Kali Charan Pandey (ed.): Ludwig Wittgenstein: Ethics and Religion (2008)

Authors and

Abstracts

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TWO GODHEADS:                       

THE WORLD AND THE INDEPENDENT SELF

Bijoy H. Bourah

Wittgenstein’s ethico-religious thought is argued to be founded on a certain metaphysic of the self that draws its inspiration from the idea of a transcendent will, a will which renounces any propensity to depend on the favour of the world for securing happiness in life. The truly happy life is predicated on the sovereignty of the human self constituted by the triumphant will. And the subject of such a happy life lives in the eternal present, which is at once free from the burden of memory of the past and the anxiety of anticipation of an uncertain future. It is this mode of timeless living that forms the meaning of Wittgenstein’s assertion that ethico-religious life is to be viewed sub specie aeternitatis.

Bijoy H. Boruah is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He has authored Fiction and Emotion: A Study in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Mind (Oxford University Press) and various articles in themes related to epistemology, metaphysics, value theory and the philosophy of art and literature. He had his postgraduate education in England and Canada, and was a Senior Fulbright Fellow in the University of Texas at Austin, USA. His areas of interest are Philosophical Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind, and Virtue-theoretic Metaphysics of the Self. He is working on a book entitled Perspective and Reality. Email: boruah@iitk.ac.in

GOOD OF ETHICS AND GOD OF RELIGION

Ganesh Prasad Das

I use to say that Wittgenstein belongs to the twentieth century and twentieth century and perhaps the twenty-first century belong to Wittgenstein. It is gratifying to note that almost till the end of the twentieth century scholars were paying scarce attention to Wittgenstein’s moral and religious philosophy partly because Wittgenstein has scanty remarks on these topics in his major philosophical works. I myself was trying to view him as a critical philosopher on a par with, but ahead of Kant in dealing with the logical foundation of descriptive discourse. But in the twenty-first century which is witnessing the votaries of philosophy in the academics waging a battle to pronounce to the world the relevance of philosophy to the life of man, Wittgenstein’s views on ethics, esthetics, religious belief  and culture are coming up for discussion more and more unraveling the profundity and importance of his views.

In the TLP, Wittgenstein says that ethics is transcendental. This remark embodies a determined attempt to clarify the position of the nature moral claims that are actually made. The problem of ethics is not a scientific problem. It is not open to scientific resolution. Russell used to say that all ethics reminds more of subjectivism. Wittgenstein appears to say that when ethics is put beyond the objective world, value cannot be stated in the form of propositions that are verifiable. It can only be shown in proposition that describe facts. While trying to explain Wittgenstein’s view on ethics, Anthony Kenny says that all propositions about the world are contingent and so they cannot express any genuine value. Kenny’s explanation does not appear to be correct.

            Wittgenstein is on record to have said that the aim of TLP is an ethical one. But he says very little about ethics here. Apart from his view that ethics is transcendental, he has some remarks that immortality in TLP. He says that anybody living at present is immortal if immortality means timelessness. He equates life and world. If good life is not a possible life in this body with its past history and future prospects, then it is not possible at all. He makes a distinction between the world of the happy man and the world of the unhappy man. It is the human will, which is the basis of all the difference.

Wittgenstein is of the view that his type of thinking is not wanted in this present age. He says, “I am not a religious man but I cannot help seeing every problem from religious point of view.” It is very important to observe point(s) of analogy between his philosophical outlook and the outlook of a religious man. Explanations, reasons, justifications come to an end. In religious thinking there is an end to explanation. His biographer, Brian Mc Guiness reports that before doing any action, he prays like this: “God be with me!”, “The spirit be with me.”  Wittgenstein did not favour a cosmological conception of a Deity. But he possessed a stern sense of duty. One of the things Christianity says, Wittgenstein thinks, is that all sound doctrines are of no avail. One must change one’s life (or the direction of one’s life).

