Wittgensteinian Fideism?

William Brenner

Wittgensteinian Fideism?

Ars …, 2007

Ars Disputandi Volume 7 (2007) : 1566–5399 William Brenner    ,  Wittgensteinian Fideism? By Kai Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips London: SCM Press, 2005; 383 pp.; pb. £ 35.00; : 978–033–4–040–057. [1] This book is recommended both to philosophers of religion, most of whom have marginalized Wittgensteinian contributions to their subject, and to students of Wittgenstein, who will appreciate Phillips’ account of why the ﬁdeistic position Nielsen attributes to Wittgenstein isn’t really Wittgensteinian. [2] Most chapters are papers prepared by the authors for the 2003 Claremont Conference on the Philosophy of Religion. There are also a few reprints, beginning with the 1967 paper in which Nielsen coined the term ‘Wittgensteinian ﬁdeism’ (‘WF’ for short). In addition, there is a helpful introduction by Béla Szabados and critiques by Nancy Bauer and Stephen Mulhall. [3] Central to WF is the distinction, familiar from Carnap, between criticisms that can be made within a framework and the framework itself, which is immune from ‘fundamental criticism.’ Accepting this distinction, WF concludes that a religious framework is as immune to criticism as any other. A framework consists in ‘framework beliefs’ embedded in what Wittgensteinians call "forms of life.’ The basic problem with this, according to Nielsen, is that ‘There are no forms of life . . . that are forever and that in any context are just given and must just be accepted. ... And with this WF collapses’ (p. 328). Phillips agrees with this but argues that the Carnapian distinction on which WF depends is not the considered view of Wittgenstein or of the Wittgensteinians Nielsen targets. Phillips explains that what is basic in a form of life is our practice: ‘Wittgenstein’s radical position calls into question the sharp distinction between the logical and the factual. It is not, as Nielsen thinks, that the questions make sense, but for pragmatic purposes are not asked, but that in practice, certain questions and responses simply do not arise, and we wouldn’t call them, say, “doubting,” if they did. ... Wittgenstein allows for a ﬂuid change of circumstances in which what was not questioned is questioned, but the circumstances are never . . . completely open-ended in the way Nielsen suggests’ (p. 360). ‘[T]he claim that, in certain circumstances questions simply do not arise, in no way depends on holding, as Nielsen thinks it does, a distinction between framework and other kinds of belief’ (p. 359). [4] Disavowing WF, Phillips sums up his philosophy of religion as follows: ‘[A]fter perspicuous representations have been given, religious beliefs may turn out to be metaphysical confusions, superstitions, examples of a magical view of signs, creators of harm, and contradictions of science and history . ... [A]t any time religion is a mixed bag. ... Further, in the case of religious beliefs that are c  May 31, 2007, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows: William Brenner, ‘Review of Wittgensteinian Fideism?,’ Ars Disputandi [http://www.ArsDisputandi.org] 7 (2007), para- graph number.

