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Logic and Sin in the Writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein by Philip R. Shields
Bertrand Russell was fond of recounting the following story about Wittgenstein's student days at "He used to come to my rooms at midnight and, for hours, he would walk backwards and forwards like a caged tiger. ...On one such evening, after an hour or two of dead silence, I said to him, 'Wittgenstein, are you thinking about logic or about your sins?' 'Both,' he said, and then reverted to silence." This is the first study to argue that Wittgenstein's philosophical writings are religious just as they stand. Although Wittgenstein often framed his writings on logic and philosophy in ethical and religious terms, the writings rarely discuss ethics and religion directly. This has led many scholars to dismiss Wittgenstein's remarks on such matters as isolated and eccentric personal views, while other scholars have attempted to reconstruct a plausible religious position from his cryptic religious comments and a selective use of his philosophy. Philip R. Shields shows that a matrix of ethical and religious concerns informs even the most technical writings on logic and language, and that, for Wittgenstein, the need to establish clear limitations is simultaneously a logical and an ethical demand. Rather than merely saying specific things about theology and religion, major texts from the Tractatus to the Philosophical Investigations express their fundamentally religious nature by showing that there are powers which bear down upon and sustain us. These powers manifest themselves in the structures that make significant use of language possible. Shields finds a religious view of the world at the very heart of Wittgenstein's philosophy. This perspective illuminates the distinctiveness and peculiarity of Wittgenstein's philosophy and reveals more continuity between the "early" and the "later" thought than is usually supposed.
Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1993
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August 15, 2020
Just finished these books, _Logic and Sin in the Writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein_, by Philip R. Shields, and _Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View_, by Norman Malcolm, both publishes in 1993.
These are two of many books on Wittgenstein and religion, several of which puzzle about a remark he once made to his former student and long-time friend, M. O’C Drury: “I am not a religious person but I can’t help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.”
Malcolm, a colleague and very close friend of Wittgenstein, aims to discuss “*not* strictly a religious point of view, but something *analogous* to a religious point of view” (his emphases).
One very relevant theme in Wittgenstein’s writing that both Malcolm and Shields rely on is the notion that explanations, reasons, justifications, etc, must at some point, come to an end.
To wit, in his _Philosophical Investigations_, the culmination of his later philosophy, Wittgenstein says, “If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: 'This is simply what I do’” (PI #217). Indeed, one of the first remarks in PI is “explanations come to an end somewhere” (PI #1), which for me is reminiscent of the character Cleanthes in Hume’s _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_, in which Cleanthes and Philo argue about the design argument for the existence of God, and Philo makes the usual point that it fails in an infinite regress of causes, but Cleanthes counters that “I have found a Diety and here I stop my inquiry” (p. 32 in the Hackett 2nd ed.).
In brief, Malcolm suggests four analogies between religion and philosophy for Wittgenstein (paraphrased from Winch’s critique of the book in the appendix):
1) An analogy between his philosophy and religion in that both have a the particular above attitude towards explanation, viz, that it must come to an end somewhere.
2) An analogy (closely related to the first) between a religious wonder at the world as it is and a kind of wonder in Wittgenstein’s philosophy at the existence of the various language-games as they are in our use. Both the world as it is and our language-games as we use them are simply there – you can use them and describe them but not *explain*, really, why they are there.
3) An analogy between the religious, original-sin-type attitude of regarding oneself as imperfect or faulty, and the Wittgensteinian idea that philosophical puzzlement is a symptom of diseased or faulty thinking. “A philosopher treats a question: like an illness” (PI #255). “Our illness is this, to want to explain” (_Remarks on Foundations of Mathematics_, p 333).
4) An analogy between Wittgenstein’s insistence that Christianity is not so much a doctrine but rather a changing of one’s life, amending one’s ways, etc (Wittgenstein would have agreed, Malcolm thinks, with St. James that “faith without works is dead), and the essential notion in his later philosophy that our everyday concepts rest on a base of acting and doing, rather than on reasoning or interpreting or explaining.
Shields, by contrast, relies much more on the logic of Wittgenstein’s earlier philosophy (as the name of the book implies), from which Wittgenstein largely broke later, although Shields is right that threads continue in the later philosophy.
