William James's Varieties of Religious Experience (VRE) usually gets critiqued and dismissed for defending an overly individualistic understanding of religious belief and religious experience. In this talk, Goodson re-visits this criticism of James's VRE and demonstrate how James's religious categories of the divided self, the healthy-minded, and the sick soul turn out to be his way of addressing questions found in the more recent debates of communitarianism vs. individualism. Goodson argues that James seeks to find a balance in relation to community without conformity as well as an individualism that comes with neither indifference nor naive optimism.

Jacob L. Goodson (PhD, University of Virginia) is Associate Professor of Philosophy & Chair of the Social Science Division at Southwestern College. His most recent publications are Building Beloved Community in a Wounded World (Cascade Press, 2022), The Philosopher's Playground (Cascade Press, 2021), The Dark Years? Philosophy, Politics, and the Problem of Predictions (Cascade Press, 2020), Introducing Prophetic Pragmatism (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019), and Strength of Mind: Courage, Hope, Freedom, Knowledge (Cascade Press, 2018). He also has edited multiple books, including William James, Moral Philosophy, and the Ethical Life (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017).

Join us in Union Big 12 Room or on Zoom (register for the Zoom link at  http://tinyurl.com/goodsonkstate).

Sponsored by the Department of English.