Wittgensteinian Non-Cognitive Significance of Religion

8/13/2019 Wittgensteinian Non-Cognitive Significance of Religion

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religious words and grammatical applications in contrast with our agreement on ordinary words which

we use in a fairly similar manner

/artin noted that although Wittgenstein thought religious believer and the nonbeliever are #on

different planes$ as they use the same words with different meanings, he also says .he difference

might not show up at all in any e&planation of meaning Wittgenstein was probably warning against

any attempt to detailed scrutiny of the meanings of words as how differed in conte&t, probably because

there is no universal, standard language game which we can achieve such an investigation .herefore,

all language-games are incommensurable with regard to each other /artin also pointed out though that

by saying religious believer and nonbeliever do not contradict each other, Wittgenstein might be

attributing a non-cognitive significance to religious language games which e&press an attitude toward

life and provide a #form of life$ rather than truth and falsehood with regard to reality

't should be noted that Wittgenstein made some ualifications of this view of religious beliefs as

an attitude 1e said that one believing or saying that one might meet a friend again after life is not

euivalent to one believing or saying that one is fond of that friend "ccording to Wittgenstein, such a

belief of meeting after life may not be the same thing as anything else /artin argued that it could be

interpreted as such e&pressions have different natures than the (ind of attitude they are e&pressing 1e

pointed out that the statement #1urray$ probably has a very significant e&pressive function than just

the statement #' am happy$ "nother e&ample is that one (issing a photograph is not euivalent to one

saying that one loves the person in the photograph .he (isser surely is not believing that the

photograph has the real person she loves, or believing the person in the photograph would return

something to her, but rather she is e&pressing an attitude which cannot be replaced by other words or

e&pressions .herefore, in a similar way, many, if not all, religious beliefs and practices may e&press an

attitude which could be fairly understood with different statements, but such beliefs and practices

cannot be altogether substituted with any other statements since they have different e&pressive

functions


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3ne huge worry for the claim that religious beliefs and factual claims are incommensurable is

that we have no way of telling what sorts of religious beliefs are admitted in this Wittgensteinian

approach /artin claimed that #it is difficult to see where to stop if we start on the incommensurability

road$ %ince religious views are not subject to empirical verification, it is then impossible to reject or

deny based on factual analysis 4ut then, religious groups ma(e all sorts of different claims regarding to

the nature of their deities 5ot only do they differ with regard to other major religious group, they also

differ among themselves 6or e&ample, Christians would differ with the 4uddhists on the beginning of

the universe, and there are a lot of Christian sects and groups which would have all different beliefs

about the origin of the universe "lso, even among these very same specific groups, individuals could

have different conceptions of the very same words and might disagree with each other 3n the other

side, it could be eually argued that when religious believers agree on something, they are not actually

agreeing on the same thing since they mean different things although they use the same words and

practices

" more serious challenge could be made by as(ing whether or not there are certain rules or

standards for separating the #good$ religious practices and beliefs from the bad ones 6or e&ample, it is

plausible that some religious practices could encourage moral cultivation, better social relations,

individuals* optimism on life, their psychological comfort and satisfaction etc and therefore, beneficial

to society as well as to the individuals 1owever, unfortunately, there are all sorts of dangerous

#religious$ beliefs such as non-tolerance towards other religions, discrimination against a certain

gender or race or social class 7&treme terrorists or venerable saints all depend their beliefs on faith

without rational e&planation .he uestion is do they play the same language games+ 'f absurdity and

incoherence were to be removed as charges against certain religious beliefs, could we also do the same

thing for #pseudo-religious$ beliefs+ %uch belief could produce devastating outcomes such as 89::

assault or historical ;and persisting< #holy$ wars "n =-religious group could claim that it is >od*s will

to eliminate all those non-= religions, and therefore, have to conuer all those people without a belief


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in = 'f we cannot dismiss such claims as irrational and unjustified, we would face all groups of people

claiming such nonsensical and harmful statements, spreading such to&ic beliefs and ma(ing the whole

world a horrible place to be in .his is why Clifford claimed that one is epistemologically responsible

for one*s own beliefs and that one should only believe what rationality suggests 3n the other hand,

even if it is granted that we cannot e&amine a religious belief from a non-religious system of belief but

can we compare two systems of beliefs and determine which one is more beneficial for the individual

and the society in practice+ 'n other words, even if religious beliefs do not have a state of either being

true or false, they could be either beneficial or harmful pragmatically

't could be understood that for Wittgenstein, science, art or religion has their own uniue way of

loo(ing at the ambiguous picture of the world and developed their own different ways of tal(ing about

it ie their own language games 't may well be argued that just as a non-artistic person may not

appreciate a magnificent painting or a marvelous piece of music that are highly esteemed by the whole

artistic community, a non-religious person fail to ac(nowledge the attractions of religious practices and

beliefs .here is nothing much to be argued about if religion concerns itself only with the uestions

science is not addressing 4ut this is certainly not the case .he overlapping uestions and the

respective answers from both religion;s< and science dictate that either science or religion must be

wrong since they give apparently contradicting answers to the very same uestions 4ut, Wittgenstein

would probably argue that religious practices do not see( to answer the same uestions science is

as(ing Wittgenstein claimed that religious practices and beliefs provide the believer with a certain

uniue attitude toward and a form of life 'f religion is a language game which cannot attach its

significance to the real world e&cept from its certain usefulness to the society and the individual, the

uestion is whether or not we need such an attitude toward life even though we cannot reduce it to a

different set of beliefs or practices since we already have a more rational and more pragmatic approach

to life that has more relations to reality than any other approaches including religion

