scholarly journals LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: LANGUAGE-GAME AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF

Author(s):  
Peter O. O. Ottuh ◽  
Onos Godwin Idjakpo

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.

1999 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-97
Author(s):  
VINCENT BRÜMMER

In this response to Stenmark's critique of my views on rational theology, I concentrate on his distinction between the epistemic and the practical goals of religion and between descriptive and normative rational theology. With regard to the first distinction, I grant that truth claims play an essential role in religious belief and that it is indeed the task of philosophy of religion to decide on the meaning and rationality of such claims. I argue, however, that since such claims are internally related to the practical context of religious belief, their meaning and rationality cannot be determined apart from this context as is done in the kind of rational theology which Stenmark calls ‘scientific’. With regard to the second distinction, I reject Stenmark's view that philosophy of religion has a descriptive task with reference to religion, and hence also his claim that I have put forward a false description of ‘the religious language game’.


Author(s):  
Michael Pakaluk

The reception of Thomistic political and legal philosophy is considered with respect to what is called ‘political liberalism’. The appeal to a hypothetical state of nature should be rejected, as it misconstrues the social nature of human beings. Aquinas’ account of the origin of political society starts from an interpretation of human nature. On this basis one can account for human rights, the importance of the right to religious liberty, the family as the basic cell of society, civil society as including subsidiary authorities, the importance of private property, and the nature and role of freedom. A key question for the continued flourishing of a free society is what practically enables persons to govern for the genuine good of others.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constanza Parra ◽  
Casey Walsh

The articles in this section were written by social scientists from different parts of the world doing research on the complex relationship between human beings and the natural environment, and on the role of cultural ideals in shaping environmental history. The interdisciplinary character of the papers generates original insights about the socio-cultural dimensions of the environmental problematic, which have been neglected when compared with economic and political dimensions. This introduction reviews the contents of the proposed special symposium and situates the articles in relation to discussions about the social role of utopias, imagined and real.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-149
Author(s):  
Gerald Filson

Human beings are conceptual in ways unique to our species, different in kind from animal rationality. Our conceptual capacity goes beyond the cognitive and shapes our emotions, our moral and spiritual capabilities and our perception of the world. That conceptual capacity is formed by culture and language where language plays a central role in how we experience the world. The role of language, especially spiritual or religious language, can inform our perception of the world in ways that represent genuine ‘spiritual perception’ of the material, social and spiritual dimensions of reality. Human beings’ conceptual capabilities are fallible, even in how we use perception as a capacity for knowing the world. Conditions in modernity have increased our vulnerability to fallibility. Consequently, collective exercise of our conceptual capacities in deliberation and coordinated assessments of reality are more necessary than ever. Science and religion are influential models of how collective deliberation, or consultation, enhances our conceptual capabilities and the ways in which perception takes in a world that is both material and spiritual.


Author(s):  
Christo Thesnaar

The desire to remember the plight of the poor in South Africa has reduced in the last 20 years after the transition from apartheid to freedom. To a large extent, Faith Based Organizations (FBOs) and the religious society at large have lost their ‘dangerous memory’ which keeps us mindful of those who suffered and whose plight is usually forgotten or suppressed. In this contribution the conditions of poor farm school children in multigrade rural education will be scrutinised by unpacking the contextual factors that cause us to forget their plight. This article will seek to reimagine the role of the church in poverty-stricken South Africa by engaging with the work of Talcott Parsons, the practical theologian Johannes A. Van der Ven, as well as the work of the political theologian Johann Baptist Metz in order to affirm the focus of Practical Theology to transform society and to contribute to the quest for justice and liberation for the poor in rural education. This reimagining discourse has a fundamental responsibility to challenge the social, political and economic realities that shape the lives of human beings within rural education, remembering the plight of the poor, and participating on their journey towards liberation and healing. It is proposed that if the church can activate its ‘dangerous memory’ it will be able to reimagine its role by transforming our poverty-stricken South African society, open new avenues for breaking the cycle of poverty and contribute to rural education.


2015 ◽  
pp. 99-115
Author(s):  
Beth Savickey

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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 247
Author(s):  
Akhiyat Akhiyat