Ganesh Prasad Das is retired Professor of the Post Graduate Department of Philosophy, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Orissa till his retirement in 2005. His field of Specialization is History of Philosophy, Analytical Philosophy, Advaita Vedanta, Philosophy of Value, Kant, and Wittgenstein. His published books are: Vedanta Paribhasa: An Analytical Study (1989), Darsanika (Co-ed.)[Oriya1987) Vidyut ra kahani [Oriya], 1994. He has worked on three research projects and have guided many ph.d.students. He is member of Board of Studies of different Universities and autonomous Colleges of Orissa, and Member, Departmental Research Committee in Philosophy, and member of various philosophical organizations in India. His address is: Rutayani, 396, Paika Nagar, Bhubaneswar-751003, Tel: 0674-256000, Email: gpdas_45@yahoo.co.uk

WITTGENSTEIN’S  TRANSCENDENTAL ETHICS:  A RE-CONSIDERATION

R. C. Pradhan

Wittgenstein's  transcendental ethics has a distinct place in the history of  Western ethics. It raises the question of the transcendental origin and justification of ethics as the discourse of moral values. Moral values, as Wittgenstein claims, do not belong to the world which consist of facts.Values are necessary, while the facts are contingent. Facts in themselves are without value, though values penetrate the facts from outside. This leads to a fact-value distinction which places the values outside the world, but at the same time does not leave the world without values. This ensures the moral significance of the world by virtue of the fact that the values constitute the pre-conditions of the world. Ethics, as Wittgenstein declares, is supernatural and is yet the constitutive condition of the natural world. The supernatural delimits the natural from the moral point of view. My essay explores the supernaturality of ethics as the a priori condition of the world. It provides a defense of Wittgenstein's transcendental ethics by showing why values can never be a matter of human invention and why there is need to situate values outside facts and not alongside them.

R.C. Pradhan is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, University of Hyderabad. He was Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellow at Oxford University UK during 1990-91. He also taught at Utkal University and Karnataka University. He was Member Secretary of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research New Delhi, during 2000-03. His specialized area of research includes Philosophy of Language, Analytic Philosophy in general and Wittgenstein in particular. He has published several papers in the journals of Philosophy such as Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Indian Philosophical Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Filozofska Istrazivaja, Journal of the Indian Academy of Philosophy, and Rabindra Bharati Journal of Philosophy. His major published books are: Language and Experience: An Interpretation of the Later Philosophy of Wittgenstein (1981), Truth, Meaning and Understanding: Essays in Philosophical Semantics (1992), Philosophy of Meaning and Representation (1996), Recent Developments in Analytic Philosophy (2001), The Great Mirror: An Essay on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (2002). He is presently the Associate Editor of JICPR. Email: pradhanrameshchandra@yahoo.com

WITTGENSEIN ON MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Ranjan Panda

The notion of moral consciousness is interpreted in terms of moral experience or having moral feelings or willing to act morally, etc. The moral consciousness involving the feeling and the willing unfolds the structure of moral experiences. The moral experiences show the communion between the feeling and the willing and reflect upon the intentional relationship of the content of value expressions and value realizations. Moral values are to be realized and understood as they help in explicating the meaning of life. Wittgenstein’s approach to analyze ethical values in the light of the meaning of life brings out the foundation of moral values. The values are independent of the facticities of life. However, they can be experienced in an intentional mode of relationship with the moral consciousness. Experiencing the values, in this regard, shows the transcendental character of the intentionality of moral consciousness, which goes along with the transcendental character of the logical form of thought.  The intentionality of moral consciousness further brings out the intentional existence of moral values, i.e. the way values are thought of and expressed. The intentional existence also emphasizes the immaterial character of the existence of values. The intentionality of moral consciousness intending to realize the values of life gets into the true height of humanity. Thus, Wittgensteinian understanding making ethics a discourse of enlightenment, bringing in the understanding of divine experience to life.

Ranjan K. Panda is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He specializes in Philosophy of Mind. He has published research papers in the journals such as Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Indian Philosophical Quarterly, and Sandhan. Email: ranjan@hss.iitb.ac.in

WHAT IS IT TO BE HUMAN?

À LA WITTGENSTEIN

Chinmoy Goswami

It is unfortunate that in order to understand Wittgenstein, the Wittgenstein scholars have dissected him in many parts, based on their own image – early, middle, late, etc. Any serious thinker is a composite whole and keeps growing, expanding the world, wax and wane. So was Wittgenstein, like a serious thinker, he grew out of his training in engineering? Nevertheless, any growth has to be tooted and roots of an honest person do not alter with temptation.

In this paper, I have tried to investigate what could have been visualised by Wittgenstein to be the nature of human existence. The attempt is to locate the views from within the most seminal work – Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus.

