Rethinking Philosophy of Religion with Wittgenstein -- on the metaphor of landscapes

My new book, Rethinking Philosophy of Religion with Wittgenstein, is coming out shortly, so over the next few weeks, I will be posting here a little bit about the book. 

Today, I want to write about a metaphor I use in the book, juxtaposing religious landscapes in order to see deeply what is there and to shift one's perspective so as to see what otherwise may be missed. I draw the metaphor from a remark Wittgenstein makes in the preface to Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein writes of the impossibility of putting the various remarks that are collected in the book into some sort of unified structure:

After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into such a whole, I realized that I should never succeed. The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks; my thoughts soon grew feeble if I tried to force them along a single track against their natural inclination. -- And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation. For it compels us to travel criss-cross in every direction over a wide field of thought. -- The philosophical remarks in this book are, as it were, a number of sketches of landscapes which were made in the course of these long and meandering journeys. (PI, Preface - trans. by Ancombe, Hacker, and Schulte)

"The very nature of the investigation" is related to why it proved impossible for Wittgenstein to put the remarks into some sort of "single track." His prefatory remarks suggest that a linear presentation of the ideas of the Investigations would somehow misrepresent or give only a partial representation of those philosophical insights. 

View of the landscape around the village of Xizhou (Yunnan Province, China)

When one approaches philosophy of religion with an eye to religious diversities, this metaphor of philosophical investigation as sketching and juxtaposing landscapes directs one's attention, first, to the background contexts of the things people say or do in connection with religions. The sorts of phenomena that one might try to contextualize within a landscape could include not just claims expressing belief in some sort of ultimacy or ethical value (and arguments used to advance such beliefs or values) but also varied aspects of religious practice or identification. For example, Wittgenstein is often keen to point out that religious beliefs and practices should be interpreted in a way that recognizes how they are interconnected with a whole way of life rather than as discrete aspects of a person's thinking or acting.

A second way of thinking about landscapes of religiosity includes contexts in which various people may label something as being or not being a religion. A key example in the book is when Confucianism is classified as/as-not a religion, but ascription of religion-status happens frequently in polemical discourse in connection with political views and actions. If one's commitment to a political party or goal is labeled as religious, this is frequently a way of saying that that commitment is beyond reasoning. This is not to say that religious and political commitments do not overlap. Clearly, they do in some cases (e.g., Christian nationalism), but classifying an opponent's view as "religious" can be also an indirect way of saying the view is irrational or unworthy of rational consideration. Classifications of Confucianism as a religion have served a number of different purposes. (On this, Anna Sun's book, Confucianism as a World Religion, is indispensable.)

View of Shanghai Confucian Temple

A third way in which the metaphor may be helpful is in drawing one's attention to ways in which religions are made manifest in contexts of power  (e.g., ideologies or institutions of state atheism, secularism, or white supremacism). These landscape features can circumscribe possible expressions of religions in their contexts. Sometimes, this is because a governmental system has an operating conception of religion, which then sets boundaries prescriptively for what religions may be (e.g., in China, we might consider the divide between private and public, the construction of religious sites, the training of religious clergy, the viability of religious practices in public, the permissible forms of religious education, and so on). In the case of the ideology of white supremacism, Christians have overtly supported the ideology through, for example, Biblical arguments for racism, segregation, or enslavement. Even white Christians who may not support white supremacism overtly may be reluctant to challenge it openly lest they lose privileges that come with compliance (consider, for example, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s calling out white Protestant ministers in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail").

It's important to keep in mind that landscapes function not at three discrete levels but that they interact with each other. Contexts of ascription of religion-status as well as contexts of power can influence what sorts of phenomena relating to religion might be the object of one's investigations. For example, the book explores two points of focus--the very idea of philosophy of religion in China and the intertwining of religion and racism in the United States; out of this juxtaposition, new insights about one focus may arise from examination of the other. In my next post, I'll elaborate on how Wittgenstein's philosophy is helpful for noticing easily overlooked aspects of these two points of focus.

