Concept

The Will to Believe

Overview

1896 lecture by William James

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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William James used to preach the “will to believe.” For my part, I should wish to preach the “will to doubt.” None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error.
Bertrand Russell, Free Thought and Official Propaganda
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'The Will to Believe,' accordingly, is the title of my paper. I have long defended to my own students the lawfulness of voluntarily adopted faith; but as soon as they have got well imbued with the logical spirit, they have as a rule refused to admit my contention to be lawful philosophically, even though in point of fact they were personally all the time chock-full of some faith or other themselves. I am all the…
William James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
The chapter “THE WILL TO BELIEVE.[1]” is titled for The Will to Believe; the book is titled for The Will to Believe.
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I say nothing of the personal inconsistency of some of these critics, whose printed works furnish exquisite illustrations of the will to believe, in spite of their denunciations of it as a phrase and as a recommended thing. Mr.
William James, The Meaning of Truth
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