Wittgenstein’s Paganism

What is it about?

In his “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough” Wittgenstein wrote that though individuals coming from different religious traditions give expression to different religious views, “none of them was in error, except when he sets forth a theory.” By combining these and other remarks on religion with considerations on Wittgenstein’s later writings, one can develop a picture of his views on religion whereby criticism of other religious practices, especially with regard to truth, is logically off limits. Recently, Cora Diamond has criticized Peter Winch and Ilham Dilman for the way they have tried to argue for such a relativist picture with support from Wittgenstein’s philosophy. In particular, though acknowledging that Winch and Dillam have in central respects an accurate understanding of Wittgenstein’s personal attitude towards religion, Diamond argues that Wittgenstein’s views here, while interesting, are not very closely connected to his approach to language and philosophy. Diamond is right in her criticisms of Winch and Dilman concerning relativism. Yet while Wittgenstein’s views on religion were not derivable from his views on philosophy, the connection between them is closer than Diamond suggests: both were fundamentally interwoven with his views on mind and world, on the meaning of human life and nature.

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Why is it important?

The paper clarifies Wittgenstein's attitude towards religion, which was a subject to which he devoted a great deal of thought

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