The Language-Game View of Religion and Religious Certainty

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Kellenberger
Keyword(s):  
Language Game ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Chess Playing

There is a certain view of religion, deriving from Wittgenstein’s thought, that might be called the language-game view of religion. It has many parts, but in essence it holds–in its own terms–that religion is a language-game (or cluster of languagegames) in fact engaged in by men; or, what seems to be an alternative way of saying the same thing, or very nearly the same. thing, religion is a form of life participated in by men. As such it is in order. Although one needs to enter into the torm ot lite and engage in the language-game to learn its grammar or logic and to see the order that it has. For its order has internal criteria: what count as, e.g., rational and meaningful within religion are determined not by criteria appropriate to physics or chess playing but by criteria appropriate to religion as it is lived by the religious.

scholarly journals Playing ethics and teaching morality: how wittgenstein could help us to apply games to the moral living

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Janyne Sattler
Keyword(s):  
Language Game ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Moral Language ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Moral Engagement

ABSTRACT: In Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations the notion of a 'language game' gives human communication a regained flexibility. Contrary to the Tractatus, the ethical domain now composes one language game among others, being expressed in various types of sentences such as moral judgments, imperatives and praises, and being shared in activity by a human form of life. The aim of this paper is to show that the same moves that allow for a moral language game are the ones allowing for learning and teaching about the moral living, where persuasion takes the place of argument by means of a plural appeal. For this purpose, literature would seem to be one of the best tools at our disposal. As a way of exemplifying our moral engagement to literature I proceed at last to a brief analysis of Tolstoy's Father Sergius, to show how playing this game would help us accomplish this pedagogical enterprise.

Wittgenstein’s Remarks Concerning the Accessibility of Foreign Cultures

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jozef Bremer
Keyword(s):  
Language Game ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Family Resemblance ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Intrinsic Feature

AbstractWittgenstein (1889-1951) was highly disapproving of scholars whom he thought unable to properly acknowledge diversity amongst cultures or take due note of the enormous differences separating them from tribes living in radically heterogeneous cultural environments. The best known and paradigmatic example of his attitude to such differences is to be found in his Remarks on Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’, where he wrote: “[…] how impossible for him [Frazer, J.B.] to understand a different way of life from the English one of his time”. But to cut a long story short, whether Wittgenstein saw this “impossibility” as an intrinsic feature of the task or not is by no means unambiguously clear. To resolve this question, I shall take as my point of departure the socio-anthropological writings of B. Malinowski (1884-1942), who spent several years amongst one of the Pacific island tribes - the Trobriands. In his “field studies”, Malinowski focused on the tribe’s “form of life”: i.e. on their belief in ritual and magic, and on how their customs interlinked with kinship and with their economy. Taking into account Malinowski’s own pragmatic conception of language and his notion of the divergent character of scientific and magical forms of belief, I then outline Wittgenstein’s notions of “language game”, “family resemblance” and “form of life”. The usage of these concepts will show in what sense Wittgenstein would have recognized the similarities within and between different cultures and human societies - but, equally, just how far we can understand a human way of life deeply different from our own.

scholarly journals "Let us imagine...": Wittgenstein's Invitation to Philosophy

2015 ◽  
pp. 99-115
Author(s):  
Beth Savickey
Keyword(s):  
Language Game ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Constitutive Relationships ◽  
The Social ◽  
Power And Authority

Wendy Lee-Lampshire writes that Wittgenstein’s conception of language has something valuable to offer feminist attempts to construct epistemologies firmly rooted in the social, psychological and physical situations of language users (1999: 409).  However, she also argues that his own use of language exemplifies a form of life whose constitutive relationships are enmeshed in forms of power and authority. For example, she interprets the language game of the builders as one of slavery, and questions how we read and respond to it.  She asks: “Who are ‘we’ as Wittgenstein’s reader(s)?” This is an important question, and how we answer offers insight not only into our own philosophical practices, but also into Wittgenstein’s use of language games. With the words “Let us imagine...”, Wittgenstein invites readers to participate in creative, collaborative, and improvisational language games that alter not only the texts themselves, but our relationship with others.

