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Games, Families, The Public, and Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

F. Gerald Downing
F. Gerald Downing
Affiliation:
Unsworth Vicarage, Bury, Lancs.
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Extract

Wittgenstein's illustrative comparison of linguistic activities with games, his defence of a single term for items having no more than a ‘family resemblance’ and not even one common distinguishing feature, and his objections to any proposal seeming to imply an unshareably private language appear to have been accepted as interesting and important if not always as persuasive in English language philosophy. But these themes, and others introduced along with them are most often taken as separate items, belonging to distinct compartments of philosophy, and justice is not done to their inter-connections and coherence (1).

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 179 , January 1972 , pp. 38 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1972

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References

1 Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations (P.I.) Oxford 1953Google Scholar; Zettel (Z) Oxford, 1967; Blue and Brown Books (BB) Oxford, 2 1969Google Scholar; Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief (LC) (ed. Barrett, C.) Oxford, 1966Google Scholar. Important related themes are: ‘form of life’, ‘grammar’, ‘criteria’: but these will also be referred to. Partial exceptions to my strictures on the isolation of the themes from each other: P. F, Strawson, in a review of P.I. for Mind, 1954Google Scholar, reprinted in Pitcher, G. (ed.) Wittgenstein, USA 1966, London 1968CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cook, J. W., discussing ‘Privacy’, in the same volumeGoogle Scholar; Manser, A. R. in Winch, P. (ed.) Studies in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, London 1969Google Scholar. In further illustration I would list only the following as instances of the pervasiveness of the theme of ‘privacy’—P.I. 138e–140e; 153e; 164e; 174e; 191–197e; 199e; 243e; 156–275e; 289–315e; 377e; 386–404e (on ‘image’); 427e f.; 435e; 439–441e (‘expect’, ‘wish’); 448e, 460e (‘feel’); 465e (‘expect’, ‘calculate’); 486e (‘sense data’); 509–51ie (‘mean’); 562–566e (‘essence’); 573e, 577e (‘expect’, again); 578e(‘believe’); 580e (‘an inner process stands in need of outward criteria’); 587–595e (‘introspection’); 604–608e; 645e; 653–663e; 669–671e; 693e; p. 179e; p. 180e; pp. 181–183e; pp. 214e f.; pp. 217e f.; p. 219e; pp.222ef.;p.231e.

2 For statements of his purpose(s), see further, for instance, all of P.I. 109–133e; 254e f.; 305–309e; 337–342e; 401e f.; 491–500e; 560–570e; 592e f.; 630e; 654–656e; pp. 224e f.; and Z 21 le; 382e.

3 Respectively, Hudson, W. D. in Ludwig Wittgenstein, London, 1968, p. 62Google Scholar; compare his ‘On two points against Wittgensteinian Fideism”, Philosophy XLIII, 165, pp. 269ff.Google Scholar; and in Vesey, G. N. (ed.) Talk of God, London 1969CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hordern, W., Speaking of God, N.Y. 1964; London 1965, pp. 82ff.Google Scholar; Nielsen, K., ‘Wittgensteinian Fideism’, Philosophy, XLII 161, pp. 191 ff.Google Scholar

4 Reprinted from American Philosophical Quarterly I, in Philips, D. Z. (ed.) Religion and Understanding, Oxford, 1967Google Scholar; compare his The Idea of a Social Science London, 1958Google Scholar, Evans Pritchard's own work is much closer to the position I argue here; e.g. in Theories of Primitive Religion Oxford 1965.Google Scholar

5 Bell, R. H., ‘Wittgenstein and descriptive Theology’, Religious Studies 5.1, 10 1969, pp. 5f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; compare Brown, S. C., Do Religious Claims Make Sense? London 1969, p. 68Google Scholar, citing on the other hand a parallel of ‘game’ and ‘system’ from L.C. p. 59; compare too, P.I. p. 224e, and Waismann, P., Principles of Linguistic Philosophy, London 1965, p. 95.Google Scholar

6 Bambrough, in Pitcher, , Wittgenstein, op. cit., pp. 186ff.Google Scholar; reprinted from Proc. Arist. Soc. LXIGoogle Scholar. Bambrough's case is spoilt by over-concentration on single terms, rather than games, forms of life, etc.

7 Katchadourian, H., ‘Common Names and “Family Resemblances”’Google Scholar, in Pitcher, , Wittgenstein, op. cit., p. 208Google Scholar; compare Z 358e and surrounding sections; P.I. 215e f.; 253e f.; 377e; on ‘sameness’ & ‘identity’; P.I. 69–83e, 142e, 172e, 197–205e, on ‘boundaries’, etc.

8 Katchadourían, art. cit. in Pitcher, , Wittgenstein, op. cit.Google Scholar; Manser, A. R., ‘Games and Family Resemblances’, Philosophy, XLIIIGoogle Scholar; Mandelbaum, M., in Am. Phil. Q. 1965Google Scholar, cited by Simon, M. A. in this article referred to, ‘When is a Resemblance a Family Resemblance?’, Mind, LXXVIIIGoogle Scholar. Manser rightly points out that a family may allow us to pick out resemblances because it is already a closed group (as in Bambrough). But we might be concerned with a much more open situation—looking for signs of bastardy in the manor village, seeking the changeling, casting for the Forsyte Saga; and so on. The demonstration of Wittgenstein's case lies in all his discussion, not just the original illustrative analogy. But the latter is apt or at least adaptable.

9 E.g., Emmet, D., Rules, Roles and Relations, London 1966Google Scholar; Berger, P., Invitation to Sociology (more limited) U.S.A. 1963, London 1966.Google Scholar

10 The following are authors who have taken a ‘one predominant relative’ view: P. M. van Buren (but see below); R. B. Braithwaite; J. Macquarrie (despite his own useful reservations); R. Bultmann; W. Hordern; A. Richardson; W. & L. Pelz ; A. Flew: (covering ethics, existentialist ontology, personalism, ‘historiography’; aesthetics; ‘plain fact’ with theology a false pretender).

11 Compare Evans, C. F., Resurrection and the New Testament, London 1970Google Scholar; my own The Church and Jesus, London 1968.Google Scholar

12 Bambrough in Reason Truth and God, London 1969 pp. 28 & 35 & 42 & 70Google Scholar; compare earlier versions in The Listener, reprinted in Hoskins, , (ed.) Religion and Humanism, London 1964.Google Scholar

13 Ferré, , Language, Logic and God, U.S.A. 1961, London 1962Google Scholar, talks of ‘the manifold logic of theism’; Bell, R. H., art. cit., R.S.5. 1Google Scholar; Martin, J. A., The New Dialogue between Philosophy and Theology, London 1966Google Scholar, takes Ferré himself to task for an over ready distinction between ‘improper’, ‘familiar’ and ‘unique’ functions of theology; P. M. van Buren, recently, in Vesey, G. N. A., ed., Talk of God, London 1969CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Evans, D., The Logic of Self-Involvement, London 1963Google Scholar. Compare also very varying interpretations of Anselm in Hick, & McGill, , The Many-Faced Argument, U.S.A. 1967, London 1968Google Scholar; and of Athanasius, in Macquarrie, J., God-Talk, London 1967Google Scholar. See also n 9 above.

14 In Encounter, 120, 09 1963Google Scholar; reprinted in part in Robinson, & Edwards, , (eds.) The Honest to God Deba te, London 1963.Google Scholar

15 In Hick, J., (ed.) Faith and the Philosophers, London 1964CrossRefGoogle Scholar; from a conference paper given in 1962. Clark, Norris, S. J. p. 134Google Scholar in the same volume, comments that this represents ‘a widely accepted’ approach; compare Flew, A., God and Philosophy, London, 1966Google Scholar; Nielsen, K., ‘The Intelligibility of God-talk’ R.S. 6.1.Google Scholar

16 Philosophy, 07 1968, 165, p. 231, 241Google Scholar; MacIntyre, , ‘Is Understanding…?’ pp. 122ff.Google Scholar Compare Brown, S. C. in Do Religious Claims Make Sense, op. cit., ch, VGoogle Scholar, ‘Belief and Conceptual Change’. However, Brown makes a similar error himself over Bultmann, when he claims that if demythologising is necessary it is impossible. Compare, too, Kirk, , ‘Translation and Indeterminacy’, Mind 07 1969Google Scholar, Haas, , ‘Theory of Translation’, Philosophy, 1962.Google Scholar

17 Compare P.I 137e f.; 146e; 433e; 500e; Z. 144e f.; 287e, 298e, 530e.

18 A Short History of Ethics London 1967, p. 268.Google Scholar

19 For instance, by Pitcher, Ayer, Rhees, Cook, Donagan, Kenny, Malcolm, Manser, Sprigge. The latter (in Mind, 10 1969Google Scholar) finds that while experience could be said to be private, nothing said about it could. Only one or two of those listed seem to note the wider implications of Wittgenstein's discussion at this point, and then only in passing.

20 Hudson, , ‘Some remarks on Wittgenstein's Account of Religious Belief’Google Scholar, in Vesey, G. N. A. (ed.) Talk of God (op. cit.), pp. 42ff.Google Scholar; L. C. pp. 57f, 55.

21 Hudson, ibid., p. 51; Bell, , ‘Wittgenstein and Descriptive Theology’, art. cit., R.S.5. 1, p. 9.1Google Scholar take it that linguistics as such is relevant to all this, at least where it has an empirical base, and is not (contra Wittgenstein) attempting to stand outside all language and look at it without its help. Compare a very tentative approach by MacCormac, E. R., ‘A new Programme for Religious Language’, R.S. 6.1.Google Scholar