Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T16:30:05.521Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Christian in Philosophy1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

James Wm. McClendon Jr  and
Brad J. Kallenberg
James Wm. McClendon Jr
Affiliation:
Fuller Theological Seminary, 135 North Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, California 91182, USA
Brad J. Kallenberg
Affiliation:
Fuller Theological Seminary, 135 North Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, California 91182, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Norman Malcolm, whose Memoir is an important primary source for the life of his teacher, wrote just before his own death a second brief work, Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?, that provides extended evidence of Wittgenstein's enduring Christian commitment. Yet Malcolm could see nothing more than analogies between his religious attitude on the one hand and his attitude to philosophical questions on the other. William Warren Bartley, III, a philosopher interested in biography, placed more stock in his own long-distance psychoanalysis of two of Wittgenstein's reported dreams than he did in the concrete Christian particularity of a life that he correctly labeled an amalgam of ‘ethical activity and practical philosophy’. James C. Edwards acknowledged his subject's imitatio Christi and ‘religious sensibility’ but reduced these to a generic ethics, oddly suppressing Wittgenstein's own standard Christian terminology—barely noting that he read the Christian Gospels, was converted to follow the way of Jesus, and (with some eccentricity) lived a faithful Christian life and died a Christian death. What would it be, then, to take a more fully integrated view of Wittgenstein's life and work—to consider him as a Christian in philosophy?

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , May 1998 , pp. 131 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, with a Biographical Sketch by von Wright, G. H. (London: Oxford University Press, 1958).Google Scholar

3 Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?, edited with a response by Winch, Peter (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

4 Bartley, William Warren III, Wittgenstein (Philadelphia & NewYorkJ. B. Lippincott, 1973), p. 84; pp. 31–40, 178f.Google Scholar

5 James, C.Edwards, Ethics without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life (Tampa, FL: University Presses of Florida, 1982).Google Scholar

6 Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (New York: Viking Penguin, 1990), 18.Google Scholar

7 Matson, Wallace I., A New History of Philosophy, Volume I, Ancient and Medieval, Volume II, Modern (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), II: p. 440.Google Scholar

8 See Alexander, Peter, ‘Hertz, Heinrich Rudolf’, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edwards, Paul (New York: Macmillan Publishing & The Free Press, 1965), 3: pp. 491–494.Google Scholar

9 Janik, Allan and Toulmin, Stephen, Wittgenstein's Vienna (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), pp. 138–143.Google Scholar

10 Monk, pp. 36–56.

11 Cf. Monk, p. 27.

12 MS 103, cited by Monk, p. 138.

13 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Notebooks, 1914–1916 [NB], ed. von Wright, G.H. and Anscombe, G.E.M., with an English translation by G.E.M. Anscombe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 72.Google Scholar

14 Monk, 1990:115–16.

15 See John, Peter C., ‘Wittgenstein's “Wonderful Life”’ Journal ofthe History of Ideas 49 (July/Sept 1988): 495–510CrossRefGoogle Scholar. John does a masterful job in detailing the way a sense of wonder dominated Wittgenstein's life from October 20,1916 till life's end. While John acknowledges the religious character of this wonderment, he overlooks the fact that the October 20,1916 entry in Wittgenstein's notebooks is subsequent to his 1914 conversion, and he correspondingly fails to display the pilgrim continuity of Wittgenstein's ‘wonderful life’ as a whole.

16 McGuinness, Brian, ed., Wittgenstein: A Life. Young Ludwig 1889–1921 (volume 1) (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), p. 220–221.Google Scholar

17 Tolstoy, Leo, Kurze Darlegung des Evangelium, trans. Lauterbach, Paul (Leipzig: Philip Reclam, [1881] 1892), p. 105, paraphrasing Mark 10:23.Google Scholar

18 Tolstoy, , Kurze Darlegung des Evangelium, p. 145, paraphrasing Matt. 18:14.Google Scholar

19 Tolstoy, , Kurze Darlegung des Evangelium, p. 196f.Google Scholar

20 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, [TLP] trans. Pears, D.F. and McGuinness, B. F. (London and New York: Routledge, 1961).Google Scholar

21 McGuinness, p. 299.

22 TLP 5.5563.

23 ‘Showing’ recurs as a technical term in the Tractatus. For examples: the application of a sign shows its meaning (3.262); propositions show how things stand if they are true (while they say that they do so stand) (4.022); propositions ‘showthe logical form of reality. They display it’ (4.121); number-signs show that they signify numbers (for they cannot say that they do—4.126); more generally, propositions show what they say; tautologies and contradictions show that they say nothing (4.461); a grammatical feature shows that in the superficial sense of Russell and Moore there is no ‘soul’ (5.541–5.5422); all tautologies show that they are tautologies though they do not say they are (6.127); mathematical equations show ‘the logic of the world’ (6.22).