This effort is based on my conviction that there was only one Wittgenstein, who never stopped growing, and thus almost all of his ideas with which he grappled throughout his life can be traced, may be in a germinating form, in the Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus itself. Consequently, Wittgenstein’s idea about the life a serious and self-respecting human individual, meant to be a serious affair. Subsequently, the idea of a happy individual is that of a person living only in the present.

Chinmaya Goswami was Professor, Department of Philosophy in University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad – 500 046.After graduating with physics and mathematics ventured into philosophy in 1971. After obtaining his Ph. D. from B.H.U. in 1979, he held teaching positions in different Indian Universities. His interests are language, logic, science and action, to name only a few. His papers are scattered over known and not so well known journals, Indian as well as foreign. He published in the journals such as Jadavpur Journal of Philosophy, Indian Philosophical Annual, Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Manascarya, Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Visva Bharati Journal of Philosophy, Science and People, CIEFL Bulletin, Indian Philosophical Quarterly, Filozofska Istrazivanza, Filozofska Istrazivanza, North Bengal University Review, Philosophica, Pranja, Summerhill: IIAS Review, and have contributed to various anthologies.

WITTGENSTEIN AND THE CHIMERA OF AN INDEPENDENT ARBITER IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY:  RAWLS’S ORIGINAL POSITION AS A POINTLESS DETOUR

 G.P.Ramachandra                                            

Wittgenstein believed that attempts to prove ethical positions were misguided. The temptation to prove exists because nothing could be more important than one’s moral responses. Moral philosophers have been tempted to base their responses on something objective that everyone must accept. But the aim is incoherent. Since we must still accept the ground as universally compelling, the ground cannot be objective. This is not a defect in ethical judgments, for, as Wittgenstein noted, the demand for an ethical proof makes no sense. There is nothing in reality that corresponds to an ethical proposition, in the way a feature of the world corresponds to and establishes an empirical proposition. Those who go against this Wittgensteinian canon make no headway at all. This paper focuses in great detail on the most famous of such efforts in the 20^th century: Rawls’s attempt to justify his vision of a free society in which inequality is tolerated only to the extent that it benefits the worst-off by appealing to the original position and veil of ignorance. It shows that the original position and veil of ignorance contribute nothing whatever as ethical force to Rawls’s moral vision.

Gangadharan Padmanabhan Ramachandra is retired Professor of the School of International Relations, Mahatma Gandhi University, Priyadarshini Hills PO, Kottayam-686560, Kerala. His areas of interest in philosophy are Wittgenstein, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, international ethics and political philosophy. He was awarded a Research Associateship of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla for research on philosophy of mind and a Residential Fellowship of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research for work on a Wittgensteinian critique of present-day theories of consciousness. His articles, mostly connected with Wittgenstein, have appeared in Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Indian Philosophical Quarterly, Persons: An Interdisciplinary Approach: Papers of the 25^th International Wittgenstein Symposium (Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society) and in R.C. Pradhan (ed.), The Philosophy of Wittgenstein: Indian Responses. He has attended philosophical conferences in India and abroad. Email ID: gprchandra@sancharnet.in.

WITTGENSTEIN ON ETHICS AND VALUES

R.P.Singh

First of all, there is the question of the contents of these values and beliefs. In his early work (Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus) Wittgenstein proposed a concise, but relatively accessible picture of what ethical values and religious beliefs are. In the main works of the later period, the Philosophical Investigations, On Certainty, the topic of ethical values and religious beliefs do not occur, at least not explicitly. Again, in the Tractatus period Wittgenstein gave a clear picture of how ordinary beliefs about the world relate to religious beliefs. Since Wittgenstein’s thought of the Tractatus period in many ways serves as a reference point for understanding his later views (cf., his own statement in the preface of the Philosophical Investigations that the ideas expressed there ‘could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking’), we will start with an overview of Wittgenstein’s early views on ethics, drawing on the Tractatus, various passages in the Notebooks and the ‘Lecture on Ethics’. After that we turn to Wittgenstein’s last work, On Certainty, in which he discusses extensively various epistemological issues, concerning knowledge and belief, doubt and scepticism, proof and certainty, form of life and ‘Weltanschauung’, and their relation with action, our biological nature and the external world. From this work, together with various passages from the Philosophical Investigations, we will derive Wittgenstein's own reluctance to formulate or defend systematic positions, something which we will call the ‘three tiers hypothesis’, which will provide us with a framework in which we can then position Wittgenstein’s views on religious beliefs and ethical values.

