Abstract
It may be that Wittgenstein’s influence on the philosophy of religion has aroused more hostility than any other aspect of his work. The years since the Second World War have been described as ‘a sorry time for the philosophy of religion in English-speaking countries’, and this, it is said, has been due not least to the disastrous influence of Wittgenstein.1 During the period referred to, the influence of Wittgenstein has been far-reaching in almost every branch of philosophy: philosophical logic, philosophy of mathematics, theory of knowledge, philosophy of mind, ethics, aesthetics, philo sophy of the social sciences, and so on. Adverse comments on his influence on the philosophy of religion, however, are not confined to those who think that Wittgenstein’s philosophical influence in general has been a disaster. On the contrary, they are made, as in the instance quoted, by sympathetic commen tators. Unfortunately, it cannot be denied that a philosophy by innuendo has grown up by which it is hinted, rather than argued, that what Wittgenstein is said to have said about religion and ritual is not closely related to the rest of his work. It has been suggested also that those influenced by him in the philosophy of religion have imposed alien features on Wittgenstein’s work, and made use of certain of his terms, such as ‘language-games’, in ways of which he would not have approved.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and References
Anthony Kenny, ‘In Defence of God’, The Times Literary Supplement, 7 February 1975, p. 145. The title is the supple ment’s, not Kenny’s.
Rush Rhees, ‘Wittgenstein’s View of Ethics’ in Discussions of Wittgenstein (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970).
Anthony Kenny, Wittgenstein (Harmondsworth: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1973) pp. 229–30.
Anthony Kenny, The Five Ways (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) p. 4.
See Kai Nielsen, ‘Wittgensteinian Fideism’, Philosophy, vol. 42,(1967).
I am described as a ‘leading fideist’ by Robert Herbert in Paradox and Identity in Theology (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1979) p. 13,
Kai Nielsen in An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1982) p. 56. According to Nielsen, The Concept of Prayer, Faith and Philosophical Enquiry and Death and Immortality give ‘a detailed paradigma tic statement of Wittgensteinian Fideism’ (An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, p. 200).
John Hick, ‘Sceptics and Believers’, in John Hick (ed.), Faith and the Philosophers (London: Macmillan, 1964) pp. 239–40.
Walford Gealy, ‘Ffaith a Ffydd’, (Fact and Faith) Efrydiau Athronyddol (1977). It ought to be said that since writing the article Gealy has accepted the force of my textual refutations. He no longer thinks that I have ever held the thesis that religious belief is cut off from other aspects of human life, but he continues to disagree about the character of the connections between religious belief and other aspects of human life.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953) I, 66.
D. Z. Phillips, Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970) p. 78.
‘Postscript’ in Stuart C. Brown (ed.), Reason and Religion (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1977) p. 139.
D. Z. Phillips, The Concept of Prayer (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965) p. 40 (Issued as a paperback, Oxford: Basil Blackwell; New York: Seabury Press, 1981).
H. E. Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer (London: SCM Press, 1915) p. 12.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (London: Fontana Books, 1959) p. 67.
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1960) ch. 9, p. 47.
Bryan Magee (ed.), Modern British Philosophy (London: Paladin, 1973) p. 214.
D. Z. Phillips, Religion Without Explanation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976) ch. 11, ‘Religion, Understanding and Philosophical Method’, p. 189.
Kai Nielsen, Contemporary Critiques of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1971) p. 96.
F. C. Coplestone, Religion and Philosophy (London: Gill and Macmillan, 1974) p. viii.
T. H. McPherson, ‘Religion as the Inexpressible’, in A. G. N. Flew and A. MacIntyre (eds), New Essays in Philosophical Theology (London: SCM Press, 1955) p. 142.
J. A. Passmore, ‘Christianity and Positivism’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy (1957) p. 128.
See D. Z. Phillips, Death and Immortality (London: Macmil- lan, 1970).
Copyright information
© 1986 D. Z. Phillips
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Phillips, D.Z. (1986). Wittgenstein and Religion: Fashionable Criticisms. In: Belief, Change and Forms of Life. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07918-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07918-6_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-07920-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-07918-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)