"James considers the possibility of "over-beliefs", beliefs which are not strictly justified by reason but which might understandably be held by educated people nonetheless. Philosophy can contribute to shaping these over-beliefs — for example, traditional arguments for the existence of God, including the cosmological, design, and moral arguments, along with the argument from popular consensus. James admits to having his own over-belief, which he does not intend to prove, that there is a greater reality not normally accessible by our normal ways of relating to the world, but which religious experiences can connect us to."
I was reading the above paragraph in the Wikipedia entry on Henry James' The Variety of Religious Experience (citations removed), and it really struck me. I was thinking about the movie Benedetta (2021), and that led me to read the entry, and then this idea of over-belief, which fascinates me today.
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