Genia Schönbaumsfeld

It is the object of this chapter to investigate the parallels discernible between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings. While such attempts have, in the past, generally focused on either trying to show that Kierkegaard’s notion of paradox is similar to early Wittgenstein’s concept of the ineffable or that both thinkers seek to undermine the idea that there are things that cannot be put into words, it is argued here that we must look for the affinities between the two philosophers in an altogether different place, namely, in Kierkegaard’s and early Wittgenstein’s concerted endorsement of an anti-consequentialist, quasi-religious conception of ethics.

In den Lectures und Conversations on Religious Belief scheint Wittgenstein drei Aussagen zu treffen: (1) Das Vorhandensein von Evidenz würde die Grundidee des religiösen Glaubens zunichte machen. (2) Gewöhnliche Evidenz hätte keinen Einfluss darauf, ob Wittgenstein eine religiöse Überzeugung annimmt (oder nicht). (3) Eine gewöhnliche Vorhersage, die eine Art ‚Tag des Jüngsten Gerichts‘ voraussagt, ist kein religiöser Glaube.In diesem Beitrag werde ich darlegen, warum Wittgenstein jede dieser drei Ansichten vertritt und warum sie die Idee unterminieren, man könne die Religion zu einer „question of science“ (LA 1966, 57) machen. Abschließend werde ich mich mit dem Einwand auseinandersetzen, Wittgenstein vertrete eine Form des ‚Fideismus‘.

Although academic work on conspiracy theory has taken off in the last two decades, both in other disciplines as well as in epistemology, the similarities between global sceptical scenarios and global conspiracy theories have not been the focus of attention. The main reason for this lacuna probably stems from the fact that most philosophers take radical scepticism very seriously, while, for the most part, regarding ‘conspiracy thinking’ as epistemically defective. Defenders of conspiracy theory, on the other hand, tend not to be that interested in undermining radical scepticism, since their primary goal is to save conspiracy theories from the charges of irrationality. In this paper, I argue that radical sceptical scenarios and global conspiracy theories exhibit importantly similar features, which raises a serious dilemma for the ‘orthodox’ view that holds that while we must respond to radical scepticism, global conspiracy theories can just be dismissed. For, if, as I will show, both scenarios can be seen to be epistemically on a par, then either radical sceptical scenarios are as irrational as global conspiracy theories or neither type of scenario is intrinsically irrational. I argue for the first option by introducing a distinction between ‘local’ and ‘global’ sceptical scenarios and showing how this distinction maps onto contemporary debates concerning how best to understand the notion of a ‘conspiracy theory’. I demonstrate that, just as in the case of scepticism, ‘local’ conspiracies are, at least in principle, detectable and, hence, epistemically unproblematic, while global conspiracy theories, like radical scepticism, are essentially invulnerable to any potential counterevidence. This renders them theoretically vacuous and idle, as everything and nothing is compatible with what these ‘theories’ assert. I also show that radical sceptical scenarios and global conspiracy theories face the self-undermining problem: As soon as global unreliability is posited, the ensuing radical doubt swallows its children – the coherence of the sceptic’s proposal or the conspiracy theorist’s preferred conspiracy. I conclude that radical sceptical scenarios and global conspiracy theories are indeed partners in crime and should, therefore, be regarded as equally dubious.