There is story Bertrand Russell was fond of telling about Wittgenstein, when Wittgenstein was having an intense discussion with Russell, punctuated by long periods of intense silent thinking by Wittgenstein, and Russel finally asked him if he was thinking about logic or his sins and Wittgenstein replied “both.” Although usually told as a joke, this story has for Shields a deeper meaning and importance regarding the concept of sin (again, as suggested by his title).
Shields starts, then, by focusing on the early-Wittgenstein notion of the distinction between what can be said and what can only by shown. One of the first lines of his first book, the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus _, is “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence” (TLP #7). Similarly, “What *can* be shown *cannot* be said” (his emphases, TLP #4.1212).
As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains in other words, “what cannot be formulated in sayable (sensical) propositions can only be shown. This applies, for example, to the logical form of the world, the pictorial form, etc., which show themselves in the form of (contingent) propositions, in the symbolism, and in logical propositions. Even the unsayable (metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic) propositions of philosophy belong in this group—which Wittgenstein finally describes as “things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical” (TLP 6.522).”
Although criticized by later scholars for relying too much on Wittgenstein’s early thought, Shields begins with this notion of the limits of language and thought, and then links the theme of limitation to the presence of the figure of God in Wittgenstein’s writings. In particular both this limitation and the will of God are similar in being out of our control.
From here the notion of sin becomes important for Shields insofar as we sin when we try to transgress God’s will and we “sin” when we “try to say in words what can only be shown.” Finally, he uses Wittgenstein’s comment that (in the preface to one of his books), “I would like to say, ‘This book is written to the glory of God” (“but nowadays,” the preface goes on, “that would be chicanery, that is, it would not be rightly understood”). Shields here discusses the significance he sees of Wittgenstein’s efforts to replace our modern need to seek explanations with a sense of wonder an awe that is dedicated to describing, not explaining. Focusing on two aspects of a religious point of view – 1) recognizing that things are out of our control; and 2) embracing these realities without fatalism or resignation – Shields says that’s just what Wittgenstein’s philosophy calls for, viz, recognizing the say/show distinction and accepting these conditions “before we can do or say anything at all.”
In short, Shields thinks that Wittgenstein’s writings are “fundamentally ‘religious,’” where as Malcolm sees them as more analogous (in the four above ways) to religion. Other scholars, such as Tim Labron, think that Shields misses the mark here, since he focuses too much on the earlier – largely rejected – thought of Wittgenstein, reducing his philosophy to the earlier thought, excessively associating logic with God and philosophical confusion with sin, and missing therefore the unique character of the later thought.
These are two of many books on Wittgenstein and religion, several of which puzzle about a remark he once made to his former student and long-time friend, M. O’C Drury: “I am not a religious person but I can’t help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.”
Malcolm, a colleague and very close friend of Wittgenstein, aims to discuss “*not* strictly a religious point of view, but something *analogous* to a religious point of view” (his emphases).
One very relevant theme in Wittgenstein’s writing that both Malcolm and Shields rely on is the notion that explanations, reasons, justifications, etc, must at some point, come to an end.
To wit, in his _Philosophical Investigations_, the culmination of his later philosophy, Wittgenstein says, “If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: 'This is simply what I do’” (PI #217). Indeed, one of the first remarks in PI is “explanations come to an end somewhere” (PI #1), which for me is reminiscent of the character Cleanthes in Hume’s _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_, in which Cleanthes and Philo argue about the design argument for the existence of God, and Philo makes the usual point that it fails in an infinite regress of causes, but Cleanthes counters that “I have found a Diety and here I stop my inquiry” (p. 32 in the Hackett 2nd ed.).
In brief, Malcolm suggests four analogies between religion and philosophy for Wittgenstein (paraphrased from Winch’s critique of the book in the appendix):
1) An analogy between his philosophy and religion in that both have a the particular above attitude towards explanation, viz, that it must come to an end somewhere.
2) An analogy (closely related to the first) between a religious wonder at the world as it is and a kind of wonder in Wittgenstein’s philosophy at the existence of the various language-games as they are in our use. Both the world as it is and our language-games as we use them are simply there – you can use them and describe them but not *explain*, really, why they are there.
3) An analogy between the religious, original-sin-type attitude of regarding oneself as imperfect or faulty, and the Wittgensteinian idea that philosophical puzzlement is a symptom of diseased or faulty thinking. “A philosopher treats a question: like an illness” (PI #255). “Our illness is this, to want to explain” (_Remarks on Foundations of Mathematics_, p 333).
