Author: Gordon Graham
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198713975
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
Gordon Graham presents a radically innovative study of Wittgenstein's philosophy, in relation to the age-old impulse to connect ordinary human life with the transcendent reality of God. He offers an account of its relevance to the study of religion that is completely different to the standard version of "Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion" expounded by both its adherents and critics. Graham goes on to revitalize the philosophy of "true religion," an alternative, though not a rival, to the lively philosophical theology of Plantinga and Swinburne that currently dominates the subject. This alternative style of philosophy of religion has equally deep historical roots in the philosophical works of Spinoza, Hume, Schleiermacher, and Mill. At the same time, it is more easily connected to the psychological, sociological, and anthropological studies of William James, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Mircea Eliade, and Mary Douglas. Graham uses Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy to argue in favour of the idea that 'true religion' is to be understood as human participation in divine life.
Author: Luigi Perissinotto
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110321882
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 179
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Book Description
This book explores Wittgenstein's conception of ethics, religion and philosophy. It aims at providing us with the tools necessary for assessing to what extent the Austrian philosopher can be considered an anti-Enlightenment thinker. The articles collected in this volume explore the relationship between Wittgenstein's thought and that of several authors who were, in various ways, key to the counter-enlightenement, authors such as Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, James and Pierce. One of the central issues examined here is Wittgenstein's opposition to the Cartesian method of doubt – a cornerstone of the enlightened movement against prejudice and superstition.
Author: Stephen Mulhall
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191071617
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 147
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Book Description
Can we talk meaningfully about God? The theological movement known as Grammatical Thomism affirms that religious language is nonsensical, because the reality of God is beyond our capacity for expression. Stephen Mulhall critically evaluates the claims of this movement (as exemplified in the work of Herbert McCabe and David Burrell) to be a legitimate inheritor of Wittgenstein's philosophical methods as well as Aquinas's theological project. The major obstacle to this claim is that Grammatical Thomism makes the nonsensicality of religious language when applied to God a touchstone of Thomist insight, whereas 'nonsense' is standardly taken to be solely a term of criticism in Wittgenstein's work. Mulhall argues that, if Wittgenstein is read in the terms provided by the work of Cora Diamond and Stanley Cavell, then a place can be found in both his early work and his later writings for a more positive role to be assigned to nonsensical utterances—one which depends on exploiting an analogy between religious language and riddles. And once this alignment between Wittgenstein and Aquinas is established, it also allows us to see various ways in which his later work has a perfectionist dimension—in that it overlaps with the concerns of moral perfectionism, and in that it attributes great philosophical significance to what theology and philosophy have traditionally called 'perfections' and 'transcendentals', particularly concepts such as Being, Truth, and Unity or Oneness. This results in a radical reconception of the role of analogous usage in language, and so in the relation between philosophy and theology.
Author: David Goodill, OP
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 081323445X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
Wittgenstein influenced a generation of philosophers and theologians, with works such as Fergus Kerr’s Theology After Wittgenstein showing the relevance of Wittgenstein’s philosophy for contemporary questions in theology. Nature as Guide follows many of the insights of this earlier generation of Wittgenstein influenced scholars, to bring Wittgenstein into conversation with contemporary Catholic moral theology. The first four chapters of the book provides a reading of key themes in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and draw among others on G.E.M. Anscombe to situate Wittgenstein in relation to the Platonic tradition. Understanding the relationship between grammar, metaphysics and nature is central to this tradition and these themes are examined through an account of Wittgenstein’s philosophical development. These four chapters also provides a critical perspective on Wittgenstein’s thought, engaging with the criticisms of Wittgenstein offered by philosophers such as Rhees Rush and William Charlton. Chapter five lays the groundwork for a dialogue between Wittgenstein and moral theology. Firstly, by examining how open Wittgenstein’s philosophy is to dialogue with theology, and secondly through proposing the use of Servais Pinckaers’ definition of moral theology to structure the conversation developed in subsequent chapters. Pinckaers’ definition is based upon St Thomas Aquinas’ presentation of the principles of human acts in the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae and the final three chapters focus on the question of human acts and their basis in human nature. The reading of Wittgenstein developed in the first part of the book is brought into dialogue with the tradition of Catholic moral theology represented by Pinckaers and other students of St Thomas, such as Anscombe, Josef Pieper, Herbert McCabe, Jean Porter and Alasdair MacIntyre. The book finishes with McCabe’s account of the transformation of human nature through God’s Word, showing how Wittgenstein’s understanding of human practices can shed light on the life of grace.