Kierkegaard’s influence on Wittgenstein’s conception of religious belief was profound, but this hasn’t so far been given the attention it deserves . Although Wittgenstein wrote comparatively little on the subject, while the whole of Kierkegaard’s oeuvre has a religious theme, both philosophers have become notorious for refusing to construe religious belief in either of the two traditional ways: as a ‘propositional attitude’ on the one hand or as a mere ‘emotional response’ with no reference to the ‘real world’ on the other. This refusal to play by the orthodox dichotomies, as it were, has led to gross misrepresentation of their thought by numerous commentators. Neither Wittgenstein nor Kierkegaard has been immune to allegations of both ‘relativism’ and ‘fideism’, although neither charge could be wider of the mark. It is not that Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard reject the role that reason has to play in both religion and philosophy, but that they try to undermine from within certain common assumptions about the nature of both religious faith and the point of philosophical activity that make us believe that the traditional dichotomies exhaust all the available options. What I hope to show in this paper is that more sense can be made of Wittgenstein’s controversial remarks on religion, if we juxtapose them with Kierkegaard’s religious thought, especially that of Kierkegaard’s pseudonym , Johannes Climacus, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript. The focal point of this paper is going to be the attempt to read what little Wittgenstein has to say about this topic through the lens of Climacus’ claim that ‘objectively there is no truth; an objective knowledge about the truth or the truths of Christianity is precisely untruth.’ I will begin by giving a brief exposition of Climacus’ views, will then sketch out what Wittgenstein has to say on the matter and will then attempt to bring the two together. In the remainder of the paper I will assess the implications of Wittgenstein’s and Kierkegaard’s conception as well as address some of the problems that their account might be said to engender

In this paper I examine the connection between religious belief, despair and gender in Kierkegaard's Sickness unto Death and Fear and Trembling. I argue that despite Kierkegaard's abhorrent gender stereotyping, his concept of 'masculine despair' and its more extreme manifestation - the demonic - can be read ironically as a reductio ad absurdum of traditional 'male' virtues: pride, autonomy and dignity. That is to say, although the demonic is, according to Kierkegaard, the exact mirror-image of faith, it lacks precisely those 'feminine' qualities - submissiveness and givingness - that would make faith a genuine possibility. Hence it would seem that Kierkegaard's bigotry notwithstanding, women are in fact constitutionally better equipped for the possibility of religious belief than are men, but given that this conclusion rests on very questionable premises, it presents at best a poisoned victory for the female sex

Die Arbeit veranschaulicht anhand der Argumente von Kant, Strawson und Davidson, daß vier Kriterien für Transzendentalität identifiziert werden können: ein Reductio des skeptischen Zweifels, die Ablehnung einer Schema/Inhalt-Distinktion, die Etablierung einer transzendentalen Präsupposition sowie eine holistische Vorgehensweise. Das Ziel transzendentaler Argumentation ist, darzulegen, daß der skeptische Zweifel entweder lösbar oder nicht kohärent formulierbar ist. Es wird gezeigt, daß transzendentale Argumentation dieses Ziel erreichen kann, ohne sich auf idealistische oder verifikationistische Thesen stützen zu müssen.

This paper aims to motivate a scepticism about scepticism in contemporary epistemology. I present the sceptic with a dilemma: On one parsing of the BIV (brain-in-a-vat) scenario, the second premise in a closure-based sceptical argument will turn out false, because the scenario is refutable; on another parsing, the scenario collapses into incoherence, because the sceptic cannot even save the appearances. I discuss three different ways of cashing out the BIV scenario: ‘Recent Envatment’ (RE), ‘Lifelong Envatment’ (LE) and ‘Nothing But Envatment’ (NBE). I show that RE scenarios are a kind of ‘local’ sceptical scenario that does not pose a significant threat to the possibility of perceptual knowledge as such. I then go on to consider the more radical (or global) LE and NBE scenarios, which do undermine the possibility of perceptual knowledge of an ‘external’ world by positing that it is conceivable that one has always been envatted and, hence, trapped in a ‘global’ illusion. I start by assuming that we could be in such a scenario (LE or NBE) and then spell out what we would need to presuppose for such scenarios to be capable of being actual. Drawing on some central insights from Wittgenstein’s anti-private language considerations, I show that the truth of a global scepticism would presuppose the possibility of a private ‘vat-language’, a notion that cannot be rendered coherent. But, if so, then neither can the sceptical scenarios that presuppose such a conception.

It is generally thought that if introspective distinguishability were available, it would provide an answer to scepticism about perceptual knowledge by enabling us to tell the difference between a good case perceptual experience and a bad kind. This paper challenges this common assumption by showing that even if ID were available, it would not advance our case against scepticism. The conclusion to draw from this result is not to concede to scepticism, however, but rather to give up on the idea that ID is required for knowledge. For if perception with ID turns out to get us no further than perception without ID, then the rational thing to do is to realize that the putative presence of ID is a red herring in the debate about scepticism and can make no difference to the question of whether or not perceptual knowledge is possible.

