Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

More documents

Recommendations

Info

3. Puritanism in language Yet, acknowledging a place of religious language still does not help understanding Wittgenstein's resolutely anticognitivist stance in things ethical and religious. Wittgenstein cannot contradict religious sentences; he cannot assent to them either. Trying to understand the phenomenology of religious utterances does not entail their justification. As a matter of fact, they remain unjustifiable. Even though Wittgenstein relinquished his early limiting view on language through the representation paradigm, there is no reason to believe that he changed his perspective on religious utterances. Moreover, the Tractarian reductionist stance on language is perfectly congruent with his later, more complex views on belief. That is, there is a difference, actually the said “enormous gulf,” between understanding religious utterances from the point of view of a collective communication and considering them from a subject's perspective. The reluctance to accept and contradict religious beliefs, in which Wittgenstein greatly delved, stems from the peculiar use of language in religious discourse, different from his own, circumspect and a-theoretical use of language. I will call it a language Puritanism and try to show the relevance of its contrast to the impossible articulation of religion. As stated early in the Tractatus, “There is nothing in sentences that can express something higher. Thus there can be no ethical sentences.” (TLP 6.42) This does not mean that it is impossible to talk about religion and ethics; it means that there can be no general theory, i.e. representation, of the absolute good and generally committing description of values. Rather, religious and ethical contents are fixed in affective experiences and transported by showing examples, pictures and narratives, as opposed to statements. These are not situated in the Tractarian realm of justification of beliefs, but rather in the space of motivating beliefs. This second space corresponds to what the Tractarian vocabulary designed as showing. Showing does not express a referring state of affairs; it exemplifies a use of a term in question. Like that, Piergiorgio Donatelli explains a possible meaning of an ethical attitude [courage, ethical vision of life] not stating what ethics is, but in illustrating a possible meaning of this ethical stance on a literary example from Kenzaburo Oe (Donatelli 2005, 32). Stories, like pictures, exemplify an ethical or religious point without expressing some positive, general content. Similarly, Wittgenstein is said to appreciate Tolstoy's ethics when the latter just tells stories more than when he turns to the reader and preaches (Conant 2005, 81). Preaching about what is good misses the point because it engages with the wrong (ineffective, problematic) discourse reserved to justifying factual beliefs. 4. Religious dimension of the language Puritanism Thus, the language puritan abstains totally from asserting ethical and religious contents, even without refraining from reading Tolstoy. The reason is not just that pictures and stories allow for more complexity, but above all because any assertion of a religious or ethical content will fail the expectations. Wittgenstein argues for a strong incommensurability between the usual factual significance of ordinary language and the purported expression of something absolute. The letter would effectively claim for language an extraordinary morally committing power. “Now when this is urged against me I at once see clearly, as it were in a flash of light, not only that no description that I Wittgenstein and the Language of Religion in Secular Age - Zora Hesová can think of would do to describe what I