R.P.Singh is Professor in the Centre for Philosophy, School of  Social Sciences, Jawahar Lal NehruUniversity,NewDelhi-110067. He has authored ten books and over eighty articles in different Journals in India and abroad. He was awarded ‘MAN OF THE YEAR 2001’ for his outstanding contribution in the field of education by American Biographical Institute (ABI) USA. Email: rpsinghjnu@yahoo.com

ETHICS IN WITTGENSTEIN: A CRITICAL APPRECIATION

P. R. Bhat

Wittgenstein’s stand on different aspects of ethics is the following. Ethics deals with absolute value; value judgments that we often use can be reduced to facts. We can re-formulated them as hypothetical judgments of if ...then form and make them to be statements of facts. Paradoxically, Wittgenstein states that we can experience value. An experience, is an event, and hence ought to be factual. It seems strange that Wittgenstein maintains that values are absolute and transcendental and yet we can experience them. Ethical values cannot be spoken or discussed about since they are transcendental.

An important dimension of value is that it exerts itself on us. A value ought to be guiding principle and it should help an agent in deciding a course of action. If it cannot be described or spoken about, one cannot reason about it as well. However, we often discuss and debate about values. All books on ethics do not certainly deal with only analogies.

This paper attempts to give a better understanding of the seemingly paradoxical claims of Wittgenstein. Comparing the laws of nature with that of absolute values does this. The paper also makes use of Wittgenstein's stand on mental states and mental processes. Linking of transcendental value with that of relative value is done through mental states.

The indescribable aspect of the experience of value is something similar to the experience that we have when we follow the rule: the experience of being guided. The religious, aesthetic and ethical value experiences are of this type. To the extent mind has the hold on our behavior, our values too have hold on our behavior. Hence our task of linking the transcendental world with that of phenomenal world has become simpler: we connect them through the concept of mind. Moral reasoning and persuasion is very much possible to the extent that mind can exert on the body for action.

P. R. Bhat is Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kanpur He has published papers in JICPR, IPQ, Visva Bharati Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Quarterly (Amalner) and Darshana International apart from contributing papers in edited volumes. He is a co-author of the book Psychoanalysis as a Human Science: Beyond Foundationalism, SAGE Publications, 1995.He was the Head of the department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay from October 2001 to Sept. 2004.Email: bhat@hss.iitb.ac.in

WITTGENSTEIN AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

N. Sreekumar

This paper examines Wittgenstein’s views about Christianity. The first section deals with the question of eternal life, in relation with Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which I designate as the transcendental phase of his intellectual career. I particularly take up the notion of eternity for detail analysis in this section and argue that contrary to the Christian belief, Wittgenstein conceives soul’s eternity also as a matter of timelessness and he places it not within the framework of time and space, but in the transcendental realm. Wittgenstein here proposes the idea of “living in the present”, which can be regarded as a “religious attitude. In his second phase, Wittgenstein is concerned about the substance of religious belief and makes an apparent return to the Christian position. I here focus on two aspects: first, where Wittgenstein sees the substance of religious belief in terror and conceives faith as providing the essential certainty one requires to be consoled from the infinite torment and fear, and second, where religious faith is conceived as a matter of trusting, unshakable belief, which distances one from the “matters of the world and flesh” that threaten to take one to the devil rather than to God. Here spiritual consolation results from detachment. I argue that these two are not opposite to each other or entirely different from one another. The belief and faith that leads to detachment, subsequently generates a sense of freedom that is the ultimate objective of many human endeavours.

N. Sreekumar  N. Sreekumar  is Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, IIT Madras, Chennai.Earlier he has taught at Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani and Sree Sankaracharya University of Scankrit, Kalady, Kerala. He has published in various journals such as Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Reseach, Indian Philosophical Quarterly, Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, and, Philosophy and the Life-world. Email: srkumar@iitm.ac.in

A DIFFERENT WITTGENSTEIN:

CHRISTIAN OR JUDAIC ESOTERIC?

