Wittgenstein and Reason

The nature of reason has always been a topic at the very heart of Western philosophy but the most famous philosopher of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, hardly ever discussed it. His work, though, does raise crucial questions about the subject. These questions are perhaps closest to the surface in his critique of Frazer s Golden Bough, his discussions of various philosophical aspects of religion, and the famous rule–following considerations from his Philosophical Investigations.

In this volume, prominent Wittgenstein scholars from the UK and continental Europe discuss these parts of Wittgenstein s work, as well as his oeuvre in general, and its implications for the nature of reason. The volume features a translation of an important paper by the French Wittgenstein scholar Jacques Bouveresse, alongside six new papers by other contributors.

The volume will be of interest to scholars and students of any aspect of Wittgenstein s work.

Preface vii

1 Wittgenstein s Critique of Frazer 1
Jacques Bouveresse

2 Relativism, Commensurability and Translatability 21
Hans–Johann Glock

3 Back to the Rough Ground! Wittgensteinian Reflections on Rationality and Reason 47
Jane Heal

4 Worlds or Words Apart? Wittgenstein on Understanding Religious Language 65
Genia Schönbaumsfeld

5 The Tightrope Walker 85
Severin Schroeder

6 Rules and Reason 107
Joachim Schulte

7 Rule–Following without Reasons: Wittgenstein s Quietism and the Constitutive Question 123
Crispin Wright

Index 145

John Preston is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Reading.

Taken as a whole, this volume provides an extremely valuable and critically astute examination of utterly fundamental issues that need serious attention and investigation in today′s philosophical climate it constitutes a ′must read′. ( Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, February 2009)

Preston (philosophy, Univ. of Reading) offers scholarly pieces that explore the connections in his work between reason and relativism, the reasonableness of religious belief, and Wittgenstein′s notion of rule following. Recommended for academic research libraries. (Library Journal, November 2008)