mean by absolute value, but that I would reject every significant description that anybody could possibly suggest, ab initio, on the ground of its significance.” (LW 1966, 12) We can argue about the unusual scope of Wittgenstein's concept of ethics. Unlike in philosophy of ethics concerned with describing and justifying moral action, Wittgenstein understands ethics from the subject's perspective. Only from such a perspective he can say the following “I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language.” (dtto) Wittgenstein tendency to “run against the boundaries of language”, to expect a highest significance from language corresponds, to the way he sees moral commitment, i.e. in absolute terms. He gives examples of such a commitment. They are personal experiences (wonder at the existence of the world, experience of feeling absolutely safe) whose content cannot be conveyed to others. Unsurprisingly, all attempts to transport their effect to others via language are bound to fail. The model for language insufficiency in religious and ethical matters and thus for a puritan abstention is to be sought in this very point: in the ordinary ineffability of affective experiences grounding ethical attitude to life, not in the ineffability of ethical content itself. He states later that these are fundamentally religious examples. “… the first of [the experiences] is, I believe, exactly what people were referring to when they said that God had created the world; and the experience of absolute safety has been described by saying that we feel safe in the hands of God.” (dtto) So, the impossibility of ethical speech based on language insufficiency to express “the higher” actually refers to Wittgenstein's concern with religious transcendence. His circumspect attitude to language has effectively to do with his underlying tendency to see every problem from a religious point of view and consequently from the point of view of limits of expression. Only, Wittgenstein is not a religious person in the usual sense, but a secular one, and he disposes of a critical stance to language. Thomas Rentsch ascribes Wittgenstein “a consequent 'worldly', because 'secularised' form of mystical religiosity” (Rentsch 1997). His secular language Puritanism bears similarity with the tradition of negative theology, as the attempt to make space for transcendence (e.g. quasi-religious experiences of the absolute) in something immanent and worldly, i.e. inside a secularised language and to ground it in a negative way. 5. Conclusion Wittgenstein's writings on ethics show thus in what sense he could maintain a religious point of view even though religious expression was radically impossible for him. The interest this paper was not to suggest a religious reading of Wittgenstein, on the contrary. If he did not hide his ethical and religious concerns, the place of religious and ethics was often construed as some 'ineffable insight'. However, I have argued that Wittgenstein resolutely refuses any expression of assertive religious and ethical content, yet his motivation to this refusal might result from a secularised quasi-religious stance. The aim and possible achievement could have been, in this negative perspective, to restore certain autonomy to religious language from incursions of positivist theoretical language. 121