scholarly journals Wittgenstein on ethics: Working through Lebensformen

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliet Floyd
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Significant Step

In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein conveyed the idea that ethics cannot be located in an object or self-standing subject matter of propositional discourse, true or false. At the same time, he took his work to have an eminently ethical purpose, and his attitude was not that of the emotivist. The trajectory of this conception of the normativity of philosophy as it developed in his subsequent thought is traced. It is explained that and how the notion of a ‘form of life’ ( Lebensform) emerged only in his later thought, in 1937, earmarking a significant step forward in his philosophical method. We argue that the concept of Lebensform represents a way of domesticating logic itself, the very idea of a claim or reason, supplementing the idea of a ‘language game’, which it deepens. Lebensform is contrasted with the phenomenologists’ Lebenswelt through a reading of the notions of ‘I’, ‘world’ and ‘self’ as they were treated in the Tractatus, The Blue and Brown Books and Philosophical Investigations. Finally, the notion of Lebensform is shown to have replaced the notion of culture ( Kultur) in Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein’s spring 1937 ‘domestication’ of the nature of logic is shown to have been fully consonant with the idea that he was influenced by his reading Alan Turing’s 1936/1937 paper, ‘On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem’.

scholarly journals LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: LANGUAGE-GAME AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Peter O. O. Ottuh ◽  
Onos Godwin Idjakpo
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spiritual Nature ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Characteristic Features

Abstract. Wittgenstein’s new understanding of meaning as use has far reaching implications in religion and religious belief. The meaningfulness of language does not depend on the referent but on the actual use of it in the human context. The variety of language uses makes religious language legitimate, and the social character of language makes clear the role of training in religious belief. The characteristic features of religious belief can be summarized as follows: It is an unshakable commitment devoid of evidences and arguments, and it is reasonable only within its framework and grounded on the religious form of life. The rituals that are part of religious beliefs are symbolic and expressive. The existential concerns of human beings reveal a common spiritual nature enabling us to understand other religions and cultures as mirrored in our own humanity.

scholarly journals The Pragmatic Connotation of Wittgenstein's Assertion "Language Game is a Form of Life"

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peilan Peng
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Life Form ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Forms Of Life

This paper introduces the concept of "language game", and on the basis of this background, illustrates the two important concepts of the later philosophy Wittgenstein: "language game" and "life form", and emphatically discusses the "language game" and "life form" of the dialectical relations. The paper also reveals the pragmatic connotation of the assertion "language is a kind of life form", which is mainly reflected in the following three aspects: language use is unique to human social practice; the context of linguistic games is life; the rules of the language game are rooted in the forms of life.

Tradition and Discontinuity: Interrogating the Notions of Normal Science and Revolution in Thomas Kuhn

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 171
Author(s):  
Michael Sunday Sasa
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Human Interest ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Fundamental Point ◽  
History Of

The present paper is a representation of a systematic inquiry as well as an application of the main thrust in Thomas Kuhn’s discourse concerning the growth of human knowledge represented in philosophy of science. The paper begins by stating the points of tradition and normal science in Thomas Kuhn’s analysis of the growth of scientific knowledge. This is juxtaposed with the notions of discontinuity and revolution. A fundamental point in the paper is that Thomas Kuhn presents an analysis that bring to the fore a tradition of continuous discontinuity. This he expounded in the philosophy of paradigm shifts brought about by crisis and revolution, resulting in the overthrow of an existing hegemony and the birth of a new one. In all, Thomas Kuhn believes that science does not represent a paradigm of rationality because going through the history of science; we are not able to discover a particular paradigm or rationality that runs through the entirety of the history of science. If anything at all, science is made up of different paradigms of rationality, models of knowledge systems of method such that, the change from one scientific epoch to another cannot be a lineal rational or methodic one. Rather, it is a shift from one model to an opposing one; what he calls a gestalt switch which is a change in ‘form of life’, ‘language game’ or ‘conceptual scheme’. The paper however, presents the thesis that even if there is no outstanding form of rationality the history of science is seen to contain a certain continuous tradition. This has to do with the aim of any science. And so, be it the science of Ptolemy, Copernicus or Galileo, Einstein or Newton, there is the aim of human interest transcending all the epochs. To this extent, the paper argues a rationality of any scientific epoch or paradigm must derive from the quality of human interest it potent. Any science be it religion, mysticism or positivism that does not aim at human flourishing is not rational. The paper employs the method of text-analysis, conceptual clarification, constructive criticism and reconstructivism to bring forth its central argument.   