The Illusion of Doubt shows that radical scepticism is an illusion generated by a Cartesian picture of our evidential situation—the view that my epistemic grounds in both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ cases must be the same. It is this picture which issues both a standing invitation to radical scepticism and ensures that there is no way of getting out of it while agreeing to the sceptic’s terms. The sceptical problem cannot, therefore, be answered ‘directly’. Rather, the assumptions that give rise to it, need to be undermined. These include the notion that radical scepticism can be motivated by the ‘closure’ principle for knowledge, that the ‘Indistinguishability Argument’ renders the Cartesian conception compulsory, that the ‘New Evil Genius Thesis’ is coherent, and the demand for a ‘global validation’ of our epistemic practices makes sense. Once these dogmas are undermined, the path is clear for a ‘realism without empiricism’ that allows us to re-establish unmediated contact with the objects and persons in our environment which an illusion of doubt had threatened to put forever beyond our cognitive grasp.

The overarching aim of this paper is to persuade the reader that radical scepticism is driven less by independently plausible arguments and more by a fear of epistemic limitation which can be overcome. By developing the Kierkegaardian insight that knowledge requires courage, I show that we are not, as potential knowers, just passive recipients of a passing show of putatively veridical information, we also actively need to put ourselves in the way of it by learning to resist certain forms of epistemic temptation: the Cartesian thought that we could be ‘imprisoned’ within our own representations, and, hence permanently ‘out of touch’ with an ‘external’ world, and the Reasons Identity Thesis, which has us believe that whether we are in the good case or in the bad case, our epistemic grounds are the same.

One of the most intractable issues in Kierkegaard scholarship continues to be the question of what one is to make of the relation between infinite resignation and faith in Fear and Trembling. Most commentators follow Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author in claiming that progression to faith is a “linear” process that requires infinite resignation as a first step. The problem with such a reading is that it leads to paradox: It seems to require attributing to the “knight of faith” two inconsistent belief‐attitudes simultaneously—on the one hand, the willingness to resign one's heart's desires (infinite resignation) and, on the other, the conviction that one will somehow receive back what one has resigned. But this is a confused way of thinking about faith. I will show that faith's alleged paradoxicality is only apparent and that the element of resignation that constitutes an aspect of it actually bears some striking similarities to what the aesthete has in mind when he speaks, in Either/Or, of throwing hope overboard in order to make possible a truly artistic way of life. Hence, on my interpretation, the knight of faith does not need to adopt two contradictory attitudes at the same time (or constantly to “annul” one of them), but must rather practice a form of spiritual discipline in many ways analogous to the aesthete's endeavour to become a “poet of possibility.”

In this paper, I am going to propose a new reading of Wittgenstein’s cryptic talk of ‘accession or loss of meaning’ (or the world ‘waxing and waning’ as a whole) in the Notebooks that draws both on Wittgenstein’s later work on aspect-perception, as well as on the thoughts of a thinker whom Wittgenstein greatly admired: Søren Kierkegaard. I will then go on to argue that, its merits apart, there is something existentially problematic about the conception that Wittgenstein is advocating. For the renunciation of the comforts of the world that Wittgenstein proposes as a way of coping with the brute contingencies of life seems only to come as far as what Kierkegaard calls ‘infinite resignation’, and this falls far short of the joyful acceptance of existence that appears necessary for inhabiting what Wittgenstein calls a happy world. That is to say, I will show that what Wittgenstein’s proposal lacks is a way of reconnecting with the finite after one has renounced it – the kind of transformation of existence achieved by the person Kierkegaard calls the ‘knight of faith’.