Author: Charles Taliaferro
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521790277
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 482
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Book Description
A narrative history of philosophical reflection on religion from the seventeenth century to the present.
Author: Fergus Kerr
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 9780977310319
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 140
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Book Description
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was by any reckoning one of the major modern philosophers. Raised as a Catholic in late-19th century Vienna, he later gave up practicing his religion; yet, as journal notes and many anecdotes attest, he remained deeply if ambivalently interested in religion throughout his life. Students of the philosophy of religion are familiar with his lectures on religious belief. For the rest, however, in the vast collection of commentary and criticism that has accumulated over the years, little attention has been paid to his religious interests. In consideration of how far Wittgenstein's Catholic background may have influenced his philosophical reflections on the soul, preeminent author Fergus Kerr explores aspects of Wittgenstein's personal and professional life. Kerr examines many of Wittgenstein's writings and lectures, including his last set of lectures in the mid-1940s at the University of Cambridge on philosophical psychology. Beginning with a largely biographical study of Wittgenstein, Kerr argues that Wittgenstein's philosophy was partly prompted by his strong reaction against what he regarded as an excessively rationalistic type of Catholic apologetics that he was taught in his early school years. His serious interest as a student at Cambridge in experimental psychology and in the works of Freud is documented. In the second half of the book, Kerr expounds Wittgenstein's famous "Private Language Argument"--his mockery of the idea that one could have thoughts that are in principle incommunicable. He then discusses three philosophers, John Wisdom, Stanley Cavell, and Richard Eldrige, who have developed Wittgenstein's ideas on self-understanding in ways that should interest students with a desire to rethink psychology in the context of an integrally humanist anthropology of the human person. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fergus Kerr, O.P., is an honorary senior lecturer in theology and religious studies at the University of Edinburgh and past head of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford. He is the editor of New Blackfriars and the renowned author of numerous works, including Theology after Wittgenstein, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism, and most recently Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Neoscholasticism to Nuptial Mysticism. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: " A] fresh and fascinating, impressively lucid study of Wittgenstein's later philosophy, and of his attitude to religion." -- Nicholas Lash, Modern Theology
Author: Thomas D. Carroll
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137407905
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 359
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Book Description
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.
Author: Jürgen Habermas
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745694608
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Two countervailing trends mark the intellectual tenor of our age – the spread of naturalistic worldviews and religious orthodoxies. Advances in biogenetics, brain research, and robotics are clearing the way for the penetration of an objective scientific self-understanding of persons into everyday life. For philosophy, this trend is associated with the challenge of scientific naturalism. At the same time, we are witnessing an unexpected revitalization of religious traditions and the politicization of religious communities across the world. From a philosophical perspective, this revival of religious energies poses the challenge of a fundamentalist critique of the principles underlying the modern Wests postmetaphysical understanding of itself. The tension between naturalism and religion is the central theme of this major new book by Jürgen Habermas. On the one hand he argues for an appropriate naturalistic understanding of cultural evolution that does justice to the normative character of the human mind. On the other hand, he calls for an appropriate interpretation of the secularizing effects of a process of social and cultural rationalization increasingly denounced by the champions of religious orthodoxies as a historical development peculiar to the West. These reflections on the enduring importance of religion and the limits of secularism under conditions of postmetaphysical reason set the scene for an extended treatment the political significance of religious tolerance and for a fresh contribution to current debates on cosmopolitanism and a constitution for international society.
Author: Mario von der Ruhr
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349238678
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 406
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Book Description
The papers in this collection are concerned with the epistemology of religious belief. The contributors disagree on such issues as whether philosophers have a role to play in determining the reasonableness or intelligibility of religious beliefs, or whether philosophy properly understood is a descriptive task. But all the papers are informed by the belief that philosophical discussion should proceed by giving attention to the character of the religious beliefs and practices under consideration.
Author: Norman Malcolm
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134725809
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 153
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Book Description
Ludwig Wittgenstein once said: 'I am not a religious man, but I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.' This study, the last work of the distinguished philosopher Norman Malcolm, is a discussion of what Wittgenstein may have meant by this and its significance for philosophy. The book concludes with a critical discussion of Malcolm's essay by Peter Winch.
