An Introduction to Philosophy

by George Stuart Fullerton

Now, among those things regarding which it appears impossible to attain to intellectual certitude, there are matters of great practical moment, and which affect deeply the conduct of life; for example, the doctrines of religion. Here a merely skeptical attitude seems intolerable.

In such cases, argues Professor James, "we have the right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will."

It is important to notice that there is no question here of a logical right. We are concerned with matters regarding which, according to Professor James, we cannot look for intellectual evidence. It is assumed that we believe simply because we choose to believe—we believe arbitrarily.

It is further important to notice that what is a "live" hypothesis to one man need not tempt the will of another man at all. As our author points out, a Turk would naturally will to believe one thing and a Christian would will to believe another. Each would will to believe what struck him as a satisfactory thing to believe.

What shall we say to this doctrine? I think we must say that it is clearly not a philosophical method of attaining to truth. Hence, it has not properly a place in this chapter among the attempts which have been made to attain to the truth of things.

It is, in fact, not concerned with truths, but with assumptions, and with assumptions which are supposed to be made on the basis of no evidence. It is concerned with "seemings."

The distinction is a very important one. Our Turk cannot, by willing to believe it, make his hypothesis true; but he can make it seem true. Why should he wish to make it seem true whether it is true or not? Why should he strive to attain to a feeling of subjective certainty, not by logically resolving his doubts, but by ignoring them?

The answer is given us by our author. He who lives in the midst of doubts, and refuses to cut his knot with the sword of belief, misses the good of life. This is a practical problem, and one of no small moment. In the last section of this book I have tried to indicate what it is wise for a man to do when he is confronted by doubts which he cannot resolve.

Into the general question whether even a false belief may not, under some circumstances, be more serviceable than no belief at all, I shall not enter. The point I wish to emphasize is that there is all the difference in the world between producing a belief and proving a truth.

We are compelled to accept it as a fact that men, under the influence of feeling, can believe in the absence of evidence, or, for that matter, can believe in spite of evidence. But a truth cannot be established in the absence of evidence or in the face of adverse evidence. And there is a very wide field in which it is made very clear to us that beliefs adopted in the absence of evidence are in danger of being false beliefs.