The over-arching claim that I intend to defend in this paper is that while widespread ‘local’ error is conceivable, we cannot, in the end, make sense of the radical sceptical idea that all our perceptual beliefs might be false – that no one has, as it were, ever been in touch with an ‘external world’ at all. To this end, I will show that an asymmetry exists between ‘local’ and ‘global’ sceptical scenarios, such that the possibility of ‘local’ error does not imply that ‘global’ error must also be possible. Instead, we will see that what gives rise to the radical sceptical problem is an unquestioned acceptance of the ‘New Evil Genius Thesis’ (NET) – the notion that I and my ‘envatted’ counterpart share the same perceptual experiences, even though my benighted twin has never had any contact with an ‘external’ reality. Although most contemporary epistemologists take NET for granted, I will show that it cannot, ultimately, be rendered intelligible, and, consequently, that neither can the ‘global’ sceptical scenario that depends on it.

The aim of this paper is to contest an infl uential recent reading of one of Kierkegaard’s most important books, the pseudonymously written Concluding Unscientific Postscript. According to the reading offered by James Conant, the Postscript is an “elaborate reductio” of the very philosophical project in which it itself appears to be engaged, namely, the project of attempting to clarify the nature of Christianity. I show that Conant’s position depends upon four inter-related theses concerning Kierkegaard’s text, and I argue that noneof these theses is sustainable, either philosophically or exegetically. In the course of this critique, alternative and more convincing theses are developed, and I suggest that these theses are altogether better suited than Conant’s to account for, and to provide a defense of, Kierkegaard’s stature as a religious thinker.

Abstract: “Resolute readings” initially started life as a radical new approach to Wittgenstein's early philosophy, but are now starting to take root as a way of interpreting the later writings as well—a trend exemplified by Stephen Mulhall's Wittgenstein's Private Language (2007) as well as by Phil Hutchinson's “What's the Point of Elucidation?” (2007) and Rom Harré's “Grammatical Therapy and the Third Wittgenstein” (2008). The present article shows that there are neither good philosophical nor compelling exegetical grounds for accepting a resolute reading of the later Wittgenstein's work. It is possible to make sense of Wittgenstein's philosophical method without either ascribing to him an incoherent conception of “substantial nonsense” or espousing the resolute readers' preferred option of nonsense austerity. If the interpretation here is correct, it allows us to recognize Wittgenstein's radical break with the philosophical tradition without having to characterize his achievements in purely therapeutic fashion

In this paper I develop an account of Wittgenstein's conception of what it is to understand religious language. I show that Wittgenstein's view undermines the idea that as regards religious faith only two options are possible – either adherence to a set of metaphysical beliefs (with certain ways of acting following from these beliefs) or passionate commitment to a ‘doctrineless’ form of life. I offer a defence of Wittgenstein's conception against Kai Nielsen's charges that Wittgenstein removes the ‘content’ from religious belief and renders the religious form of life ‘incommensurable’ with other domains of discourse, thus immunizing it against rational criticism

_ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 2, pp 114 - 135 It is a commonly accepted assumption in contemporary epistemology that we need to find a solution to ‘closure-based’ sceptical arguments and, hence, to the ‘scepticism or closure’ dilemma. In the present paper I argue that this is mistaken, since the closure principle does not, in fact, do real sceptical work. Rather, the decisive, scepticism-friendly moves are made before the closure principle is even brought into play. If we cannot avoid the sceptical conclusion, this is not due to closure’s holding it in place, but because we’ve already been persuaded to accept a certain conception of perceptual reasons, which both issues a standing invitation to radical scepticism and is endemic in the contemporary literature. Once the real villain of the piece is exposed, it will become clear that the closure principle has been cast in the role of scapegoat in this debate.

In the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion Hegel propounds three inter-related theses: (1) The radical continuity of religion and philosophy. (2) The view that philosophy renders in conceptual form the essence of what Christianity consists in and thus transcends the merely subjective vantage-point of faith. (3) Philosophy alone shows Christianity to be rational and necessary. Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, attacks all three of these theses in Conculding Unscientific Postscript, and he introduces the category of the ‘absolute paradox’ (the Christian Incarnation) in order to do so. It is consequently a mistake to think, as Jon Stewart (2003) does, that Climacus has no quarrel with Hegel himself, but only with the Danish neo-Hegelians such as Heiberg and Martensen. For as the present paper will show, Climacus and Hegel in fact have diametrically opposed conceptions of Christianity and so could not fail to be at loggerheads with each other