William Brenner: Review of Wittgensteinian Fideism? not confused, there can still be external criticisms of them, for example, the kind of criticism made by Nietzsche’ (p. 368). Unlike Nielsen, Phillips is not prepared to say that religious beliefs must involve metaphysical confusions. This appears to be their most stubborn point of contention. [5] Nielsen thinks that the only alternative to traditional, metaphysical ac- counts of religious belief is being able to see such belief as ‘a passionate orientation of one’s life’ (p. 323). Phillips agrees that if there is no God (or other ‘spiritual reality’) as the object of this passionate orientation, it is a secular or ‘worldly’ rather than religious or ‘spiritual’ way of living and assessing life. What he denies is that the object of the believer’s orientation must be construed on the model of object and designation, as something just like a visible, natural object—except that it is invisible and supernatural. ‘Every object of belief is not an object. . . [T]he existence of God is . . . the element in which believers live, move and have their being’ (p. 370) ‘When the Israelites came out Egypt, they are said to have traveled as people who had seen the invisible. What does that mean? . . . “The invisible” refers to the things of the spirit. To travel in that spirit, for a believer, is to travel with God, for God is Spirit. It is that element in which believers live, move, and have their being’ (p. 221). [6] Phillips, following Wittgenstein, appears to think of religious belief (when unconfused and not superstitious) as an extension of ethics rather than of natural science—as meta-morals rather than meta-physics. But he denies that he or Wittgenstein is reducing religion to anything: ‘When Wittgenstein says, in his Notebooks, “to pray is to think about the meaning of life” . . . [I]t cannot be said [however, pace Nielsen] that Wittgenstein is trying to reduce prayer to something else called “the meaning of life.” Rather, Wittgenstein is showing . . . that in the language of prayer we are oﬀered a language in which to understand the whole of life. To pray is one form of recognition that life is a gift of the gods or God’ (pp. 287–88). At this point Nielsen would say that prayer obviously has a metaphysical (if not anthropomorphic) presupposition, namely the existence of God or gods. Phillips, in reply, would say that it is only through understanding spiritual practices such as prayer that we understand what ‘believing in the reality of God or the gods’ amounts to. The following Wittgensteinian analogy may be helpful here: it is only through understanding the various practices involved in human relations that we come to understand what ‘believing in the reality of other minds’ amounts to. In neither case do we need to ‘get behind the practice to its transcendent ground’—some inaccessible and therefore otiose ‘Beetle.’ [7] What makes a practice a spiritual practice? While Nielsen seems to want a deﬁnition (in terms of the sort of beliefs it presupposes), Phillips only provides examples. ‘It is at this point,’ laments Phillips, ‘that we come to the real problem in my dispute with Nielsen. When I provide the elucidations he rightly demands, providing example after example in my work, Nielsen fails to see any sense in them, though plenty of [other] nonbelievers do.’ Phillips and Nielsen may now, after their long discussion, be fairly close in their view of ‘Wittgensteinian ﬁdeism,’ they are still far apart on the role of examples in philosophy of religion: ‘[W]hen I provide religious examples, drawing on the power of literature, Nielsen says Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.org

Ars Disputandi Volume 7 (2007) : 1566–5399 William Brenner   ,  Wittgensteinian Fideism? By Kai Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips London: SCM Press, 2005; 383 pp.; pb. £ 35.00; : 978–033–4–040–057. [1] This book is recommended both to philosophers of religion, most of whom have marginalized Wittgensteinian contributions to their subject, and to students of Wittgenstein, who will appreciate Phillips’ account of why the fideistic position Nielsen attributes to Wittgenstein isn’t really Wittgensteinian. [2] Most chapters are papers prepared by the authors for the 2003 Claremont Conference on the Philosophy of Religion. There are also a few reprints, beginning with the 1967 paper in which Nielsen coined the term ‘Wittgensteinian fideism’ (‘WF’ for short). In addition, there is a helpful introduction by Béla Szabados and critiques by Nancy Bauer and Stephen Mulhall. [3] Central to WF is the distinction, familiar from Carnap, between criticisms that can be made within a framework and the framework itself, which is immune from ‘fundamental criticism.’ Accepting this distinction, WF concludes that a religious framework is as immune to criticism as any other. A framework consists in ‘framework beliefs’ embedded in what Wittgensteinians call "forms of life.’ The basic problem with this, according to Nielsen, is that ‘There are no forms of life . . . that are forever and that in any context are just given and must just be accepted. . . . And with this WF collapses’ (p. 328). Phillips agrees with this but argues that the Carnapian distinction on which WF depends is not the considered view of Wittgenstein or of the Wittgensteinians Nielsen targets. Phillips explains that what is basic in a form of life is our practice: ‘Wittgenstein’s radical position calls into question the sharp distinction between the logical and the factual. It is not, as Nielsen thinks, that the questions make sense, but for pragmatic purposes are not asked, but that in practice, certain questions and responses simply do not arise, and we wouldn’t call them, say, “doubting,” if they did. . . . Wittgenstein allows for a fluid change of circumstances in which what was not questioned is questioned, but the circumstances are never . . . completely open-ended in the way Nielsen suggests’ (p. 360). ‘[T]he claim that, in certain circumstances questions simply do not arise, in no way depends on holding, as Nielsen thinks it does, a distinction between framework and other kinds of belief’ (p. 359). [4] Disavowing WF, Phillips sums up his philosophy of religion as follows: ‘[A]fter perspicuous representations have been given, religious beliefs may turn out to be metaphysical confusions, superstitions, examples of a magical view of signs, creators of harm, and contradictions of science and history. . . . [A]t any time religion is a mixed bag. . . . Further, in the case of religious beliefs that are c May 31, 2007, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows: William Brenner, ‘Review of Wittgensteinian Fideism?,’ Ars Disputandi [http://www.ArsDisputandi.org] 7 (2007), paragraph number. William Brenner: Review of Wittgensteinian Fideism? not confused, there can still be external criticisms of them, for example, the kind of criticism made by Nietzsche’ (p. 368). Unlike Nielsen, Phillips is not prepared to say that religious beliefs must involve metaphysical confusions. This appears to be their most stubborn point of contention. [5] Nielsen thinks that the only alternative to traditional, metaphysical accounts of religious belief is being able to see such belief as ‘a passionate orientation of one’s life’ (p. 323). Phillips agrees that if there is no God (or other ‘spiritual reality’) as the object of this passionate orientation, it is a secular or ‘worldly’ rather than religious or ‘spiritual’ way of living and assessing life. What he denies is that the object of the believer’s orientation must be construed on the model of object and designation, as something just like a visible, natural object—except that it is invisible and supernatural. ‘Every object of belief is not an object. . . [T]he existence of God is . . . the element in which believers live, move and have their being’ (p. 370) ‘When the Israelites came out Egypt, they are said to have traveled as people who had seen the invisible. What does that mean? . . . “The invisible” refers to the things of the spirit. To travel in that spirit, for a believer, is to travel with God, for God is Spirit. It is that element in which believers live, move, and have their being’ (p. 221). [6] Phillips, following Wittgenstein, appears to think of religious belief (when unconfused and not superstitious) as an extension of ethics rather than of natural science—as meta-morals rather than meta-physics. But he denies that he or Wittgenstein is reducing religion to anything: ‘When Wittgenstein says, in his Notebooks, “to pray is to think about the meaning of life” . . . [I]t cannot be said [however, pace Nielsen] that Wittgenstein is trying to reduce prayer to something else called “the meaning of life.” Rather, Wittgenstein is showing . . . that in the language of prayer we are offered a language in which to understand the whole of life. To pray is one form of recognition that life is a gift of the gods or God’ (pp. 287–88). At this point Nielsen would say that prayer obviously has a metaphysical (if not anthropomorphic) presupposition, namely the existence of God or gods. Phillips, in reply, would say that it is only through understanding spiritual practices such as prayer that we understand what ‘believing in the reality of God or the gods’ amounts to. The following Wittgensteinian analogy may be helpful here: it is only through understanding the various practices involved in human relations that we come to understand what ‘believing in the reality of other minds’ amounts to. In neither case do we need to ‘get behind the practice to its transcendent ground’—some inaccessible and therefore otiose ‘Beetle.’ [7] What makes a practice a spiritual practice? While Nielsen seems to want a definition (in terms of the sort of beliefs it presupposes), Phillips only provides examples. ‘It is at this point,’ laments Phillips, ‘that we come to the real problem in my dispute with Nielsen. When I provide the elucidations he rightly demands, providing example after example in my work, Nielsen fails to see any sense in them, though plenty of [other] nonbelievers do.’ Phillips and Nielsen may now, after their long discussion, be fairly close in their view of ‘Wittgensteinian fideism,’ they are still far apart on the role of examples in philosophy of religion: ‘[W]hen I provide religious examples, drawing on the power of literature, Nielsen says Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.org William Brenner: Review of Wittgensteinian Fideism? that they do no philosophical work. There is no denying the enormity of this difficulty’ (p. 349). [8] In previous proceedings of the Claremont Conference, there was usually one or more sections in dialogue form by the coordinator, D. Z. Phillips, entitled ‘Voices in Discussion.’ It’s a pity that no one was found take over the difficult but valuable task of providing a similar dialectical overview for this volume. Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.org

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Wittgensteinian Fideism?