. - Amazon

About this title

Review

One of the seminal works of philosophy and theology. (Catholic Herald)

From the Back Cover

When William James went to the University of Edinburgh in 1901 to deliver a series of lectures on "natural religion," he defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." Considering religion, then, not as it is defined by--or takes place in--the churches, but as it is felt in everyday life, he undertook a project that, upon completion, stands not only as one of the most important texts on psychology ever written, not only as a vitally serious contemplation of spirituality, but for many critics one of the best works of nonfiction written in the 20th century. Reading The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is easy to see why. Applying his analytic clarity to religious accounts from a variety of sources, James elaborates a pluralistic framework in which "the divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions." It's an intellectual call for serious religious tolerance--indeed, respect--the vitality of which has not diminished through the subsequent decades.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0020859708
• ISBN 13: 9780020859703
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416