The Possibility of Expressivism

Abstract

We have hitherto seen that the purpose of the Remarks on Frazer has been said to lie in the production of an expressivist account of religion; one, that is, which claims that the point of magical and religious rituals is to express deep human emotions and attitudes about life and the world. It must now be ascertained whether the attribution to Wittgenstein of an expressive theory is satisfactory. More specifically, we must uncover the philosophical roots of the expressive interpretation; such roots as are, it will be contended, so fundamentally at odds with the direction of Wittgenstein’s philosophy that his reflections on ritual cannot be as straightforwardly expressivist as most commentators insist.