(2013). Heidegger, Wittgenstein and St Paul on the Last Judgement: On the Roots and Significance of ‘The Theoretical Attitude’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 143-164. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2012.686980.

Can a contemplative philosopher describe a particular religious practice as superstitious, or is he thereby overstepping his boundaries? I will discuss the way in which the Wittgensteinian philosopher of religion D. Z. Phillips uses ‘Superstition’ as a contemplative term. His use of the distinction between genuine religion and superstition is not a weakness as is often supposed, but a necessity. Without contemplating ‘Superstition’ and ‘genuine religion’ Phillips would not have been able to elucidate the meaning that religious beliefs have in (...) the lives of both the faithful and their critics. I will defend the aptness of Phillips’s use of this term and illustrate his approach using examples such as the concept of genuine friendship or gratitude, and then I apply this approach to the question whether, from a philosophical point of view, particular Christian practices such as the prosperity gospel are genuinely religious or should be called superstitious. (shrink)

This article sets out by distinguishing Wittgenstein’s own views in the philosophy of religion from a school of thought in the philosophy of religion that relies on later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. After a survey of distinguishing features of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, the third section explores Wittgenstein’s treatment of Frazer’s account of magic among primitive peoples. The following section offers an account of Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, including the use of the notions of a language game and superstition. I conclude (...) by criticizing a very influential argument of Wittgenstein’s to the effect that the meaning of words like ‘belief’ and ‘object’ varies from context to context without having any one thing in common. (shrink)