This paper argues that treating James' "The Will to Believe" as a defense of prudential reasoning about belief seriously misrepresents it. Rather than being a precursor to current defenses of prudential arguments, James paper has, if anything, more affinities to certain prominent strains in contemporary naturalized epistemology.

This magisterial book is the first comprehensive interpretive and critical study of one of America's foremost philosophers and psychologists. Gerald Myers traces James's life and career and then uses this fresh biographical information to illuminate his writings and ideas.

Introduction IT is generally agreed that Charles Sanders Peirce was one of America's greatest philosophers, yet even today there is little agreement as to ...

Events in the history of thought have often moved as elements of drama—now tense, now tragic, now triumphant. And, it would appear, sometimes ludicrous. This latter is the thrust of a parody which Molière visited upon the savants of his day; he pictures a candidate for a medical degree being solemnly asked why opium puts people to sleep. Just as solemnly and sagaciously, the candidate replies..