Wittgensteinian Fideism?

Cambridge Elements Series, 2023

Wittgenstein published next to nothing on the philosophy of religion and yet his conception of religious belief has been both enormously influential and hotly contested. In the contemporary literature, Wittgenstein has variously been labelled a fideist, a non-cognitivist and a relativist of sorts. This Element shows that all of these readings are misguided and seriously at odds, not just with what Wittgenstein says about religious belief, but with his entire later philosophy. This Element also argues that Wittgenstein presents us with an important ‘third way’ of understanding religious belief – one that does not fall into the trap of either assimilating religious beliefs to ordinary empirical beliefs or seeking to reduce them to the expression of certain attitudes.

Philosophia, 2021

This article aims to show that Wittgenstein's remarks on religious belief and religious statements can be understood in modest philosophical terms, consistent with the thought that they are neither intended as serving to justify or undermine religious beliefs, nor as the expression of any theorizing about the nature of religious belief or the meaning of religious language. Instead, their philosophical significance is held to consist in their functioning to remind us of what we already know about the latter: such things as in what circumstances one utters religious statements, what the consequences of accepting or rejecting religious beliefs are, and so on. His position is that all attempts to say something more than this are either a mark of philosophical arrogance or a manifestation of one's own personal commitment to adopting a stance of religious belief or non-belief. As such, they do not furnish us with genuine philosophical insights. I argue that such an interpretation possess two principal merits. Firstly, it demonstrates that there is no tension between Wittgenstein's remarks on the nature of philosophy and his remarks on religious belief and religious statements. Secondly, it shows that it is possible to philosophize about religion in a manner that does not assume that this has to consist either in presenting an apology for or critique of religion or in formulating philosophical theories regarding the nature of religious belief and the meaning of religious language.

The Contemplative Spirit. D.Z. Phillips on Religion and the Limits of Philosophy. Ed. by Ingolf U. Dalferth and Hartmut von Sass, 2010

When surveying the scholarly literature over Wittgensteinian fideism, it is easy to get the sense that the principal interlocutors, Kai Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips, talk past one another, but finding the right words for appraising the distance between the two voices is difficult. In this paper, I seek to appreciate this intellectual distance through an exploration of the varying philosophical aims of Nielsen and Phillips, of the different intellectual imperatives that guide their respective conceptions of philosophical practice. In so doing, I seek to show how a contemplative mode in philosophy may be used to appraise a philosophical dispute and the terms of disagreement. In this case, a contemplative approach to understanding the dispute would frame Nielsen’s and Phillips’ contributions against the backdrop of the ends they conceive philosophy to have.

Ratio, 2007

In this paper I develop an account of Wittgenstein's conception of what it is to understand religious language. I show that Wittgenstein's view undermines the idea that as regards religious faith only two options are possible -either adherence to a set of metaphysical beliefs (with certain ways of acting following from these beliefs) or passionate commitment to a 'doctrineless' form of life. I offer a defence of Wittgenstein's conception against Kai Nielsen's charges that Wittgenstein removes the 'content' from religious belief and renders the religious form of life 'incommensurable' with other domains of discourse, thus immunizing it against rational criticism.

How do images, idols and pictorial representations of the supernatural define our ability to decipher God? How does language communicate what is seen into what is audible or written? This is a humble attempt to look at religion from a different perspective, this piece was inspired by reading the first work of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 2014

2015

Once upon a time, a number of philosophers both influenced by Wittgenstein and interested in religion argued that ontological commitments are at best secondary within religious life. What is instead of primary importance is whether there is anything meaningful in religious practice, that is, in what religious people say and do. As D. Z. Phillips put it, To ask whether God exists is not to ask a theoretical question. If it is to mean anything at all, it is to wonder about praising and praying; it is to wonder whether there is anything in all that.. .. "There is a God", though it appears to be in the indicative mood, is an expression of faith. (1976, p. 181)

2019

Wittgenstein’s remarks on religion and religious language has some bearings on the current discussions on place of the religion in the secular societies. Early Wittgenstein represents a restrictive concept of religion as the religious language remains beyond the limits of ordinary experience and senses. In the Investigations religious life regarded as one form of life among other life experiences and hence the religious expression may as well constitutes a particular language game in itself. Wittgenstenians are divided on implications of this new conception of religion later works of Wittgenstein indicates.In this article I will analyze the implications of Wittgenstein’s concept of religion and religious language in the context of his later works. The question about the religion as a form of life needs to be answered as follows: Is religious language, according to Wittgenstein, a closed discourse that only within particular religious language game becomes meaningful? Or does Wittgen...

Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, 2015

The myths surrounding Wittgenstein's conception of religious belief are tenacious and enduring. In the contemporary literature, for example, Wittgenstein has variously been labelled a fideist (Nielsen 2005), a non-cognitivist ) and a relativist of sorts (Kusch 2011). The underlying motivation for many of these attributions seems to be the thought that the content of a belief can clearly be separated from the attitude taken towards it. Such a 'factorization model' which construes religious beliefs as consisting of two independent 'factors' -the belief's content and the belief-attitudeappears to be behind the idea that one could, for example, have the religious attitude alone (fideism, non-cognitivism) or that religious content will remain broadly unaffected by a fundamental change in attitude (Kusch). In the present contribution I will argue that such a model faces insuperable philosophical and exegetical difficulties, and, consequently, that the conceptions that spring from it are mistaken.

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2011

Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious and magical practices are often thought to harbour troubling fideistic and relativistic views. Unsurprisingly, commentators are generally resistant to the idea that religious belief constitutes a ‘language‐game’ governed by its own peculiar ‘rules’, and is thereby insulated from the critical assessment of non‐participants. Indeed, on this fideist‐relativist reading, it is unclear how mutual understanding between believers and non‐believers (even between different sorts of believers) would be possible. In this paper I do three things: (i) show why the fideist‐relativist reading of Wittgenstein is not wildly implausible (Sections 1–2); (ii) argue that, despite its initial plausibility, this reading fails to take into account Wittgenstein’s naturalism (Sections 3–4); and (iii) explain what sort of naturalism this is, and how it sheds light on Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief (Sections 5–6).