24 TLP 6.54.

25 Cf. Schweitzer, Albert, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (New York: Macmillan, [1906] 1968), ad fin.Google Scholar

26 TLP 6.522. Cf. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, German text with an English translation by Ogden, C. K. and Introduction by Russell, Bertrand (London and New York: Routledge, [1922] 1992).Google Scholar

27 Cited in Monk, p. 178.

28 Drury, M. O'C., ‘Some Notes on Conversations with Wittgenstein’ and ‘Conversations with Wittgenstein’, in Recollections of Wittgenstein, ed. Rhees, Rush (Oxford, UK; Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 173.Google Scholar

29 Cited in Monk, p. 243.

30 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, [PI] ed. Anscombe, G. E. M. and Rhees, Rush, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, 1953).Google Scholar

51 Monk, p. 115–16f.

52 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ‘A Lecture on Ethics’, [LE] Philosophical Review xxx (January 1965), p. 8Google Scholar; Malcolm, , Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?, p. 7f.Google Scholar

53 Drury, p. 175.

54 Drury, p. 129.

55 Malcolm, , Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?, p. 12, emphasis added.Google Scholar

56 Drury, p. 163. Cf. Tolstoy, , Kutze Darlegung des Evangelium, p. 450Google Scholar, paraphrasing Matt. 5:38–41 and Luke 6:40.

57 TLP 5.5421.

58 TLP 5.6.

59 TLP 5.63.

60 TLP 5.64.

41 Lazerowitz, Morris and Ambrose, Alice, Essays in the Unknown Wittgenstein (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Press, 1984), p. 130.Google Scholar

42 Ambrose, Alice, ed., Wittgenstein's Lectures, Cambridge, 1932–1935Google Scholar. From the Notes of Alice Ambrose and Margaret Macdonald (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 60.Google Scholar

43 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books [BB] (New York, NY: Harper and Brothers, 1958).Google Scholar

44 §§246ff.

45 Monk, pp. 367–372.

46 Monk, p. 371.

47 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value [CV], ed. von Wright, G. H. and Nyman, Heikki, trans. Peter Winch, English translation with the amended 2nd. ed. (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1980), p. 18.Google Scholar

48 See McClendon, James Wm. Jr., Doctrine: Systematic Theology, Volume II (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994), pp. 331–372.Google Scholar

49 WCV pp. 3–37.

50 See Feyerabend, Paul, ‘Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations’, in Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investigations, ed. Pitcher, G. (NewYork: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 104–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 TLP 1.

52 BB, pp. 77–79; PI §2.

53 BB, pp. 17, 81; PI §7.

54 PI §1.

55 PI §19.

56 PI §258. The nomenclature ‘S’ comes from the English text of the third edition of the Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1958).Google Scholar

57 CV, p. 32.

58 Monk, pp. 372–82.

59 CV, p. 28.

60 See McClendon, , Doctrine: Systematic Theology, Volume II, pp. 238–279.Google Scholar

61 CV, p. 33; Monk, p. 383f.

62 CV, p. 33.

63 CV, p. 33, revising the translation.

64 LE, pp. 9–12.

65 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief [LC], ed. Barrett, C. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 53.Google Scholar

66 Hilary Putnam suggests that this apparent disclaimer may have been a pedagogical device. See his Pragmatism: An Open Question (Cambridge, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1995), p. 49f.Google Scholar

67 LC, p. 54.

68 LC, p. 55.

69 LC, p. 59.

70 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty [OC], ed. Anscombe, C. E. M. and von Wright, G. H., trans. Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe (New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1969, 1972).Google Scholar

71 OC, p. vi.

72 OC §94.

73 OC §248.

74 Clock, Hans-Johann, A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), p. 81.Google Scholar

75 Monk, p. 579.

76 Monk, p. 3.

77 CV, p. 56.

78 Winch, in Malcolm, , Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?, pp. 20–23Google Scholar.

79 Nielsen, Kai, ‘Wittgensteinian Fideism’, Philosophy XLII, no. 161 (July 1967): 191–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80 Frei, Hans, Types of Christian Theology (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 46–55.Google Scholar

81 Phillips, Dewi Z., Belief, Change and Forms of Life (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

82 Phillips, D. Z., Wittgenstein and Religion (London, UK; St. Martin's Press, 1993), p. 254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83 See Murphy, Nancey and McClendon, James Wm. Jr., ‘Distinguishing Modern and Postmodern Theologies’, Modern Theology 5, no. 3 (1989): 191–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

84 Phillips maintains that conceptual analysis is a mode of philosophical inquiry that renders justification (whether universal or particular) quite beside the point. See his ‘Advice to Philosophers Who Are Christians’, in Wittgenstein and Religion, ed. Phillips, D. Z. (London, UK; St. Martin's Press, 1993), 220–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar