Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | November/2020 |
Spalte: | 1095–1097 |
Kategorie: | Philosophie, Religionsphilosophie |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Andrejč, Gorazd, and Daniel H. Weiss [Eds.] |
Titel/Untertitel: | Interpreting Interreligious Relations with Wittgenstein. Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies. |
Verlag: | Leiden u. a.: Brill 2019. 235 S. = Philosophy of Religion – World Religions, 9. Geb. EUR 121,80. ISBN 978-90-04-39792-7. |
Rezensent: | Timo Koistinen |
Philosophy of religion was not a central theme in Wittgenstein’s philosophical writings, but remarks and short discussions on religion can be found in his publications from different periods. The sources of these remarks are miscellaneous. The best-known examples can be found at the end of the Tractatus, where Wittgenstein makes a few cryptic remarks on God and mysticism. Much of the published remarks on religion are based on his personal notes and on notes made by his friends and students about his lectures or conversations with him. Wittgenstein’s remarks on religion are often aphoristic in nature and leave room for different interpretations. Despite the fragmentary nature of these remarks, they have been considered noteworthy and have generated an extensive commentary literature. During the past seventy years several philosophers or religion and theologians have drawn inspiration from Wittgenstein’s general philosophical insights and his personal/philosophical views on religion.
This collection of writings edited by Gorazd Andrejč and Daniel H. Weiss is yet further indication of the significance of Wittgenstein’s work. The writings in this collection are connected to each other by the question of how Wittgenstein’s thinking can be interpreted, utilised, and further developed when considering problems related to »interreligious relations«. At the same time many articles contribute to widely discussed themes in Wittgenstein’s scholarship. The issues addressed are related to various fields of study, such as philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, epistemology, religious studies, comparative theology, and interreligious dia-logue. In addition to the editors, Andrej č and Weiss, the book’s contributors include Guy Bennett-Hunter, Mikel Burley, Thomas D. Carroll, Paul Cortois, Rhiannon Grant, Randy Ramal, Klaus von Stosch, Varja Štrajn, Nuno Venturinha and Sebastjan Vörös.
Religious controversies are at the heart of many burning political, ethical and cultural problems in today’s world. The collection is useful for those who want a deeper scholarly understanding of various kinds of theological, philosophical and ethical matters concerning interreligious relations. Linking Wittgenstein’s philosophy to these themes offers fresh perspectives on research on the subject. It is worth noting that there are hardly any ideas on interreligious relations in Wittgenstein’s own writings. His remarks on religion concerned in most cases Christianity, and likewise his followers in philosophy of religion have usually dealt with issues re-lated to Christianity. One interesting exception to this is Wittgenstein’s concern with ›primitive‹ forms of religion. Wittgenstein was especially interested in James Frazer’s influential study The Golden Bough (1890, 1st ed.), which dealt with magical and religious beliefs, myths and rituals in so-called primitive cultures. Wittgenstein’s »Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough« (1967, 1st ed.) is ex-plored from various points views in Mikel Burley’s, Nuno Venturianha’s, Randy Ramal’s, and Paul Cortois’s articles. One interesting discussion emerges in Ramal’s article, which reflects on Wittgenstein’s »radical pluralism« in the light of his remarks concerning the primal reactions of human beings. At one point Wittgenstein says, »One could almost say that man is a ceremonial animal.« This raises the question how the differences and similarities between religious concepts in different religious traditions can be understood in the light of the thought that instinctive ceremonial or religious forms of action are part of human nature.
Mysticism can be understood as an interreligious concept, there-fore it does not come as a surprise that Wittgenstein’s remarks on mysticism at the end of the Tractatus are treated in this book. Issues related to Wittgenstein-inspired »enactive apophaticism« are explored in Sebastjan Vörös’s and Varja Štrajn’s essay. They discuss similarities between certain Buddhist and Christian language games concerning the religious efforts of »running up against the limits of language« and »expressing the inexpressible«. Daniel H. Weiss article on Moses Maimonides, Wittgenstein and David Burrell provides an intriguing discussion about the tradition of Neoplatonist mystical theology. The article raises critical questions concerning the efforts of producing »an intellectually purified reinterpretation of religious language and concepts« (174). Weiss argues that the religious »elitism« associated with Neoplatonist and Aristotelian approaches in Jewish, Christian and Islamic philosophical theology can be contrasted to the ordinary uses of religious lan-guage. Weiss points out that a somewhat similar contrast between metaphysics and ordinary language is central in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy.
Gorazd Andrejč has written a wide-ranging and useful introduction to this book. It offers an illuminating account of relevant background issues concerning the study of Wittgenstein’s thought and Wittgensteinian approaches in philosophy of religion. Many of the specific themes of this book have been explored in the previous research on Wittgenstein, and the articles in the book often con-tinue these existing debates. For example, the widely discussed and controversial topic concerning Wittgenstein’s »fideism« comes up in Guy Bennett-Hunter’s, Klaus von Stosch’s, and Nuno Venturinha’s articles. Many articles address rather specific and controversial scholarly issues, and hence it is clear that the book is not an introductory textbook. It is instead aimed at those already familiar with the subject, and for them it offers interesting Wittgensteinian and »Wittgenstein-involving« perspectives concerning the interpreta-tion of interreligious relations.