Wittgenstein on Religious Belief
Wittgenstein on Religious Belief
INTRODUCTION
Religious belief and practices are human universals. There are no atheist communities and, as far as we know, there never have been. Even within the most secular societies on Earth, the countries of Western Europe, many people are religious to at least some extent, holding certain supernatural beliefs (such as life after death) or engaging in certain religious practices (such as prayer). And in the rest of the world- in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, for instance-religious rituals and ideas are at the core of people’s day-to-day lives. Thus in one way or the other, most people adhere to a particular religious tradition from which perspective, they make sense of human existence and the whole cosmos at large. However, there had also been serious people in the history of thought, who candidly professed their non-affiliation with any religious tradition, yet on the side, willingly admit that they share some form of religious sympathy. The American poet and philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) is for one, and another is the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) who though admitting that he’s not a religious man, uttered that “I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.” Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy industrial family, well-situated in intellectual and cultural Viennese circles. His father Karl Wittgenstein’s parents were born Jewish but converted to Protestantism and his mother Leopoldine (nee Kalmus) was Catholic, but her father was of Jewish descent. Wittgenstein himself was baptized in a Catholic Church and was given a Catholic burial, although between baptism and burial he was neither a practicing nor a believing Catholic. Wittgenstein is considered by some as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. His early work was influenced by that of Arthur Schopenhauer and, especially, by his teacher Bertrand
INTRODUCTION
Religious belief and practices are human universals. There are no atheist communities and, as far as we know, there never have been. Even within the most secular societies on Earth, the countries of Western Europe, many people are religious to at least some extent, holding certain supernatural beliefs (such as life after death) or engaging in certain religious practices (such as prayer). And in the rest of the world- in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, for instance-religious rituals and ideas are at the core of people’s day-to-day lives. Thus in one way or the other, most people adhere to a particular religious tradition from which perspective, they make sense of human existence and the whole cosmos at large. However, there had also been serious people in the history of thought, who candidly professed their non-affiliation with any religious tradition, yet on the side, willingly admit that they share some form of religious sympathy. The American poet and philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) is for one, and another is the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) who though admitting that he’s not a religious man, uttered that “I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.” Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy industrial family, well-situated in intellectual and cultural Viennese circles. His father Karl Wittgenstein’s parents were born Jewish but converted to Protestantism and his mother Leopoldine (nee Kalmus) was Catholic, but her father was of Jewish descent. Wittgenstein himself was baptized in a Catholic Church and was given a Catholic burial, although between baptism and burial he was neither a practicing nor a believing Catholic. Wittgenstein is considered by some as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. His early work was influenced by that of Arthur Schopenhauer and, especially, by his teacher Bertrand