  Ranjit Chatterjee

 The paper continues the line of investigation into Wittgenstein’s opus begun by the author in his first published paper on “Wittgenstein as a Jewish Thinker” (1989) and continued with Wittgenstein and Judaism: A Triumph of Concealment (2005). Specifically, it develops the thought that it is more clarifying to associate Wittgenstein with Jewish esoteric linguistic and textual thought than with the Christianity with which he has been linked, willy nilly.  This is done by highlighting the detailed criticisms of Christianity Wittgenstein wrote, with further analysis of how his critique of language meshes with Jewish tradition., and how these two actions further the overall understanding of his entire work.

Ranjit Chatterjee is Senior Research Scholar, Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies, The University of Maryland—College Park, USA, and Member, Editorial Committee, Hermès Journal of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Paris, and Fellow of the European Research Agency (ERA). He has taught in various universities in Singpore and USA. His published books are: (1) Wittgenstein and Judaism: A Triumph of Concealment. (Series: Studies in Judaism, v. 1). (2005) New York: Peter Lang. Nominated for Jewish Book Award of the Koret Foundation, San Francisco, in the category “Modern Jewish Thought.” (2)Aspect and Meaning in Slavic and Indic. With a  Foreword by Paul Friedrich. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins (1988). (3) Tropic Crucible: Self and Theory in Language and Literature.Co-edited with Colin E. Nicholson. Singapore University Press (1984). He has contributed articles on Wittgenstein various international journals and anthologies such as Encylcopedia of Language and Linguistics 2 (Elsevier Scientific). Section Editor: Prof. Kurt Jankowsky, Georgetown University, Semiotica, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics, Lingua, Journal of Literary Semantics, Encyclopedia Britannica. His email is: ranju1511@cs.com

The IDEA OF IRRELIGIOUS LIFE

Sanil.V

My paper follows the thread of St. Augustine’s Confessions to provide an account of an irreligious life from within. What does it mean to lack religion? One might say that this project, to get underway, demands at least a preliminary characterization of what religion is. This seems to me an impossible demand. Firstly, there is a multitude of religions and any claim about a common core or essence, even if acceptable for philosophy, might militate against the foundations of some religion. ( I do not know if this fear is true but it is a possibility.) Secondly, it may be argued that being irreligious, I might always miss the kernel of being religious. Some may say, religion is a form of life incommensurable with irreligious life. One cannot understand, say faith, if one does not have it.

Wittgenstein shows us the way to explore the idea of an irreligious life without presupposing any insights into religion. I might follow all religious rituals and even pray to God and still lack faith. I might still feel that I lack a certain  passion of the soul. How do you understand this lack? Wittgenstein’s mediation on religion is an attempt to come to terms with this lack in himself.

Religion and primitive rituals give the impression that they posses some deeper level of meaning. An irreligious soul might be led into thinking that it lacks this depth and to understand religion is to immerse oneself into this depth. We often think that there is a true religious spirit which is hidden beneath or beyond the institutional and ritualistic religious practices. For Wittgenstein such an impression itself is an effect of rituals. The true spirit or the truth of the spirit cannot be thought of as residing beneath or beyond what meets the eye.  Religion, like dreams, comes to us as if ‘there is a riddle’. This ‘as if” of the enigma, riddle or meaningfulness belongs to the nature of religion.   However, the distance the irreligious person has to traverse towards religion is not a matter of gathering a piece of evidence or of understanding meaning. This path does not pass through any depth. The irreligious person is wrong in supposing that he lacks a deep experience or depth meaning which a religious person possesses. On either side, there is no depth. Both the religious and the irreligious can use words like ‘God’ or ‘ghost’ and move across the surface they both share. In this sense religiousness is available to the irreligious in an unproblematic way, just as the religious one can never escape the temptation of irreligiosity - moving from one side to the other is not a matter of gaining or losing anything.) Language itself can jolt us from one side to the other. Wasn’t Wittgenstein indicating this hidden resource of language when he said ‘A whole mythology is deposited in our language’? Also, this could be sense in which Norman Malcolm once remarked about Wittgenstein that though irreligious he was more religious than most religious people.

