Ludwig Wittgenstein was an outstanding 20th-century philosopher whose influence has reverberated throughout not only philosophy but also numerous other areas of inquiry, including theology and the study of religions. Exemplifying how Wittgenstein's thought can be engaged with both sympathetically and critically, Wittgenstein, Religion and Ethics pushes forward our thinking about religion and ethics and their place in the modern world. Bringing Wittgenstein's ideas into productive dialogue with several other important thinkers, including Elizabeth Anscombe, St Thomas Aquinas, Georg Cantor, Søren Kierkegaard and George Orwell, this collection fosters a highly informative picture of how different strands of contemporary and historical thought intersect and bear upon one another. Chapters are written by leading scholars in the field and tackle current debates concerning religious and ethical matters, with particular attention to the nature of religious language. This is a substantial contribution to religion and ethics, demonstrating the significance of Wittgenstein's ideas for these and related subjects.

This book is a critical exposition of multiple facets of Ludwig Wittgenstein's thoughts on ethics and religion. The book first brings out foundations of Wittgenstein's views. Then, it deals with various issues of current debates in the philosophy of Wittgenstein, such as: the notion of transcendental ethics . the dichotomy between fact and value . the distinction between religious and superstitious beliefs . the notion of happiness and human being . discussions on Fideism . whether Wittgenstein's methodology was Christian or Jewish . Wittgenstein's religious thoughts in the context of logical positivism and Habermas. The book is useful not only for students of philosophy and theology but also for a lay reader who is interested in an in-depth analysis of the realm of meta-ethics and religious philosophy of language.

Many have observed how Wittgenstein's later philosophy illuminates the philosophy of religion. Rarely, however, have they paid attention to his early philosophy. Those who have argued that Wittgenstein refuted his early positions in his later work. This book proves otherwise. The proof is found in the answer to an important, but largely ignored, question: what is the relation of Wittgenstein's discussion of logic to his discussion of religion and ethics in the early work? Lazenby's answer is that Wittgenstein, in his discussion of logic, describes the boundaries of factual discourse for the purpose of fixing a common language. And in his discussion of religion and ethics, Wittgenstein suggests that when religious and ethical statements fall outside this common language, we should reconstruct them to make sense within the common language. Such reconstruction ensures that the meaning of religious utterances agrees with how believers actually live and speak. Lazenby's approach is novel because it finds unity in what commentators have considered incommensurable topics in Wittgenstein's early work-logic and religion-while also finding unity between his early and later philosophy. Lazenby ends the book by considering the implications for theology and inter-religious dialogue. If theologians reconstruct the meanings of words that have lost their meaning in the common language of the modern world, these words will regain their force in the lives of believers. And the very possibility of a common language allows logical space for theologians from among the world's religions to find a common language in which to communicate.

This volume explores the relationship between the philosophical thought of Simone Weil and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The contributions shed light on how reading Weil can inform our understanding of Wittgenstein, and vice versa. The chapters cover different aspects of Weil’s and Wittgenstein’s philosophy, including their religious thought and their views on ethics and metaphilosophy. They address the following questions: How does Wittgenstein’s struggle with religious belief match up with Simone Weil’s own struggle with organised belief? What is the role of the mystical and supernatural in their works? How much impact has various posthumous editorial decisions had on the shaping of Weil’s and Wittgenstein’s thought? Is there any significance to similarities in Weil’s and Wittgenstein’s written and philosophical styles? How do Weil and Wittgenstein conceive of the ‘self’ and its role in philosophical thinking? What role does belief play in Weil’s and Wittgenstein’s respective philosophical works? Between Wittgenstein and Weil will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in twentieth-century philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, and the history of moral philosophy.

The limit of language is one of the most pervasive notions found in Wittgenstein’s work, both in his early Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and his later writings. Moreover, the idea of a limit of language is intimately related to important scholarly debates on Wittgenstein’s philosophy, such as the debate between the so-called traditional and resolute interpretations, Wittgenstein’s stance on transcendental idealism, and the philosophical import of Wittgenstein’s latest work On Certainty. This collection includes thirteen original essays that provide a comprehensive overview of the various ways in which Wittgenstein appeals to the limit of language at different stages of his philosophical development. The essays connect the idea of a limit of language to the most important themes discussed by Wittgenstein—his conception of logic and grammar, the method of philosophy, the nature of the subject, and the foundations of knowledge—as well as his views on ethics, aesthetics, and religion. The essays also relate Wittgenstein’s thought to his contemporaries, including Carnap, Frege, Heidegger, Levinas, and Moore.

This book explores the hitherto neglected affinities between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Emmannuel Levinas, two of the most important and challenging thinkers of the 20th century

The essays collected in this volume explore some of the themes that have been at the centre of recent debates within Wittgensteinian scholarship. In opposition to what we are tentatively inclined to think, the articles of this volume invite us to understand that our need to grasp the essence of ethical and religious thought and language will not be achieved by metaphysical theories expounded from such a point of view, but by focusing on our everyday forms of expression.

The commonly held view that Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion is fideistic loses plausibility when contrasted with recent scholarship on Wittgenstein's corpus and biography. This book reevaluates the place of Wittgenstein in the philosophy of religion and charts a path forward for the subfield by advancing three themes.

Advancing our understanding of one of the most influential 20th-century philosophers, Robert Vinten brings together an international line up of scholars to consider the relevance of Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas to the cognitive science of religion. Wittgenstein's claims ranged from the rejection of the idea that psychology is a 'young science' in comparison to physics to challenges to scientistic and intellectualist accounts of religion in the work of past anthropologists. Chapters explore whether these remarks about psychology and religion undermine the frameworks and practices of cognitive scientists of religion. Employing philosophical tools as well as drawing on case studies, contributions not only illuminate psychological experiments, anthropological observations and neurophysiological research relevant to understanding religious phenomena, they allow cognitive scientists to either heed or clarify their position in relation to Wittgenstein's objections. By developing and responding to his criticisms, Wittgenstein and the Cognitive Science of Religion offers novel perspectives on his philosophy in relation to religion, human nature, and the mind.

Wittgenstein’s philosophical achievement lies in the development of a new philosophical method rather than in the elaboration of a particular philosophical system. Dr Paul Johnston applies this innovative method to the central problems of moral philosophy: whether there can be ‘truth’ in ethics, or what the meaning of objectivity might mean in the context of moral deliberation. Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy, first published in 1989, represents the first serious and rigorous attempt to apply Wittgenstein’s method to ethics. The conclusions arrived at differ radically from those dominating contemporary ethical discussion, revealing an immense discrepancy between the ethical concepts employed in everyday moral decision-making and the way in which these are discussed by philosophers. Dr Johnston examines ways of eliminating this discrepancy in order to gain a clearer picture of the proper nature of moral claims, and at the same time provides new insights into Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy.