Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Explaining Religion: Notes Toward a Research Agenda
2009, In: S.A. Levin (Hg.), Games, Groups, and the Global Good. Springer Physica-Verlag.
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, Contributed by: Tammo LossauAbstract:
I begin by arguing that our model of religion is often based on Christianity. A Christian model of religion is going to look for gods and creeds, churches, priests, prayer, collective worship, moral codes, each of which is absent in some of the things we might want to call religions. And it may well ignore dietary and sumptuary rules or cult for ancestors, which are important in some of them. Religion is a paradigm of what Wittgenstein taught us to call a “family-resemblance” concept: each religion, like each member of a family, is like every other, in some respect, but there are few, if any, characteristics they all share. So the first thing we need to do in trying to decide what it is we're explaining is disaggregate the elements that come together in Christianity; if we find that they usually come together that will be one of the things that we need to explain. What then are the questions worth focusing on? I think that, from an evolutionary point of view, it will be two families of issues. First will be the social and the cognitive features of religions that make their explanation challenging. A second family of issues worth exploring, once we have identified these components, is how they fit together. Why, for example does belief in invisible beings go with rituals dealing with disaster? Why does agreement in creeds go with creating powerful social groups that last across the generations? When one finds broad patterns across many societies there are usually two natural types of explanation that spring to mind. One is that the pattern reflects shared solutions to common problems, independently discovered: evolutionary homology, as it were. The other is diffusion from common sources: in a word, copying. I suspect that much of what is share in the organization of religions globally today is the result of diffusion. But, of course, why some patterns diffuse successfully and others don't is itself something that needs explaining.Comment: The discussion of whether there is a coherent concept of religion spanning all the various traditions that are usually classified as religious is a good setup for classes on philosophy of religion. Appiah also gave a TED-Talk ("Is religion good or bad? (This is a trick question)"), in which he explains the core ideas but ends up with a different conclusion. Namely, he argues in the talk that the concept of religion is defective - contrary to the paper, where he promotes a "cluster concept" understanding of religion. Which of these conclusions is more plausible is a good discussion question.
Coliva, Annalisa. Moore and Wittgenstein: Scepticism, Certainty, and Common Sense
2010, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Added by: Jie GaoPublisher's Note: Does scepticism threaten our common sense picture of the world? Does it really undermine our deep-rooted certainties? This book offers an answer to these questions through a comparative study of the epistemological work of two key figures in the history of analytic philosophy: G. E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein. While historically accurate and engaging with scholarly work in this area, the book also puts forward novel interpretations of their works and brings out their relevance to present-day debates both in epistemology and philosophy of language.Comment: This book is a useful and sustained examination of a variety of themes in Wittgenstein's On Certainty, the very late compilation of remarks inspired by G.E. Moore's engagement with scepticism and idealism in "A Defence of Common Sense," "Proof of an External World" and a few other papers. Among the topics considered are the strategies of Moore's arguments, ordinary and philosophical uses of language, differing interpretations of Moore, externalism, internalism and contextualism, Wittgenstein's objections to Moore, meaning and use, language games, Cartesian and Humean sceptical arguments, the epistemic and semantic status of so-called "hinge" propositions, epistemic relativism, and a comparison of Wittgenstein's and Moore's views with those of subsequent philosophers. It thus constitutes a very good reading or even central text for a course on Moore's epistemology, Wittgenstein's epistemology and external world skepticism.
Dobler, Tamara. The Autonomy of Grammar and Semantic Internalism
2014, Filozofija i Društvo, 25(1), pp. 144–163.
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Added by: Veronica CibotaruAbstract:
In his post-Tractatus work on natural language use, Wittgenstein defended the notion of what he dubbed the autonomy of grammar. According to this thought, grammar - or semantics, in a more recent idiom - is essentially autonomous from metaphysical considerations, and is not answerable to the nature of things. The argument has several related incarnations in Wittgenstein's post-Tractatus writings, and has given rise to a number of important insights, both critical and constructive. In this paper I will argue for a potential connection between Wittgenstein's autonomy argument and some more recent internalist arguments for the autonomy of semantics. My main motivation for establishing this connection comes from the fact that the later Wittgenstein's comments on grammar and meaning stand in opposition to some of the core assumptions of semantic externalism.
Comment: This is a good introduction to Wittgenstein’s post‑Tractatus view on grammar and its relationship to metaphysics. It can also serve as further reading on Wittgenstein’s theory of language, as well as on the contemporary debate on semantic internalism and externalism.
Dobler, Tamara. Ever the Twain shall Meet? Chomsky and Wittgenstein on Linguistic Competence
2013, Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 13(2), pp. 293–311.
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Added by: Veronica CibotaruAbstract:
It is a dominant view in the philosophical literature on the later Wittgenstein that Chomsky’s approach to the investigation of natural language stands in stark contrast to Wittgenstein’s, and that their respective conceptions of language and linguistic understanding are irreconcilable. The aim in this paper is to show that this view is largely incorrect and that the two approaches to language and its use are indeed compatible, notwithstanding their distinctive foci of interest. The author argues that there is a significant correspondence in at least five different areas of their work, and that once we pay attention to these there will be less temptation to see Wittgenstein and Chomsky as enemies.
Comment: This is a useful introduction to both later Wittgenstein’s and Chomsky’s views on language, while also offering a new perspective that can serve as further or specialized reading for students.
Secco, Gisele Dalva, Pereira, Luiz Carlos. Proofs Versus Experiments: Wittgensteinian Themes Surrounding the Four-Color Theorem
2017, in How Colours Matter to Philosophy, Marcos Silva (ed.). Springer, Cham.
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Added by: Fenner Stanley TanswellAbstract:
The Four-Colour Theorem (4CT) proof, presented to the mathematical community in a pair of papers by Appel and Haken in the late 1970's, provoked a series of philosophical debates. Many conceptual points of these disputes still require some elucidation. After a brief presentation of the main ideas of Appel and Haken’s procedure for the proof and a reconstruction of Thomas Tymoczko’s argument for the novelty of 4CT’s proof, we shall formulate some questions regarding the connections between the points raised by Tymoczko and some Wittgensteinian topics in the philosophy of mathematics such as the importance of the surveyability as a criterion for distinguishing mathematical proofs from empirical experiments. Our aim is to show that the “characteristic Wittgensteinian invention” (Mühlhölzer 2006) – the strong distinction between proofs and experiments – can shed some light in the conceptual confusions surrounding the Four-Colour Theorem.Comment (from this Blueprint): Secco and Pereira discuss the famous proof of the Four Colour Theorem, which involved the essential use of a computer to check a huge number of combinations. They look at whether this constitutes a real proof or whether it is more akin to a mathematical experiment, a distinction that they draw from Wittgenstein.
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