Sanil.V is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Humanities and social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. He has published articles in Indian Philosophical Quarterly, Economic and Political Weekly, Summerhill Review, Journal of contemporary Thought, and Journal of Foundational Research apart from his contributions to many anthologies. He has attended various international seminars and conferences in Prague, Czech Republic, Brussels, Belgium, and University of Canberra apart from participating in various national seminars. Email: sanil@hss.iitd.ernet.in

WHETHER WITTGENSTEIN A RELIGIOUS FIDEIST?

R. P. Srivastava

This paper analyses the possibility for the Wittgensteinian Fideism in religion. Fideism is a theory which holds that religious belief is based on faith rather than reason. It distinguishes between extreme and moderate strands of Fideism. On the one hand, extreme fideists maintain that religious belief is contrary to reason and therefore there is no place of rational argument in religious belief which is purely a matter of faith. On the other hand moderates fideists argue that what must be accepted on faith may subsequently find rational support and therefore it is an approach which stands between reason and revelation. Through an analysis of various dimensions of Wittgenstein’s views such as the notion of religious form of life and language game of religious assertions which are not cut off from other forms of life and language games, the notion of God as meaning of life and world, the view that religion is pre-rational, his confession that although he is not a religious, still, his eyeing at the solution of every problem from religious point of view, similarity and differences of his religious views with that of non-cognitivists Karl Barth and Braithwaite, his view that religion is not based on any evidence etc. this paper supports the thesis that Wittgenstein is a moderate fideist. It maintains that it is a position which can successfully stand out to satisfy the aspirations of a devout theist as well as an atheist and at the same time can be regarded as a critique of both of these.

R. P. Shrivastava has been Professor and Head, Department of Philosophy, BRA Bihar University, Muzaffarpur, Bihar till 2000. He has been Professor Emeritus during 2001-2004. He obtained visiting professorship at Sophia in 1989. He has published three books and fifty research papers. His books are: Lanuguage, Meaning and Religion (Ajanta International), Contemporary Indian Idealism (Motilal Banarasi Das) and Aspects in Philosophy (Ajanta International). He has published in journals such as Visva Bharti Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Academy of Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy (Sophia), Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Darshan International, Indian Philosophical Quarterly, Paramarsh and Darshnik Traimasik. Currently is a Governing Body member of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi.

FAITH WIHOUT RECOMPENSE:

WITTGENSTEIN ON RELIGIOUS BELIEF

Vikram Singh Sirola

This paper is aimed at explicating the fundamental elements in Wittgensteinian conception of religious belief. I have tried to understand and evaluate the significance of his attempt to bring the religious beliefs back to their foundational settings by situating them in an ethical framework. The paper takes into account the ongoing debate on interpreting Wittgenstein’s writings on the subject. Without mistaking him as fideistc or dogmatic, his view can be seen as one which propagates the possibility of a purely categorical religion. Going by the grammar of religious faith, I have tried to show how genuine religiosity, according to him, arises out of a faith without recompense. It is imperative to understand that religious beliefs could only be understood as something like a passionate commitment to a system of reference, a way of living. It is journey of a ‘believer’ beyond the ‘inherent eschatological-salvationist hope’.

Vikram Singh Sirola is Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT). His publications concern Wittgenstein’s writing on Language, Logic, Religion and consciousness. He is presently working on a book on ‘Beyond Philosophy: Wittgensteinian perspective of Ethics and Religious Beliefs’. Email: v.s.sirola@iitb.ac.in

CAN THERE BE RELIGION WITHOUT PUBLIC SPHERE? AN EXAMINATION OF WITTGENSTEIN’S APPROACH TO RELIGION IN THE METAPHYSICAL THINKING OF HABERMAS

S. Panneerselvam

Wittgenstein has influenced many contemporary thinkers in their approach not only on philosophy but also on religion and issues concerning religion. Especially in the post-metaphysical thinking, we see his influence, either directly or indirectly. But Wittgenstein is not explicit on his views with regard to religion or religious belief. He shows the limitations of language. Those things, which lie beyond this, cannot be explained. It cannot be said, but can only be shown. Wittgenstein sees religion as something transcendental. There is a metaphysical vision and a transcendental approach to reality in Wittgenstein. He claims that language is not necessary for defining religion. This means that our language (ideal or ordinary) cannot be used to understand the religious claims. The question that arises here is this: Can there be religion without public sphere?

