Wittgenstein and Natural Religion
Gordon Graham
Abstract
This book offers an account of the relevance of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations to the philosophical study of religion. It differs completely from “Wittgensteinianism” in the philosophy of religion, as commonly recounted by both its exponents and detractors. The uses that have been made of the concepts of “language games,” “forms of life,” “systems of reference,” “depth grammar,” and “groundless belief” are all rejected after critical scrutiny, and the idea of “philosophy as therapy” is reconstructed. The book sets this re-interpretation of Wittgenstein in the context of the eighte ... More
This book offers an account of the relevance of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations to the philosophical study of religion. It differs completely from “Wittgensteinianism” in the philosophy of religion, as commonly recounted by both its exponents and detractors. The uses that have been made of the concepts of “language games,” “forms of life,” “systems of reference,” “depth grammar,” and “groundless belief” are all rejected after critical scrutiny, and the idea of “philosophy as therapy” is reconstructed. The book sets this re-interpretation of Wittgenstein in the context of the eighteenth-century conception of “true” religion that is to be found in the philosophical writings of Jonathan Edwards, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Friedrich Schleiermacher among others. It thereby engages in a philosophical anthropology of religion that contrasts with, though it does not rival, analytical philosophy of religion in the style of Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plantinga.
Keywords:
Wittgenstein,
natural religion,
action,
ritual,
the sacred
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198713975 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2014 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198713975.001.0001 |