scholarly journals Does Homily Work as a Theory of Truth?

Scrinium ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 261-280
Author(s):  
Marcello La Matina
Keyword(s):  
Special Form ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Logical Point

Patristics increasingly attracts new scholars. Both philosophers and students of human sciences deserve Patristics for its richness of topics, until now discussed under the label of semantics, ontology and theory of knowledge: Fathers are especially appealing for the content of their writings. Without disavowing such an approach, my paper would like to observe how the Fathers did work. Its concern is rather the Signifier, than the Signi­ficatum. How did the Greek Fathers approach the word of God? Before any writing, they held their talks, in a special form of speech, inherited by the synagogue-proclamation and termed a homily. From a logical point of view, a homily is more profitably approached if it is seen as a “language-game,” whose goal was stating the truth-conditions of some crucial sentences proclaimed in their form of life. The homilist succeeded in his task by pairing each sentence of Holy Scripture with a sentence of his own. Thus, the truth-conditions were shown not as a matter of fact, but of replaceable pronouns and other referring expressions.


scholarly journals Rules, understanding and language games in mathematics

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
V. V. Tselishchev
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Mathematical Practice ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Logical Necessity ◽  
Foundations Of Mathematics ◽  
Mathematical Concepts ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Inherent Ambiguity

The article is devoted to the applicability of Wittgenstein’s following the rule in the context of his philosophy of mathematics to real mathematical practice. It is noted that in «Philosophical Investigations» and «Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics» Wittgenstein resorted to the analysis of rather elementary mathematical concepts, accompanied also by the inherent ambiguity and ambiguity of his presentation. In particular, against this background, his radical conventionalism, the substitution of logical necessity with the «form of life» of the community, as well as the inadequacy of the representation of arithmetic rules by a language game are criticized. It is shown that the reconstruction of the Wittgenstein concept of understanding based on the Fregian division of meaning and referent goes beyond the conceptual framework of Wittgenstein language games.

“What belongs to a language game is a whole culture.”

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Brusotti
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Cultural Comparison ◽  
The West ◽  
Aesthetic Judgement ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Conceptual Connection ◽  
Full Reconstruction

Abstract:Wittgenstein remarks that “What belongs to a language game is a whole culture”, and that describing the language games in which the “words we call expressions of aesthetic judgement” are used implies describing “the culture of a period” (LA 1966: 8). Without aiming at a full reconstruction, the paper addresses the gradual emergence of the close conceptual connection between “language game” and “culture” in Wittgenstein’s manuscripts. The apparently obvious idea that “language game” and “form of life” (or “culture”) belong together or even coincide was originally missing. The paper picks out few episodes from Wittgenstein’s philosophical development. The first chapter shows that the topic of cultural diversity emerges in Wittgenstein’s reception of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, but still plays only a limited role in his first criticism of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough. The second chapter discusses the emergence of the term “language game” and establishes that Wittgenstein’s first language games do not yet imply something like an “anthropological view”. Real and imaginary “peoples” and “tribes” make their first appearance in remarks that ascribe a “primitive” arithmetic to them (chapter 3). Finally, with an eye to the possible influence of Sraffa and Malinowski, the fourth section shows how the Brown Book conceives translation as holistic cultural comparison.

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