It is necessary to locate Wittgenstein’s understanding of religion and religious belief in the context of the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory and the post-metaphysical thinking. For example, in his post-metaphysical philosophy, Habermas tries to show the meaninglessness of the theological assertions. Religious language, must submit itself to the critique. It is not necessary that one should accept that it is beyond ordinary language. This does not solve the problem because any religious statement is for the man of this world. The distinction between Wittgenstein and Habermas on religion can be understood in this way. In Habermas, we see a philosophical approach to religion, whereas in Wittgenstein, we see a mystical approach to religion. Habermas time and again points out that he is a critic of religion. For this, he uses the communicative action. In Wittgenstein, there is dissociation between religion and society. The social actors do not play any role in religion. For Habermas, only in and through communicative action, the energies of social solidarity attached to religious symbolism branch out.

This paper thus tries to argue for the need for a public sphere for religion. It cannot be detached from life. It is not possible to think of a religion without a public sphere. The language of religion also needs intersubjectivity. The language of religion cannot be transcendental. Socialization and transformative praxis is needed for any religion. Religion cannot reject the social dimension. It is doubtful whether all these are taken care of by Wittgenstein.

S. Panneerselvam, Professor of Philosophy, University of Madras, Chennai 600 005 has authored the book, The Problem of Meaning with Reference to Wittgenstein and Sankara, co-edited   Indian Philosophical Annual, (Vol. XXII), Post-modernism and Critical Theory,  Indian Philosophical Annual, (Vol. XXIII,)  A Conspectus of Philosophy, History and Religion and also published number of research papers in the leading philosophical journals at National and International levels and also organized many National and International Conferences and Seminars. He has participated in the Symposium on "Ethical Ecological Rating", at the invitation of Frankfurt University, Germany in 2000 and delivered lectures in the Intercultural Theology Department, Frankfurt University, Germany and also met Professor Habermas and had the opportunity of discussing philosophical issues with him. Panneerselvam was Indo-Shastri Canadian Institute’s Fellow in 2003 and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Concordia University, Canada in 2004. He is the Advisory Committee member of the Sathya Nilayam: Chennai Journal of Intercultural Philosophy and also the Regional Co-ordinator of the Council in Research Values and Philosophy, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. Panneerselvam’s fields of specialization include: Inter-cultural philosophy, Post-modern Hermeneutics, Contemporary Continental Philosophy and Indian Philosophical Tradition. Email:  sps@md4.vsnl.net.in.

RELIGION: AN IMPORTANT NONSENSE

Nirmalya Narayan Chakraborty

In the present paper I critically examine the issue whether religious beliefs can be rejected on the basis of their failure to be confirmed by scientific evidence. I argue that religion does not need scientific evidence to back up its claim. A religious believer does not propose a theory, nor does she advance a hypothesis through her beliefs. To apply the same yardstick to assess the religious and scientific beliefs is to misinterpret the significance of religion. Religious statements express one’s way of relating to the world, one’s way of situating oneself in relation to others in the world. The disagreement between a believer and a non-believer is not about certain facts, rather it’s about which picture one uses to interpret various events in the world. Wittgenstein argues that to understand religion in terms of evidence that science uses is to change the subject matter of religion. The importance of Wittgenstein’s message lies in making us realise that religion, though nonsense from scientific point of view, is an important element in human existence.       

Nirmlaya Narayan Chakrabroty is Reader in Philosophy, at Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta, India. He was a General Fellow of Indian Council of Philosophial Research, New Delhi. He has been a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, North Bengal University and a Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow, UK. He specialises in Philosophy of Language, Environmental Ethics, and Epistemology. He has authored Poribesh o Naitikata (Environment and Ethics), Progressive Book Forum, Calcutta, 2002, Pursuit of Meaning, New Age Publishers, Calcutta, 2004 and In Defense of Intrinsic Value of Nature, New Age Publishers, Calcutta, 2004 and has edited Different Aspects of Environmental Concern, Rabindra Bharati University, 2001. His essays on Philosophy of Language, Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, Post Modernism, and Philosophy of Mind have been published in many journals and anthologies. Email: hijibiji@vsnl.com

Editor:

Dr. Kali Charan Pandey

Reader,

Department of Philosophy

DDU, Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur - 273009.

Ph. 91-94-510-50439

Email: phkc@rediffmail.com & kcpandeyp@yahoo.com

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