The Polytheism of William James

Abstract

william james reports that on a hike in the Adirondack^ seemed as if the Gods of all the nature-mythologies were holding an indescribable meet ing in my breast with the moral Gods of the inner life, suggesting that this would give quite a hitch ahead to his Gifford Lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience (Henry James, Letters 2: 78-79). This proved true since there the nature gods and moral gods meet again, but this time disputatiously as a conflict between polytheism and monotheism, which is analogous to a tension between pluralism and monism. Now I had long thought that polytheism was an atavistic belief belong ing to the primitive and cruder stages in the evolution of religion and was thus properly regarded as pagan or heathen. I had always associated it with the prerational mythologies of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Scandina vians. So I was surprised to learn from Varieties of James's sympathy with and entertainment of polytheism, which makes him an exceptional figure in the history of philosophy. According to Amos Funkenstein, Except for William James (and perhaps Nietzsche), no other modern Western philosopher that I know of dared to defend a patently creed (99). Here I want to take seriously what James says about it. James's pluralism is well known since it is made explicit throughout his writings. As might be expected, his polytheism, which is cognate with his pluralism, seems not so well known. There appear to be but two references to James's polytheism in the secondary literature: one in the editor's introduc tion to The Varieties of Religious Experience, the third volume of the Harvard edition of James's complete works, and the other in Jacques Barzun's A Stroll with William James. Interestingly, Barzun himself, a fellow traveler with James, confesses to being naturally polytheistic (4). Moreover, there is just one