ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book contributes to extending the Wittgensteinian descriptivist treatment of religious and ethico-religious values. It seeks to expose and ultimately weaken certain tendencies of thought which have emerged within Wittgensteinianism itself. The Wittgensteinian position holds that religious belief is an absolute. The Absoluteness-Element entails that self-renouncing religious belief has no further ends. The book considers an alternative conception of self-renouncing faith which is incompatible with the model of religious belief encapsulated in these five theses. It explores the presuppositions that have led the Wittgensteinian position to this unsatisfactory point by tracing the five constituent elements to their Sitz im Leben, the situation and way of life that inspired them. The book discusses the nature of the presuppositions inherent in the Wittgensteinian position and to acquire some sense of what it takes to arrive at a more durable descriptivist method.