4) An analogy between Wittgenstein’s insistence that Christianity is not so much a doctrine but rather a changing of one’s life, amending one’s ways, etc (Wittgenstein would have agreed, Malcolm thinks, with St. James that “faith without works is dead), and the essential notion in his later philosophy that our everyday concepts rest on a base of acting and doing, rather than on reasoning or interpreting or explaining.
Shields, by contrast, relies much more on the logic of Wittgenstein’s earlier philosophy (as the name of the book implies), from which Wittgenstein largely broke later, although Shields is right that threads continue in the later philosophy.
There is story Bertrand Russell was fond of telling about Wittgenstein, when Wittgenstein was having an intense discussion with Russell, punctuated by long periods of intense silent thinking by Wittgenstein, and Russel finally asked him if he was thinking about logic or his sins and Wittgenstein replied “both.” Although usually told as a joke, this story has for Shields a deeper meaning and importance regarding the concept of sin (again, as suggested by his title).
Shields starts, then, by focusing on the early-Wittgenstein notion of the distinction between what can be said and what can only by shown. One of the first lines of his first book, the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus _, is “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence” (TLP #7). Similarly, “What *can* be shown *cannot* be said” (his emphases, TLP #4.1212).
As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains in other words, “what cannot be formulated in sayable (sensical) propositions can only be shown. This applies, for example, to the logical form of the world, the pictorial form, etc., which show themselves in the form of (contingent) propositions, in the symbolism, and in logical propositions. Even the unsayable (metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic) propositions of philosophy belong in this group—which Wittgenstein finally describes as “things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical” (TLP 6.522).”
Although criticized by later scholars for relying too much on Wittgenstein’s early thought, Shields begins with this notion of the limits of language and thought, and then links the theme of limitation to the presence of the figure of God in Wittgenstein’s writings. In particular both this limitation and the will of God are similar in being out of our control.
From here the notion of sin becomes important for Shields insofar as we sin when we try to transgress God’s will and we “sin” when we “try to say in words what can only be shown.” Finally, he uses Wittgenstein’s comment that (in the preface to one of his books), “I would like to say, ‘This book is written to the glory of God” (“but nowadays,” the preface goes on, “that would be chicanery, that is, it would not be rightly understood”). Shields here discusses the significance he sees of Wittgenstein’s efforts to replace our modern need to seek explanations with a sense of wonder an awe that is dedicated to describing, not explaining. Focusing on two aspects of a religious point of view – 1) recognizing that things are out of our control; and 2) embracing these realities without fatalism or resignation – Shields says that’s just what Wittgenstein’s philosophy calls for, viz, recognizing the say/show distinction and accepting these conditions “before we can do or say anything at all.”
In short, Shields thinks that Wittgenstein’s writings are “fundamentally ‘religious,’” where as Malcolm sees them as more analogous (in the four above ways) to religion. Other scholars, such as Tim Labron, think that Shields misses the mark here, since he focuses too much on the earlier – largely rejected – thought of Wittgenstein, reducing his philosophy to the earlier thought, excessively associating logic with God and philosophical confusion with sin, and missing therefore the unique character of the later thought.
October 22, 2024
SHOULD WITTGENSTEIN BE INTERPRETED AS A "PROPHET"?
Wittgenstein’s criticisms of metaphysics, and to show perhaps that there is something philosophically arbitrary in these critiques. I soon focused on two related themes which seem to run throughout Wittgenstein’s writings… These two themes, the demand for complete clarity and the say/show distinction, are mutually supportive, though in different ways… At the root of Wittgenstein’s critique of metaphysics I found not accidental or capricious philosophical assumptions, but the outline of a religious picture of the world---a picture that is broadly Judeo-Christian, usually Augustinian and frequently Calvinist… In this sense Wittgenstein is better seen on the model of a prophet who reminds people of their obligations than on the model of a disinterested scientist.”
