Wittgenstein on the language of rituals: the scapegoat remark reconsidered

Religious Studies 48 (2):165-182 (2012)
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Abstract

Wittgenstein's remarks on religion suggest a provocative and nuanced account of what makes rituals meaningful — and why some living rituals might have little or no meaning despite their hold on congregants. Wittgenstein's view has been obscured, I argue, in part by the consistent misinterpretation of his controversial 'scapegoat remark', which has been taken to be a comment on the internal incoherence of the ancient Jewish scapegoat rite. In fact, Wittgenstein's point is that the scapegoat ritual is particularly easy to misinterpret, and so reflection on it helps illustrate the sort of confusion that plagues much thinking about religion and ritual.

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Wittgenstein and the genteel tradition.Reza Hosseini - 2019 - South African Journal of Philosophy 38 (3):287-296.

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References found in this work

On Certainty (ed. Anscombe and von Wright).Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1969 - San Francisco: Harper Torchbooks. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe, G. H. von Wright & Mel Bochner.
Philosophical investigations.Ludwig Wittgenstein & G. E. M. Anscombe - 1953 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 161:124-124.
Philosophical grammar.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1974 - Oxford [Eng.]: Blackwell. Edited by Rush Rhees.
Culture and value.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1977 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by G. H. von Wright & Heikki Nyman.

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