Wittgenstein and the Epistemology of Religion

Pritchard, Duncan (EDT)/ Venturinha, Nuno (EDT)

Wiley-Blackwell（2026/04発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 320 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781394360802

Full Description

Illuminates Wittgenstein's religious epistemology—bridging faith, reason, and cultural understanding across disciplines

Wittgenstein and the Epistemology of Religion offers the first comprehensive exploration of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion through an explicitly epistemological lens. Fourteen newly commissioned essays from leading and emerging scholars examine how Wittgenstein's later thought, especially his descriptive and grammatical methods, provides tools for understanding religious belief, practice, and diversity. This singular volume situates Wittgenstein within debates over cognitivism, non-cognitivism, and fideism, while also considering his subtle anthropological and ethnological insights into religion as a form of life.

Structured in five parts, Wittgenstein and the Epistemology of Religion traces key themes that range from the tension between faith and reason to the role of evidence in religious life. Contributors engage with seminal figures such as Locke, Kierkegaard, James, and Malinowski to illuminate how Wittgenstein challenges scientific reductionism and opens new ways of understanding the lived experience of belief. The essays reveal how questions of meaning, context, and practice underpin the epistemic evaluation of religious commitments, as well as how Wittgenstein's approach helps clarify conflicts that lack a shared evidential framework.

Combining historical sensitivity, conceptual rigor, and contemporary application, this landmark collection:

Systematically explores Wittgenstein's religious epistemology across multiple thematic dimensions
Challenges scientistic frameworks by emphasizing context and meaning in religious discourse
Highlights the relevance of Wittgenstein's thought for contemporary debates on faith, reason, and evidence
Introduces the concept of quasi-fideism as a nuanced position between full rationalism and fideism
Expands Wittgenstein's philosophical reach by applying anthropological and ethnological perspectives to religious belief
Addresses current teaching and research needs in epistemology and the philosophy of religion

Encouraging cross-disciplinary dialogue between disciplines, Wittgenstein and the Epistemology of Religion is essential reading for scholars, researchers, and advanced students in philosophy, religious studies, anthropology, and sociology. It serves as a core or supplemental text in upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses such as Philosophy of Religion, Religious Epistemology, Wittgenstein Studies, as well as courses examining belief formation, ritual, and the social dynamics of religion.

Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments

Contributors

List of Abbreviations of Wittgenstein's Works

List of Tables


Introduction: Removing Misconceptions

Nuno Venturinha and Duncan Pritchard

 

Part I   Beyond Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism

 

1 Wittgenstein on Religious Faith and Beauty

Hanne Appelqvist

 

2 No Gaseous Vertebrates: Wittgenstein's 'Third Way'

Genia Schönbaumsfeld

 

Part II   From Fideism to Quasi-Fideism

 

3 Was Wittgenstein a Fideist?

Gordon Graham

 

4 'Undermining Reason': Logic, Exemplarity and Religious Belief

Edward Guetti

 

5 The Ghost of the Tractatus: Fideism, Scepticism and 'Hinge' Epistemology

Michael Williams

 

6 Honest Doubt: Quasi-Fideism and Epistemic Vertigo

Duncan Pritchard

 

Part III   Anthropological and Ethnological Approaches

 

7 Wittgenstein on Religion as a Form of Life: From a 'Jamesian Type' to Remarks on Frazer

Mauro Engelmann and Juliet Floyd

 

8 Understanding Other Languages, Understanding (Other) Religion

Alois Pichler

 

9 Shall We Dance? A Non-Intellectualist Approach to Human Practices

Julia Tanney

 

Part IV   Context over Scientism

 

10 Wittgenstein on Religion

     Paul Horwich

 

11 The Concept of Belief in Comparative Religious Perspective

Thomas D. Carroll

 

12 On Certainty and Religion: A Prolegomenon

Nuno Venturinha

  

Part V   Evidentialism and Non-Evidentialism off the Fence

 

13Epistemology and Freedom of Religion: Locke and Wittgenstein

Gorazd Andrejč

 

14 Wittgenstein and the ABCs of Religious Epistemics

Guy Axtell

 

Index