摘 要
〈信念意志〉的論述主要關涉宗教信念的知識論。許多學者認定詹姆士提出了這個有嚴重爭議的「相信權的使用判準」：「即使在缺乏智性理據的情況下，只要滿足特定條件，個人就有權利正當地使用意志與情感來決斷一個信念抉擇而獲致信念」，並且將這個判準應用到宗教信念抉擇上。但是本文指出，從其論述主旨與架構來看，〈信念意志〉旨在為個人的探究權辯護：「視某宗教信念抉擇為『真實抉擇』的個人有權利選擇遵循『獲得真理』之知識論要求，並選擇他認為可能可行的探究路徑來進行探究，且有權利相信自己經過探究後所得到的定見」。

Abstract
William James’s “The Will to Believe” is primarily concerned with the epistemology of religious belief. According to many scholars, James proposed this highly controversial criterion of believing: one has the right to decide upon a belief option via one’s willing or passional nature, despite the lack of supportive intellectual grounds, so long as certain conditions are satisfied; he then argued that this criterion is applicable to religious belief options. This paper, however, reveals that “The Will to Believe” aims to defend one’s epistemic right to inquire, and claims that those who take a religious belief option as what James calls “a genuine option,” have the right to follow the epistemological command that we must know the truth, to choose the path of inquiry they deem likely to work in their relevant inquiries, and to believe the opinion reached through such inquiry.

Key Words: William James, Blaise Pascal, epistemology, religion, right