He says in the first chapter, “I do not want to argue that certain aspects and themes in Wittgenstein’s work have useful of interesting applications to the philosophy of religion, or to the development of a Wittgensteinian ‘theology,’ but that his philosophical writings are fundamentally religious just as they stand.” (Pg. 2)
He continues, “I want to argue that the religious themes I describe are indeed present and pervasive in Wittgenstein’s writings, and that this helps account for much of what is peculiar and distinctive about what he has to say about philosophical issues.” (Pg. 7)
He acknowledges, “Although Wittgenstein occasionally raises the notion of God, it never appears as a clearly developed theme. Perhaps this is natural since, at least in the Tractatus, he claims such matters are beyond language and should not be raised at all. Whether deliberate or not, this paucity of material makes the task of seeking traces of God appear somewhat speculative. The value of Dostoyevsky’s maxim is that it links God to the notion of limitation in a way which enables us to address the question of God while drawing on Wittgenstein’s central texts. The thought of God as the fearful judge, which von Wright attributes to Wittgenstein, is the thought of absolute dependence on arbitrary power, and this dependence can be seen reflected in the theme of uncompromising limitation.” (Pg. 33)
He observes, “Wittgenstein seems to suggest that the claim, ‘Grammar tells us what kind of object anything is,’ is analogous to saying that ‘Good is what God orders.’ Both involve a determination that is ‘arrived at without allowing argument for objection.’ The dictates of logical grammar are thrust upon us as if they were the will of God.” (Pg. 50)
He notes, “It is widely reported that Wittgenstein was fond of the writings of Tolstoy, but of special relevance here is [M. O’C.] Drury’s report of Wittgenstein’s particular fondness for Tolstoy’s short take entitled ‘The Three Hermits’… [and Wittgenstein] declared, ‘There you have the essence of Christianity.’ Part of the attraction of this story for Wittgenstein is indubitably related to the point that when it comes to knowing and doing what is really important---what is, as it were, the will of God---great learning can be of no avail and may even be an impediment.” (Pg. 58-59)
This book will be of very great interest to those wondering about Wittgenstein’s opinions about religion.
Wittgenstein’s criticisms of metaphysics, and to show perhaps that there is something philosophically arbitrary in these critiques. I soon focused on two related themes which seem to run throughout Wittgenstein’s writings… These two themes, the demand for complete clarity and the say/show distinction, are mutually supportive, though in different ways… At the root of Wittgenstein’s critique of metaphysics I found not accidental or capricious philosophical assumptions, but the outline of a religious picture of the world---a picture that is broadly Judeo-Christian, usually Augustinian and frequently Calvinist… In this sense Wittgenstein is better seen on the model of a prophet who reminds people of their obligations than on the model of a disinterested scientist.”
He says in the first chapter, “I do not want to argue that certain aspects and themes in Wittgenstein’s work have useful of interesting applications to the philosophy of religion, or to the development of a Wittgensteinian ‘theology,’ but that his philosophical writings are fundamentally religious just as they stand.” (Pg. 2)
He continues, “I want to argue that the religious themes I describe are indeed present and pervasive in Wittgenstein’s writings, and that this helps account for much of what is peculiar and distinctive about what he has to say about philosophical issues.” (Pg. 7)
He acknowledges, “Although Wittgenstein occasionally raises the notion of God, it never appears as a clearly developed theme. Perhaps this is natural since, at least in the Tractatus, he claims such matters are beyond language and should not be raised at all. Whether deliberate or not, this paucity of material makes the task of seeking traces of God appear somewhat speculative. The value of Dostoyevsky’s maxim is that it links God to the notion of limitation in a way which enables us to address the question of God while drawing on Wittgenstein’s central texts. The thought of God as the fearful judge, which von Wright attributes to Wittgenstein, is the thought of absolute dependence on arbitrary power, and this dependence can be seen reflected in the theme of uncompromising limitation.” (Pg. 33)
He observes, “Wittgenstein seems to suggest that the claim, ‘Grammar tells us what kind of object anything is,’ is analogous to saying that ‘Good is what God orders.’ Both involve a determination that is ‘arrived at without allowing argument for objection.’ The dictates of logical grammar are thrust upon us as if they were the will of God.” (Pg. 50)
He notes, “It is widely reported that Wittgenstein was fond of the writings of Tolstoy, but of special relevance here is [M. O’C.] Drury’s report of Wittgenstein’s particular fondness for Tolstoy’s short take entitled ‘The Three Hermits’… [and Wittgenstein] declared, ‘There you have the essence of Christianity.’ Part of the attraction of this story for Wittgenstein is indubitably related to the point that when it comes to knowing and doing what is really important---what is, as it were, the will of God---great learning can be of no avail and may even be an impediment.” (Pg. 58-59)
This book will be of very great interest to those wondering about Wittgenstein’s opinions about religion.
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