Wittgenstein claimed that religious beliefs are not subject to reason and factual verification


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because the contents of such beliefs means different things than those things when we normally

understand as in non-spiritual usage 6or e&ample, in the statement #>od e&ists$, the term #e&ist$ might

mean something totally different from the term #e&ist$ in the statement # .his boo( e&ists$ ?et, many,

if not most, religious defenders would still cognitively claimed that those terms such as e&ist mean the

same phenomena when they are used in a religious conte&t and therefore, have cognitive significance

as opposed to non-cognitive significance Wittgenstein gave such beliefs Wittgenstein might still argue

that these believers are either playing a wrong game ie they are mista(en in the sense that they use

these words in the same sense as atheists do, or, they are still playing their religious game with words

li(e cognitive, rational, reason etc with their internal meanings as opposed to what atheists mean when

they use these words %till, this answer does not seem li(e a real answer to the clashes between

believers and non-believers since this would only further #infuriate$ the religious believers by

undermining the truth and falsity of their beliefs

Let us consider what one could react to or learn from this Wittgensteinian view if one were to

adopt it 6or a typical religious believer, she would not be satisfied because she actually wants more

than mere e&pressions 6or her, religious claims are not just true in her imagination, but also in reality

6or a non-believer, she would just nod and deride the religious claims since Wittgenstein said they are

not claiming truths about the real world %he does not need such a way of life because she already has

something more suited to her rationality 4ut, what is more interesting is how a converted atheist;or

theist< might view this %omeone who has formerly believed in a particular religion but is no longer

convinced in beliefs and practices of that religion @o they view that those beliefs they once held have

been proven false just as the case in which they learn that their old mathematical beliefs were false after

doing some math problems with mista(es+ Would they just say #3h ' thought >od e&ists, but no, he

actually does not e&ist$ the same way as, #3h, ' thought 2A2B, actually it s 2A2BD$+ 3r rather, would

they say that those beliefs and practices no longer ma(es sense or are no longer meaningful to them

without claiming they are false 6or many e&-religious believers, their response is closer to the latter


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4ut still, there are some issues to be considered before claiming that Wittgenstein is correct to say that

religious statements are rather e&pressions, not statements about reality, and therefore, deserve a non-

cognitive significance in our lives

/y view is that we must separate between those religious claims which assert about the nature

of the world and those practices, praying, meditating, singing hymns, reading, reflecting religious te&ts,

etc 7ven though those latter practices depend on the former claims and beliefs, as regard to their truth

or falsity to ma(e such practices meaningful, it may well be that the statement #>od loves us$ is

essentially false since there is no such >od but a believer saying, #>od loves us$ cannot either be true

or false .here is no doubt that the earth was not created within a few days, but it could be granted a

believer asserting the story of >enesis is not subject to rational analysis 'n other words, the claims

themselves are either justified or not, but the act of claiming or involving in some acts associating with

those claims cannot really be criticiEed or affirmed 'n some sense, such practices are similar to some of

our ordinary practices such as admiring celebrities /aybe such a distinction should be made even in

the realm of science 3ne could say that what science provides are mere facts, such as that matter

consists of fundamental particles, or that organisms evolve throughout the history of the earth, but the

attitude one could ta(e on the same facts could be significantly different 3ne could be pessimistic in

one*s e&istence or in everyone*s e&istence because one thin(s we are all nothing more than matter,

following the physical laws 3ne could, on the other hand, appreciate how the conditions for our

e&istence were so coincidental and have a positive view on life upon discovering the #marvels$ of the

universe /aybe that is why some scientists are able to have some religious beliefs while understanding

and accepting all scientific phenomenon that have no indication of the truth of their religious beliefs 'n

that sense of distinction, perhaps how one interprets scientific facts and formulate an attitude toward

life is more interesting to tal( about than mere scientific facts

.he problems ' have discussed include how we can (now what is a proper language, and how

we can distinguish admissible and non-admissible religious beliefs 6or the former, Wittgenstein can


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respond that there is no way to have distinct boundaries for language games, just that some of them are

closer to some others 7ven so, the latter uestion arises because we have to dismiss to&ic religious

beliefs as irrational and unjustified as history has shown us how these beliefs could bring us disasters

/y response on Wittgensteinian way of thin(ing religious beliefs as having non-cognitive significance

is, for the most part, affirmative ' could agree that they serve as an important, irreplaceable outloo( on

life for many believers 1owever, the scientific facts remain steadfast ;even if we are still in an

intermediate stage of arriving more accurate facts

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Wittgensteinian Non-Cognitive Significance of Religion