Abstract

In the Lectures on Religious Belief Wittgenstein is reported as saying that the non-believer cannot contradict the believer. This claim may seem both to run against our experience, particularly if we are apostates, and to offer a protection to the believer from the most direct criticism. Such claims, and others which are less clear but just as surprising, combine to suggest that much of what Wittgenstein has to say about religion and religious belief is obscurantist, and he acknowledges that some say this of him