ABSTRACT
In A Confusion of the Spheres, Genia Schonbaumsfeld advances the thesis that Soren Kierkegaard's and Ludwig Wittgenstein's views on the nature of religion and philosophy are crucially alike and crucially different from how they have been interpreted by several commentators. Both Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein critique the idea that statements of religious belief are quasi-scientific statements. Their arguments against such a "confusion of the spheres" do not amount to a defense of a fideistic irrationalism, however. Instead, Schonbaumsfeld argues, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein develop a "third way" of conceiving of religious belief, as something intimately tied to a form of life or sphere of existence. Wittgenstein's mirror may be less colored in that way, and also be less focused on how we live our lives beyond how we use our language. In Wittgenstein's words, "although it's belief, it's really a way of living, or a way of assessing life."