Abstract: Religious style of Indonesia or Islam Nusantara has its own peculiarities. The form that can be found from the different shades of Islamic Archipelago with other countries in the Middle East, especially the Islamic origins of Saudi Arabia, namely in terms of uniqueness of the treasures of the experience and the practice of the Indonesian people as their adherents. It can be said that Islam Nusantara is Islam as moral and moral teachings for its adherents, and not Islam as "ideology" that does not appreciate the understanding of others. Departing from the different shades between Islam Nusantara and Islam with other countries, not separated from the historical background of the existence of cultural experiences of experience and religious belief of its predecessors. Islam Nusantara which has become an important part of adherents in Indonesia, viewed from the aspect of propriety of its adherents, can be categorized as "Islam of humanistic orthodoxy." They in carrying out Islam always maintain its normative religious values, hold to Al-Qur'an and al- Hadith. In addition they also carry out historical teachings, in which the role of spiritual values, inner values (esoteric) in religion, especially the values of human morality has become a very urgent principle in his life. As the rites are at the level of the reality of the life of the people, in every moment of his life rite can not be separated by the name of holding a religious attitude (rite of life)), pleading for a supernatural (unseen) outside, in religious language begging for help The Almighty, the God of nature.Abstrak: Corak keberagamaan masyarakat Indonesia atau Islam Nusantara telah memiliki kekhasan tersendiri. Bentuk yang dapat ditemukan dari perbedaan corak Islam Nusantara dengan negara-negara lain di Timur Tengah, terutama negara asal Islam, Arab Saudi, yaitu dari segi kekhasan khasanah pengalaman dan pengamalan batin masyarakat Indonesia sebagai pemeluknya. Dapat dikatakan bahwa Islam Nusantara adalah Islam sebagai ajaran akhlak dan moral bagi pemeluknya, dan bukan Islam sebagai ideologi yang tidak menghargai pemahaman kelompok lain. Berangkat dari perbedaan corak antara Islam Nusantara dengan Islam dengan negara lain, tidak lepas dari latar belakang historis keberadaan tradisi pengalaman budaya dan kepercayaan religiusitas para pendahulunya. Islam Nusantara yang telah menjadi bagian penting pemeluknya di Indonesia, dilihat dari segi kepatutan masyarakat penganutnya, dapat dikategorikan sebagai “Islam ortodoksi humanis.” Mereka dalam menjalankan Islam senantiasa masih mempertahankan nilai-nilai normatif keberagamaannya, berpegang kepada al-Qur’an dan al-Hadis. Di samping itu, mereka juga menjalankan ajaran historis, yang mana peran nilai-nilai spiritualitas, nilai-nilai batiniah (esoteris) dalam agama, terutama nilai-nilai moralitas kemanusiaan telah menjadi prinsip yang sangat urgen dalam kehidupannya. Sebagaimana ritus-ritus yang pada tataran realita kehidupan masyarakatnya, dalam setiap momen ritus kehidupannya tidak lepas dengan yang namanya mengadakan suatu sikap religiusitas (upacara ritus kehidupan)), memohon pertolongan kepada sesuatu kekuatan (ghaib) di luar dirinya, dalam bahasa agama memohon pertolongan kepada Sang Maha Kuasa, Tuhan pencipta alam.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 188
Author(s):  
Eduardo Gomes de Siqueira

O objetivo do texto é mostrar a pertinência da discussão do conceito de crença religiosa tanto quanto à especificidade deste tipo de crença (objeto) quanto ao modo de fazê-lo (método), desde um ponto de vista wittgensteiniano, na interface entre a teoria do conhecimento e a filosofia da religião. Abordando a questão pelo ângulo da filosofia da linguagem do segundo Wittgenstein, procuramos mostrar alguns problemas semânticos e pragmáticos envolvidos na significação da palavra ‘crença’, um termo psicológico essencialmente vago, mas indispensável tanto para a discussão epistemológica (a justificação pública das crenças) como para a filosofia da religião (a especificidade das regras do jogo de linguagem religioso), além de possuir outros usos cotidianos dotados de sentido. O artigo quer mostrar, enfim, a particularidade do método descritivo-gramatical de Wittgenstein para obter uma visão perspícua (übersichtlich Darstellung) das regras dos diferentes jogos que jogamos quando falamos de acreditar em algo, em distintas circunstâncias, o que pode ser um bom remédio contra as confusões conceituais sistemáticas que promovemos entre os diversos sentidos de acreditar, confusões estas que parecem estar na base de posições neofundamentalistas (tanto as cientificistas/naturalizadas como as fideístas/dogmáticas) pelas quais voltamos a ser assolados neste confuso reinício de milênio.Abstract: The aim of this paper is showing the importance of the discussion about religious belief, about the specificity of this kind of belief (the issue) and about the way by which to do that (the method), for booth, Epistemology and Philosophy of Religion. Taking the question by the angle of the Philosophy of the Language of the second Wittgenstein, we are trying to show some semantic and pragmatic problems about the meaning of the word ‘belief’, a psychological term that is essentially blurred, but indispensable either for the discussion about epistemological issues (the public justification of the beliefs), than for the Philosophy of Religion (the specificity of the rules of the religious language game), beyond other quotidian uses with sense. The paper wants to show, then, the particularities of the descriptive-grammatical method of Wittgenstein to obtain a synoptic view (übersichtlich Darstellung) of the rules of the games that we are following when we talk about believing in something, in different circumstances, what can be a good medicine against the systematic conceptual confusions we promote between the diverse senses of ‘belief’, confusions which seems to be on the grounds of the neo-fundamentalist positions (either scientifics than religious) which are blowing up and crashing us in this new beginning of a millennium. Keywords: Wittgenstein; cognitive belief; religious belief; philosophical grammar, psychological terms. 


Author(s):  
Hyo-Dong Lee

Confucians in East Asia have always dreamed of holding human communities together and constructing well-functioning polities in and through the binding and harmonizing power of rituals. Underlying their trust in the power of rituals is the notion that rituals constitute symbolic articulation and enchancement of our affective responses to the conditions of embodied relationality and historicity in which we always already find ourselves. This Confucian theory of rituals resonates with Whitehead’s theory of symbolism, insofar as the latter advances a primordially relational ontology of the subject by highlighting the hitherto neglected epistemological notion of perception in the mode of causal efficacy. As such, the Confucian theory of rituals offers a fresh cross-cultural perspective to understand Whitehead’s implied critique of the modern liberal social theories that are based on a view of human beings as atomized individuals who rationally consent to enter society.


2000 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK WYNN

This paper argues that we can fruitfully consider some central issues in philosophy of religion through the lens provided by the literature in aesthetics. Specifically, I argue that Mikel Dufrenne's theory of representation in the arts can be usefully applied to representations of the sacred. The paper seeks to trace some of the implications of this view for our understanding of religious language and the epistemology of religious belief. It also aims to throw light on the religious power of art, including art which lacks any explicitly religious content.


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