Abstract
Pupils’ notes of some lectures on religious belief which Wittgenstein gave in 1938 have recently been published,’ and what I have to say is set against the background of these lectures. My title may suggest that there is a distinctive and precise account of religious belief which can be extracted from them and stated clearly for consideration. But I do not think that this is so. It is evident from these lectures that, in the subject of religious belief, Wittgenstein’s prodigious capacity for puzzlement, in which Moore recognised the marks of genius, found full scope. But, at many points, it is not clear to me, at any rate, just how he is resolving — or would resolve — the puzzlement. So I am most certainly not setting myself up to explain ‘what Wittgenstein really meant’. However, like everything which we have from him, these lectures are fascinating, suggestive, provocative. And, at some hazard, I am going to offer a few observations on one or two of the points which he was, or appears to have been, making.
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Notes
L. Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief (Oxford, 1966). Throughout this lecture the page-references enclosed in brackets are to that work.
See R. M. Hare, ‘Theology and Falsification’ in New Essays in Philosophical Theology (ed. Flew and Maclntyre) (London, 1955);
D. D. Evans, The Logic of Self Involvement (London, 1963);
P. van Buren, The Secular Meaning of the Gospel (rev. ed. London, 1965).
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© 1969 The Royal Institute of Philosophy
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Hudson, W.D. (1969). Some Remarks on Wittgenstein’s Account of Religious Belief. In: Talk of God. Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15299-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15299-5_3
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