William James and the Pragmatics of Faith: Bridging Science, Religion and Global Indigenous Epistemologies

William James's philosophy of science treats actionability, not evidential certainty, as the basis for both scientific and religious practices. This approach resonates with Indigenous American and Asian epistemologies, which James may have absorbed through American Transcendentalists or his Amazonian expedition. James's ideas support an animism that integrates Amerindian thought with the extended mind thesis. His pluralistic account of experience creates space for science and spirituality to coexist by undermining the assumption that they operate under radically distinct epistemologies.

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Abstract

This article examines William James’s philosophy of science through his pragmatic response to epistemic fallibilism, emphasizing how actionability rather than evidential certainty underwrites both scientific and religious practices. While James explicitly drew comparisons between science and Abrahamic scriptures, my account highlights resonances with non-Western traditions, particularly Indigenous American and Asian epistemologies, also situating some of James’s philosophical motivations within his biography. James may have indirectly absorbed Asian religious and philosophical teachings from American Transcendentalists who engaged with them, and he may have encountered Amerindian perspectives through the cultural milieu of the United States or during his Amazonian expedition. In either case, threads within these global Indigenous traditions align with the weight that James’s work gives to contextual, agent-relative forms of knowing that are inseparable from action. I conclude by discussing how James’s ideas support an account of animism that integrates Amerindian thought with the extended mind thesis. I also detail how his pluralistic account of experience and reality creates conceptual space for the co-existence of science and spirituality, ironically by undermining the assumption that the two operate according to radically distinct epistemologies. Throughout the article, I connect James’s thought to more recent debates in religion and metaphysics.