Voluntarismo y self-surrender en la concepción de religión de William James

Abstract

En este trabajo, sostengo que la concepción de religión de William James está escindida entre lo que podría denominarse su voluntarismo y su idea de selfsurrender. El voluntarismo jamesiano es la médula de The Will to Believe, mientras que la idea de self-surrender es, en mi interpretación, la clave para entender The Varieties of Religious Experience. La voluntad y Las variedades responden, a mi juicio, a una tensión jamesiana y pueden ser vistos como proyectos intelectuales antagónicos. El análisis de esta tensión interna a la concepción de religión de James es el núcleo de mi artículo. Sostengo, además, que la noción jamesiana deself-surrender, a diferencia del voluntarismo, nos permite visualizar un aspecto imprescindible de la concepción de James, esto es, su aspecto mórbido.

In this work I hold that William James’s conception of religion is divided between what could be identified as his voluntarism and his idea of self-surrender. In my approach, James’s voluntarism is the heart of The Will to Believe, whereas the idea of self-surrender is the key to understand The Varieties of Religious Experience. These two works respond to a tension in James’s philosophy and canbe seen as two antagonistic intellectual projects. The analysis of this inner tension in James’s conception of religion is the core of this paper. I will also state that his self-surrender notion, unlike his voluntarism, allows us to visualize an essential aspect of James’s conception, that is to say, its morbid aspect.