The fact that religious attitude is or can be construed as radically other to secular theories (social sciences, philosophy, psychoanalysis etc.), grounded in largely ineffable experiences and not in criticised dogmas, is no longer a commonplace. Wittgenstein could thus open up space for reconsidering religious meanings as well as save philosophy from overly theorising. The model for such a difference would then not be another theory, but a picture or spatial analogy, that of the “gulfs between us”, where a possibility of “respecting deeply” is still granted. References Canfield, John D. 2005 Der Grund des Seins, Wittgenstein's religiöse Betrachtungsweise, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, Berlin 53, 257-275. Drury, M., 1981, Some Notes on Conversation, in: Rhees, R. (ed.), L. Wittgenstein Personal Recollections, 91-111. Conant, James 2005 What 'Ethics' in the Tractatus is Not, in Phillips (2005). Donatelli, P. 2005 The problem of “The Higher” in Wittgenstein's Tractatus, in Phillips (2005). Phillips, D.Z., Von der Ruhr, M. (2005), Religion and Wittgenstein's Legacy: a systematic study, Ashgate, Aldersthot. Kross, Matthias 1993 Klarheit als Selbstzweck, Wittgenstein über Philosohie, Religion, Ethik und Gewißheit, Berlin. Macho, Thomas 1984 Wittgenstein, Frankfurt/M. Rentsch, Thomas 1997 Anrennen gegen das Paradox - Wittgenstein, Heidegger und Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein Studien 2/97. Wittgenstein, L. 1965 A lecture on Ethics, in: Philos. review 74, p. 3-12. Wittgenstein, L. 1966 Lectures on Religious Belief in: Lectures and Conversations an Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. Cyril Barrett, Oxford: Blackwell and in: Pojman, Louis P. 1998 Philosophy of Religion. An Anthology. London. Wittgenstein, L. 1977 Vermischte Bemerkungen, Suhrkamp. Wittgenstein, L. 1991 Geheime Tagebücher: 1914 – 1916, Wien. Wittgenstein, L. 1997, Denkbewegungen. Tagebücher 1930 - 1932, 1936 - 1937 (MS 183), edited by Ilse Sommavilla, Innsbruck, [TS]. 122 Wittgenstein and the Language of Religion in Secular Age - Zora Hesová
Page 2 and 3:
Kulturen: Konflikt-Analyse-Dialog C
Page 4 and 5:
Cultures: Conflict-Analysis-Dialogu
Page 6 and 7:
Inhalt / Contents Inhalt / Contents
Page 8 and 9:
Inhalt / Contents Zar'a-Jacob und W
Page 10:
Inhalt / Contents A Complicated For
Page 13 and 14:
12 Egoism, Coexistence, and the Pos
Page 15 and 16:
A Naturalistic Method for Therapy n
Page 17 and 18:
«views from nowhere»“ (Geertz 2
Page 19 and 20:
Our thesis is that the dichotomy be
Page 21 and 22:
Der Vorrang der Logik vor der Metap
Page 23 and 24:
sein [muss]“(TB 24.7.16), so wie
Page 25 and 26:
24 Jenseits des nichtzweifelnden Be
Page 27 and 28:
Intercultural Dialog and Mathematic
Page 29 and 30:
References 28 Intercultural Dialog
Page 31 and 32:
While half a muffin is still a piec
Page 33 and 34:
References Abrahams, Gerald 1952 Th
Page 35 and 36:
Hence Wittgenstein states: “Not,
Page 37 and 38:
About “die letzte Zusammenfassung
Page 39 and 40:
Groag remembers to have had in wint
Page 41 and 42:
Surprisingly enough, the late Wittg
Page 43 and 44:
Wittgenstein and Kripke’s Skeptic
Page 45 and 46:
5. Concluding remarks For Wittgenst
Page 47 and 48:
Here something strange happens, how
Page 49 and 50:
attribution of beliefs and the inte
Page 51 and 52:
Ist meine eigene Weltanschuung thir
Page 53 and 54:
Literatur: 52 Ist meine eigene Welt
Page 55 and 56:
54 An economist’s reflections on
Page 57 and 58:
56 An economist’s reflections on
Page 59 and 60:
How to Make Opposite Ends Meet? Ays
Page 61 and 62:
Intercultural Dialogue in Philosoph
Page 63 and 64:
62 Intercultural Dialogue in Philos
Page 65 and 66:
64 On Siamese Twins and Philosophic
Page 67 and 68:
Wittgenstein on Frege on Connective
Page 69 and 70:
Where to seek for the ‘Uniquely I
Page 71 and 72: Searles Naturalismus: Eine seiner S
Page 73 and 74: 72 Searles Naturalismus: Eine seine
Page 75 and 76: structures that tend to shade off i
Page 77 and 78: Probleme der interkulturellen Philo
Page 79 and 80: Literatur 78 Probleme der interkult
Page 81 and 82: group theory for obtaining the basi
Page 83 and 84: Radical Interpretation and Intercul
Page 85 and 86: References Davidson, Donald 1984 In
Page 87 and 88: 86 Indeterminismus freier Willensen
