Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein

1. Later Wittgenstein

   • Language games constitute reality. We cannot get 'outside' games to ask the real meaning of words, since this would involve playing another language game, the lexicography game. The world as we know it is made up of games.
   • We cannot judge one language game to be superior to the other, since this would require a vantage point from outside a form of life, which is impossible. Other forms of life would be judged according to Western values of truth and falsity
     • Peter Vardy uses examples of prime numbers. They exist for mathematicians, very certainly, but do not exist for non-mathematicians
   • Uses example of chess. Rules state how pieces can move, how talk of 'queens' and 'pawns' only make sense in the context of chess. If words are used which do not follow the particular rules of language then it will be nonsense. Meaning is in use, the game in which it is used
     • Language is not static, as the Vienna Circle suggests, but dynamic; the meaning of religious language is not what it depicts but it's use
   • Language games: a way of expressing the idea that words have meaning only in the context of other words and the way in which they are uttered
   • It is the rules of the game which determine whether statements should be read cognitively or non-cognitively. In physics and geography they are, whilst in poetry they are not

2. Examples

   • Responds to Frazer's natural history of religion, in which religious pratcises are erroneous forms of science. Suggests that religion is only mistaken when it is putting forward a theory. Religion should not be likened to being a hypothesis about some being called God
   • Argues that actions like burning in effigy are a way of expressing human values, needs and desires
   • Uses examples of a German aeroplane flying overhead and a belief in the Last Judgement. Judging the latter as the first is inappropriate, since it requires one form of life judging another by its own terms
     • 'For a blunder, that's too big'

3. Evaluation

   • Peter Geach: idea of language games is circular. A language game is understood with reference to words, though the words make sense within a language game
   • How should we treat the entire theory of language games? Is the theory itself a language game that is no more superior than other theories of language?
   • A. J. Ayer: Wittgenstein is committed to regarding talk of fairies and witches as legitimate. There are good reasons for presuming some language games to be true or false
   • Kai Nielsen: language games presuppose that each form of life has its own rules of reality, intelligibility and reason. If this is the case, religious beliefs consist simply in fideism (the 'Archimedean point')
     • D. Z. Phillips' reply is that language games can resolve internal questions and conceptual muddles within claims, but cannot settle the question of external justification
   • Bertrand Russell: likens the obsession with meaning to somebody who, upon taking apart a perfectly performing clock, wonders why it does not work
   • Patrick Sherry: even if we cannot ask 'is science true?' we can still ask 'why pursue science?'

4. Early Wittgenstein

   • Developed an idea of 'picture language', the idea that language is a pictorial representation of the world even though we rearrange pictures in ways which do not reflect reality
   • Published the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus whilst a prisoner of war in Italy
   • '...whereof we cannot speak, we must remain silent'.'
   • Since we can imagine a religion in which nothing is said, the essence of religion can have nothing to do with the fact that speech occurs. It is an aspect of religious behaviour. Nothing turns on whether language is true, false or nonsensical

5. Implications

   • Religious language has meaning for those in a religious tradition and for those who participate in it. Judging religion by the rules of another language game does not appreciate how language works
   • Don Cuppit: language games means we must deny God as a reality in himself. God is simply a reality of faith within the community. Christianity is a form of life with special values and meanings, and his approach is the best way to live
   • D. Z. Phillips: the task of philosophy is to 'leave everything as it is'. He does not deny the objective existence of God but argues it is not the job of the philosopher to ask this question. It is one which comes within the religious form of life.