Epistemic and moral certainities like ' This is a hand' or 'Killing people is evil' will be interpreted as constitutive rules of language games, such that they are unjustifiable, undeniable and serving as obliging standards of truth, goodness and rationality for members of a community engaging in the respective practices.

It will be shown that Wittgenstein's philosophical approach to religion is substantially shaped by William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience. For neither during the Tractatus period nor later does Wittgenstein thematise religious doctrines, but rather struggles to determine what it means for a sincere person to have a specific religious attitude (James called these attitudes "experiences"). Wittgenstein's almost exclusive focus on attitudes explains, (i) why he is able to strictly discriminate between scientific and empirical claims on the one hand (...) and religious utterances on the other, (ii) why religious and mythical narrations should not be understood as promoting (pre-scientific) theories, (iii) why Wittgenstein non-cognitively interprets religious utterances such as "This is God's will" as avowals, and (iv) why he seems to promote fideism. Wittgenstein's one-sided way of reflecting on religious matters, however, should not be understood as adumbrating or even promoting any more specific account of religion, especially bearing in mind that many of his remarks concerning religion are connected to or motivated by reflections on his own life. This thesis is meant to imply that Wittgenstein does not, as the usual understanding holds, offer a theology for atheists. (shrink)

As the title of the present volume indicates, the following papers aim at improving our understanding of Wittgenstein's thinking (Richard ...

It will be shown that Wittgenstein's philosophical approach to religion is substantially shaped by William James'. For neither during the period nor later does Wittgenstein thematise religious doctrines, but rather struggles to determine what it means for a sincere person to have a specific religious. Wittgenstein's almost exclusive focus on attitudes explains, why he is able to strictly discriminate between scientific and empirical claims on the one hand and religious utterances on the other, why religious and mythical narrations should not (...) be understood as promoting theories, why Wittgenstein non-cognitively interprets religious utterances such as "This is God's will" as avowals, and why he seems to promote fideism. Wittgenstein's one-sided way of reflecting on religious matters, however, should not be understood as adumbrating or even promoting any more specific account of religion, especially bearing in mind that many of his remarks concerning religion are connected to or motivated by reflections on his own life. This thesis is meant to imply that Wittgenstein does not, as the usual understanding holds, offer a theology for atheists. (shrink)

The discussion between Searle and the Churchlands over whether or not symbolmanipulating computers generate semantics will be confronted both with the rulesceptical considerations of Kripke/wittgenstein and with Wittgenstein's privatelanguage argument in order to show that the discussion focuses on the wrong place: meaning does not emerge in the brain. That a symbol means something should rather be conceived as a social fact, depending on a mutual imputation of linguistic competence of the participants of a linguistic practice to one another. The (...) alternative picture will finally be applied to small children, animals, and computers as well. (shrink)

This volume is of interest for anyone who aims at understanding the so-called 'later' or 'mature' Wittgenstein. Its contributions, written by leading German-speaking Wittgenstein-scholars like Hans Sluga, Hans-Johann Glock, Joachim Schulte, Eike von Savigny, and others, provide deeper insights to seemingly well discussed topics, such as family resemblance,_ Übersicht_, religion, or grammar, or they explain in an eye-opening fashion hitherto enigmatic expressions of Wittgenstein, such as 'The pneumatic conception of thought', 'A mathematical proof must be surveyable', or 'On this a (...) curious remark by H. Newman'. (shrink)

John Searle zählt zweifellos zu den weltweit wichtigsten und einflussreichsten Denkern der Gegenwart. Seine grundlegenden und nachhaltigen Beiträge zur Sprachphilosophie, zur Philosophie des Geistes, zur Handlungstheorie und zur Sozialphilosophie werden weit über die Grenzen des Fachs Philosophie hinaus wahrgenommen und gehören vielfach zum Standardrepertoire wissenschaftlicher Forschung und Lehre. -/- Michael Kober und Jan G. Michel bieten in diesem Buch eine übersichtliche sowie gut verständliche, aber auch kritische Einführung in das Gesamtwerk John Searles: Neben einer sehr persönlichen biographischen Notiz und einem (...) kurzen Überblick über seine Leitfragen und Positionen wird jeder der genannten Arbeitsbereiche John Searles in seinen wesentlichen Grundzügen historisch wie systematisch eingeordnet, dargestellt und diskutiert. Indem Kober und Michel dabei nicht chronologisch, sondern inhaltlich systematisch vorgehen, treten außerdem die Zusammenhänge innerhalb des Gesamtwerks John Searles deutlich hervor, so dass dieses schließlich im Lichte der heutigen Philosophie bewertet werden kann. (shrink)