Page 89 and 90: Is naturalism progressive? A natura
Page 91 and 92: References 90 Is naturalism progres
Page 93 and 94: practice with the philosophers’ (
Page 95 and 96: Against Their Own Intention: Proble
Page 97 and 98: 96 Against Their Own Intention: Pro
Page 99 and 100: Recognising Beauty : On The Intercu
Page 101 and 102: 100 Recognising Beauty : On The Int
Page 103 and 104: 102 Trendwende in der Evolution? Ni
Page 105 and 106: Postmodernismus als Argumentationst
Page 107 and 108: 106 Postmodernismus als Argumentati
Page 109 and 110: Freud-Jung controversy: a failed in
Page 111 and 112: wishes, anxiety, guilt and hatred,
Page 113 and 114: References Freud, Sigmund (1912-13)
Page 115 and 116: of water beneath a glacier and any
Page 117 and 118: given physical world and our repres
Page 119 and 120: would be a further substratum on wh
Page 121: Wittgenstein and the Language of Re
Page 125 and 126: 3. Potentials and limitations of de
Page 127 and 128: Es gibt keinen Dissens, es gibt nur
Page 129 and 130: 128 Es gibt keinen Dissens, es gibt
Page 131 and 132: akademischem Charakter, natürlich
Page 133 and 134: 132 Wittgenstein's Paperwork. An Ex
Page 135 and 136: Substance and Attribute in the Cont
Page 137 and 138: 136 Substance and Attribute in the
Page 143 and 144: understands the patient's worldview
Page 145 and 146: Reflections on Ethics and Cultural
Page 147 and 148: cultures, unless they fail to heed
Page 149 and 150: identisch ist. Charakteristischerwe
Page 151 and 152: Nachdenken über Gewissheit - Zur A
Page 153 and 154: 152 Nachdenken über Gewissheit - Z
Page 155 and 156: 154 Zar'a-Jacob und Walda-Heiwat ü
Page 157 and 158: Wittgenstein on consciousness in
Page 159 and 160: 158 Wittgenstein on consciousness i
Page 161 and 162: Normalität vs. Naturalität Das er
Page 163 and 164: Did you do something wrong if you c
Page 165 and 166: References 164 Did you do something
Page 167 and 168: zustandekommt. Der Pyrrhoneer ist g
Page 169 and 170: Wittgenstein’s “notorious parag
Page 171 and 172: Instead, Gödel always gives a redu
Page 173 and 174:
our view, this plurality of remarks
Page 175 and 176:
Designation and Ontological Commitm
Page 177 and 178:
176 Designation and Ontological Com
Page 179 and 180:
For one thing, those who appeal to
Page 181 and 182:
On the Impossibility of Solitary Pe
Page 183 and 184:
For instance, it takes creative mor
Page 185 and 186:
184 Wittgensteins Philosophieren f
Page 187 and 188:
Derivativeness, production and reac
Page 189 and 190:
4. Conclusion To conclude, Anscombe
Page 191 and 192:
Our concept of non-compositionality
Page 193 and 194:
„Patamou“ oder „El poder de l
Page 195 and 196:
Literatur Breinbauer, Ines Maria 19
Page 197 and 198:
Persons can also have beliefs about
Page 199 and 200:
Wittgenstein, Cavell, and the Fall
Page 201 and 202:
culture in which laws of the intell
Page 203 and 204:
elated in a world-picture. This I d
Page 205 and 206:
Reservations to Human Rights Treati
Page 207 and 208:
legal jargon calls its “objective
Page 209 and 210:
Worin besteht nun dieser Zusammenha
Page 211 and 212:
Do We Really Need Relativism About
Page 213 and 214:
MacFarlane’s and Kölbel’s view
Page 215 and 216:
It follows from this approach that
Page 217 and 218:
Die Relativität von Gewißheiten K
Page 219 and 220:
egierig aufgegriffen werden, insbes
Page 221 and 222:
220 Natural Language and its Speake
Page 223 and 224:
Page 225 and 226:
Page 227 and 228:
Page 229 and 230:
Der Beitrag einer „Logik der Phil
Page 231 and 232:
230 Der Beitrag einer „Logik der
Page 233 and 234:
einer ausgesprochen lockeren Sprach
Page 235 and 236:
Wittgenstein, Waismann and Non-Eucl
Page 237 and 238:
importance, since it appears no les
Page 239 and 240:
238 Cultural Alterity and Unilatera
Page 241 and 242:
