wittgenstein

critique of picture theory

• Movement away from the notion that language is just concerned to describe/ ‘picture ‘ things 

• In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein advocated a functional theory of meaning, arguing that words and language are part of an ‘anti-realist-/ postmodern approach to language 

• Language statements (incl religious ones) are not intended to be true or false for everyone, but only for those who are within that form of life 

• e.g. a scientific statement would be true/ false for a scientist but not necessarily for an artist 

 NON-COGNITIVE INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE AND CRITERIA OF COHERENCE IN THE RELEVANT LANGUAGE GAME 

• Wittgenstein argues religious language can be meaningful even if it’s not cognitive. 

• Language in a the game is non-cognitive -> it is not about making universally true statements, but about communicating meaning to other players in the same game 

• Wittgenstein thought that Ayer and Flew had misunderstood religious language.  

• Religious people try to speak about reality when talking about God – but since their language is unverifiable (Ayer) or unfalsifiable (Flew), their belief actually fails to be about reality. 

• Wittgenstein initially agreed with Ayer’s theory – but later in his life changed his mind and created the language games theory. 

• Ayer and Flew think that words get their meaning by being scientific – by referring to reality. 

• Wittgenstein disagreed with this – claiming instead that words get their meaning by participating in the social reality. 

lang games

• words get their meaning by participating in the social reality. 

• The social reality is the set of different types of social interaction that exist. 

• Every different type of social interaction is like a ‘game’, Wittgenstein argued, because it follows rules. 

• The things a person says depends on the social context they are speaking in. We speak very differently when with friends verses family verses at a job interview. 

• So, words must get their meaninging from the social context in which they are spoken. 

• A social context or type of social interaction is a language game. Wittgenstein means game in a broad sense – an activity governed by rules. If we started speaking at a job interview the way we spoke to friends, we would probably not get the job. This is because there are rules to behaviour and speech in a job interview. The same is true for all social interaction – there are things is normal and not normal to say.  

• Most of the time we learn rules unconsciously.

religion + lang games

• Religion is its own type of language game – religious language is meaningful within the religious language game to people who are religious – i.e., know (consciously or unconsciously) the ‘rules’. 

• It’s only if someone is socialised into a language game that they find it meaningful. 

• You either adopt that game or you do not 

• If you do, then the whole language game of religion is available to you - praying, praising, worshipping and so on. 

•  But the rules of the religion are self enclosed - they make sense to the believer, but not to the atheist who has no use for the religious language game 

• The statements ‘I believe in God’ and ‘I do not believe in God’ are not contradictory statements - they are simply different perspectives that people can take 

• They have a free option on using ‘God language’ or not 

dissonance between diff lang games

• Science is a different language game to religion – so religious language is meaningless in the scientific language game. 

• However, religious language is meaningful to religious people within the religious language game. 

• If you haven’t grown up religious, you’re simply not going to find it meaningful. 

• Analogy with Plato’s cave – different language games are like different caves. 

fideism

• Wittgenstein’s theory captures and explains the disconnect between religious and scientific meaning in a way that accords with important strands of Christian theology. 

• Fideism -> view that faith alone can gain knowledge of God, not reason.  

• The doctrine that knowledge depends on faith or revelation. Faith is independent of reason. Therefore language can only be understood in the context of faith. 

Wittgensteinian fideism + history of fideism

•  It is a totally separate language game to science which is a matter of a posteriori reason.  

• This has a long tradition within Christian theology. 

• Tertullian (3rd century) asked “what has Athens to do with Jerusalem”, implying that the philosophical reasoning of the ancient Greeks has nothing to do with Christian faith. 

• Religion and science having nothing to do with each other does explain why scientific evidence can neither prove nor disprove religious belief. Viewing them as separate forms of life does make sense of their apparent disconnect.