James Clark 's Article, Without Evidence Or Argument

Vogel answers The Problem of Skepticism, through use of Inference to the Best Explanation. However, by using inference to the best argument to rule out the skeptical argument he overlooks that the skeptical argument is within itself an objection to inference to the best explanation.

The argument presented by William James in “The Will to Believe” covers theistic beliefs and also includes various philosophical issues as well as matters of practical life. James's primary concern is to argue that Clifford's Rule is irrational. According to Clifford's Rule, one should avoid error at all costs and ultimately risk the loss of certain truths. James claims that Clifford's Rule is just one intellectual strategy and then makes an argument to seek truth by any means available, even at the risk of error or being completely false. James is not arguing against conforming one's belief to the evidence. Nor is he arguing against the importance of evidence. His argument is against withholding beliefs whenever there is little evidence,

In William K. Clifford’s, “The Ethics of Belief (II),” he argues that humans must always question their conceptions and beliefs.

1. Examine the strengths and weaknesses of the argument for the existence of God based on religious experience. (18) 2. ‘The argument merely indicates the probability of God and this is of little value to a religious believer.’ Discuss. (12)

In W.K Clifford’s Essay he states that “It is wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” This argument is not totally wrong but does have some problems to it. In Clifford’s essay he explains a scenario with a ship owner and someone who he will be sending out to the sea. The ship owner does no believe the ship to be good enough, ready enough or in other words sea worthy to be sent out to the sea. Instead of checking the ship to see if it is ready to be sent out to the sea because it Is time consuming, he decides to send the ship out anyway. In the end, the ship ends up sinking in which case, Clifford considers to owner to be guilty of the ship sinking because he should have believed that ship

Consider, now, the agnostic position, such as Draper holds. What would it take for Draper to believe in God? As he addresses arguments from apologetics and finds them inconclusive, perhaps he would be convinced if the arguments for theism were stronger and the arguments for naturalism weaker. The arguments are strong and weak enough to

According to Clifford (1879), there is an ethics to belief that makes it always wrong for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence. Clifford (1879) begins his paper by providing an illustrative analogy – one where a ship-owner is preparing to send to sea a ship filled

In his lecture, “The Will to Believe,” William James addresses how one adopts a belief. There is a hypothesis and an option, where you choose between two live hypotheses. An option has the characteristics to be live or dead, forced or avoidable, and momentous or trivial. In his thesis, James argues how “our passional nature” must make our decisions about our beliefs when they cannot be certainly determined on “intellectual grounds,” however, this is not the case, we can always make the decision based on intellectual grounds. One can use Bayesian probability to gain some grasp of the situation and eventually to make a decision.

William Kingdon Clifford’s argument in “The Ethics of Belief” that it is morally wrong to form beliefs upon insufficient evidence has been widely debated. One such objection to Clifford is William James’s “The Will to Believe,” which argues, under certain circumstances, it can be morally justified to form beliefs without adequate evidence. In this paper, I shall argue that James’s position on belief is stronger than Clifford’s on the basis of being able to reveal more truths while not violating morality.

What is Evidentialism? “As evidentialism is a thesis about epistemic justification, it is a thesis about what it takes for one to believe justifiably, or reasonably, in the sense thought to be necessary for knowledge” (Mittag). Now what does that mean in order for someone to believe in something, they must see the real proof have hardcore evidence. One famous argument about evidentialism is by William Kingdon Clifford, (born May 4, 1845, Exeter, Devon, England—died March 3, 1879, Madeira Islands, Portugal) British philosopher and mathematician. Although he was most famous for his work as a mathematician, Clifford also wrote, “The locus classicus for the ethics of belief debate is, unsurprisingly, the essay that christened it. “The Ethics of Belief” was published, in a journal called Contemporary Review.”(Chingell)

During the time James was writing his paper, another professor, William Kingdom Clifford was backing the opposite. He believed that belief without evidence is immoral. He wrote an essay called the ‘The Ethics of Belief’; he wrote ‘It’s wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence’. He first used this statement to explain all aspects of life but he later applied it specifically to religious belief. The will to believe was written after the ethics of belief and was written to combat the arguments and plays off all the failures in

The TBJ analysis identifies three conditions that are necessary and supposedly jointly sufficient for some person x to know some proposition P. Truth indicates that the proposition P has to be true. The truth needs to correspond to some true fact that relates to the world, such as that the Earth is round. It is necessary because a proposition P can only be deduced by factual evidence shown to x. However, truth by itself is not sufficient because truth itself is just a random fact. In addition, the person, x, needs to hold some sort of belief in their proposition P. If you do not believe in a proposition P, then it cannot be known, since you will not have any grounds on which to base your knowledge of that P. It is a necessary condition since “you can only know what you believe”. However, it is not a sufficient condition by itself because a belief is just x’s opinion of a subject. Finally, the person, x’s belief has to be accompanied by observations from their senses, prior knowledge, or deductive reasoning, which in effect, explains what the justification is. This may come from what people may see with their eyes, or forming a conclusion from previously assumed premises. Justification is a necessary condition because the allegedly known beliefs have to be adequately justified. Fallibility of justification is assumed since no justification can

Epistemologists do not completely disregard the fact of having supportive evidence when making conclusions but argue that lack of sufficient evidence should not hinder setting of belief. In Pascal’s wager, he bases his argument on the belief of the existence of God (Schlesinger, 557). The wager gives a choice of whether God exists, or does not. In the acceptance of Pascal’s wager, one acknowledges that God exists though there is no physical evidence. If one denies the wager he denies the existence of God. Pascal goes ahead to explain that if one accepts the wager, and turns out to be true that God does exist then the individual will have gained an eternal life whereas for the individual who did not believe would have lost. If it turns out that God does not really exist, the individual does lose only the pleasures of the earth which are considered to be immoral by the believers. Pascal made it compulsory for one to make a choice since in the end, one has to die. Pascal’s argument was to change the people’s way of thinking, and that belief did not have to be only based on evidence. As compared to the evidentialism theory the non-evidentialism theory does not allow pursuit of evidence to support a belief. The theory is content with making a conclusion without enough evidence whereas in the case of evidentialism conclusions cannot be drawn unless further research has been done, and the conclusion can be proven by evidence that is availed

In the report, The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel was the main focus of study and discussion on the strongest objections of Christianity, additionally, the book following Lee Strobel as he sought answers intentionally to disprove Christianity. However, there were circumstances which led to him proving the case as to why faith in God is justified. Accordingly, the main task of this report provided answers to the theological objections proposed in the book. Given these points, a conclusion arose on the contents of the book disputing whether the information in the book is valid, as the overall opinions on the book were confirmed.

Evidence implies that an entity presents itself to the knowing cognition of man in such a way that it can be looked at in a direct and immediate manner and be regarded as meaningful. Evidence originates when a given, in its disclosure, is experienced as sense by the human soul, by means of an immediate intuition or observation. The correlation between intuition and the given in its disclosure, constitutes the experience called evidence, and is therefore a composite factor of evidence (Theron, 1995).