Die Opazität der Oberfläche: Witt
Page 243 and 244:
unserer Sprachspiele durch unsere R
Page 245 and 246:
244 A Perspective of Dialogical Eng
Page 247 and 248:
Double Meant is not Double Good: A
Page 249 and 250:
The Analytic Theory of the A Priori
Page 251 and 252:
not white, so the fact that “snow
Page 253 and 254:
252 Experience and social norms in
Page 255 and 256:
Can there be such thing as a “hop
Page 257 and 258:
feeling that was both thought or fe
Page 259 and 260:
258 Regaining the Sense of the Trac
Page 261 and 262:
Brandom on Holism, Communication, a
Page 263 and 264:
interpersonal communication is real
Page 265 and 266:
264 Action and Morality: A Reflecti
Page 267 and 268:
Peter Singer’s Utilitarianism ver
Page 269 and 270:
References 268 Peter Singer’s Uti
Page 271 and 272:
Wittgenstein affirms that what ‘g
Page 273 and 274:
Spiel der Sprache und Sprachspiel -
Page 275 and 276:
274 Spiel der Sprache und Sprachspi
Page 277 and 278:
276 ‘The riddle does not exist’
Page 279 and 280:
Zur dringend notwendigen Revision d
Page 281 and 282:
280 Zur dringend notwendigen Revisi
Page 283 and 284:
282 • dass einem die Ressourcen z
Page 285 and 286:
Deuten - Missverstehen - ‚Blasphe
Page 287 and 288:
286 Deuten - Missverstehen - ‚Bla
Page 289 and 290:
If we can learn a social practice,
Page 291 and 292:
Keine Anschauungsgrade besitzt hing
Page 293 and 294:
Life’s Infinite Variations: Wittg
Page 295 and 296:
another culture is also the sign of
Page 297 and 298:
296 Against cultural identity: a fa
Page 299 and 300:
Kann eine Person als Urheber ihrer
Page 301 and 302:
300 Kann eine Person als Urheber ih
Page 303 and 304:
Substanz, Kausalität und Freiheit
Page 305 and 306:
Im abschließenden Teil des Vortrag
Page 307 and 308:
verstehen). D.h.: das Verstehen ein
Page 309 and 310:
Towards an Intercultural Phenomenol
Page 311 and 312:
310 Towards an Intercultural Phenom
Page 313 and 314:
feel envy towards his brother witho
Page 315 and 316:
idges chronological distances; for
Page 317 and 318:
Sprache im interkulturellen Dialog
Page 319 and 320:
Abweichung in seinem Sprachgebrauch
Page 321 and 322:
kind of mythology (cf. Wittgenstein
Page 323 and 324:
Social Criticism through Internal a
Page 325 and 326:
Interkulturelle Philosophie in Russ
Page 327 and 328:
326 Interkulturelle Philosophie in
Page 329 and 330:
Wissenschaft begnügen und daher nu
Page 331 and 332:
Das, was er in seinem Brief an Herm
Page 333 and 334:
Essence/Attribute in Islamic Philos
Page 335 and 336:
Konvergenzen in grundlegenden Prinz
Page 337 and 338:
individuellen Freiheit (Stelzer 200
Page 339 and 340:
experience gives an epistemological
Page 341 and 342:
The Fraissè Theorem and Goodman’
Page 343 and 344:
3.5) i) Sentences satisfied by elem
Page 345 and 346:
Outline of Arguments against Natura
Page 347 and 348:
346 Outline of Arguments against Na
Page 349 and 350:
Reason, red in tooth and claw: natu
Page 351 and 352:
Importantly, where Pascal saw in hu
Page 353 and 354:
352 The Significance of Intercultur
Page 355 and 356:
354 Wittgenstein, the artistic way
Page 357 and 358:
A Neo-pragmatist Approach to Interc
Page 359 and 360:
358 A Neo-pragmatist Approach to In
Page 361 and 362:
360 A Neo-pragmatist Approach to In
Page 363 and 364:
Aber der Löwe spricht eben nicht!
Page 365 and 366:
364 Aber der Löwe spricht eben nic
Page 367 and 368:
366 From Anti-Metaphysics to Non-Py
Page 369 and 370:
Respective Justice through Thick an
Page 371 and 372:
Normativity and Novelty Tine Wilde,
Page 373 and 374:
References Baz, Avnar: 2000, ‘Wha
Page 375 and 376:
374 Towards an Intercultural Phenom
Page 377 and 378:
Das Problem des metaphysischen Subj
Page 379 and 380:
378 Das Problem des metaphysischen
Page 381:
380 Das Problem des metaphysischen
show all

Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?