ABSTRACT
Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion, as found in his brief remarks on religious belief and on magic, is as controversial as his philosophy of mathematics and his philosophy of mind. In fact, many scholars who tend to follow Wittgenstein in these latter areas are reluctant to accept what he has to say about religious belief and related topics. Wittgenstein seems to insulate religion from standard forms of rational criticism, and this is unacceptable to many philosophers who think they have good reasons for rejecting any form of theism. Several of the preceding papers in this collection contain repudiations of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion, and most if not all of them are written by philosophers who are openly sympathetic to many fundamental aspects of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. In this concluding essay, I wish to examine some of their arguments for thinking Wittgenstein is wrong in his philosophy of religion. I shall argue that these arguments are unconvincing, largely because they ignore the implications of Wittgenstein’s suggestion in Philosophical Investigations (§373) that theology be construed as an expression of religious grammar.