Floral wreath presented at the Martin Luther King Memorial, Washington, DC 

(60th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom)

Rethinking Philosophy of Religion with Wittgenstein

In June, my new book, Rethinking Philosophy of Religion with Wittgenstein: Religious Diversities and Racism, will be published with Bloomsbury. It is part of the book series Expanding Philosophy of Religion, which is edited by J. Aaron Simmons and Kevin Schilbrack. Here is the table of contents: 

Introduction

1 Crisscrossing Landscapes of Religiosities

2 “Grasping the Difficulty in Its Depth”: Wittgenstein and Globally Engaged Philosophy

3 Wittgenstein and Ascriptions of “Religion”

4 The Problem of Evil in Critical and Comparative Philosophy of Religion

5 Epistemology and Acknowledging Religious Differences

6 Chinese Religious Diversities and Philosophy of Religion

7 Baldwin and Wittgenstein on White Supremacism and Religion

8 Religious Diversities, Racism, and the Ethics of Clarification

Conclusion

Some of these chapters were previously published (2, 3, and 7), but they've been adapted somewhat to explicitly connect with the themes of the book (especially Chapters 2 & 3).

Talking with someone a few days ago, I said that the book began in many ways with reading and rereading works like the "Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough" (RFGB), the "Lectures on Religious Belief" (LRB), Philosophical Investigations (PI), and On Certainty (OC) while living and teaching in China and also when finding myself unexpectedly back in the US during the Covid pandemic. The insights that I gained from studying the RFGB, especially concerning ritual practice and what is "natural," helped me to reframe how I thought about the possibilities of engaging with religious traditions, particularly in China. On top of that, rereading the PI and OC in these contexts drew my attention to various sorts of problems concerning language, understanding, and background conditions to our epistemic endeavors. This is turn was helpful for thinking about secularism in China (and how it is different from forms of secularism linked with liberal democracies) and the interconnections between some forms of religiosity in the US and the ideology of white supremacism.

Perhaps the core motivation for the book is the idea that reading Wittgenstein's works while thinking through a particular range of philosophical problems can provide fresh insights into those problems, how one is framing them, or what one expects philosophy itself to do. This "dialogical" way of reading could be performed with any of a number of problems. (For example, these days I'm thinking about technology and ethics.) But the book itself is about philosophy of religion and how it might be transformed by taking seriously insights that come from Wittgenstein's writings. This in turn may lead one to be attentive to one's social contexts and what people do with "religion." (I put "religion" in quotes to signal that Wittgenstein's philosophy could be taken to suggest that critical investigation into the uses and constructions of a term that gives rise to philosophical problems is itself something that can be part of philosophy.)  As I put it in the Introduction:

    Wittgenstein describes his approach to philosophy in Culture and Value this way: “Work on philosophy—like work in architecture in many respects—is really more work on oneself. On one’s own conception. On how one sees things. (And what one expects of them.)” (Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 24). This book contends that Wittgenstein’s way of approaching philosophy not only leads to shifting one’s theoretical perspective but also has ethical entailments and that these entailments are relevant to the ways scholars interpret forms of religiosity. Work on one’s conceptions having to do with religiosities, on one’s purposes in doing philosophy, or on ways of thinking that are prevalent within one’s social contexts—including ideologies of race and religion—is also work that aims to unravel the conceptual knots that may make it difficult for people to see and understand one another and to imagine communities that acknowledge diversities. (RPRWW: Introduction, p. 17)

In the coming weeks, I'll be posting a little about the book. Next time, I'll post something about the theme of "landscapes" and how it is useful for considering diverse contexts and forms of religiosity.

Family Resemblances and Political Movements

Pulpit at the Washington National Cathedral

I find that Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblances is most apt when thinking about things that are socially constructed. So, when thinking about fascism, my tendency is to think of it as a family resemblance term, rather than a term with necessary and sufficient conditions. According to this way of thinking, one doesn’t search for identical features between different instances but instead one looks for links between aspects of possible cases. 

Doing a little looking around, I see that Dimitris Gakis has written an insightful chapter, "Wittgenstein’s 'Family Resemblances' and Their Political Potential," on this topic, and more, in the recent collection Wittgenstein and Democratic Politics, edited by Lotar Rasiński, Anat Biletzki, Leszek Koczanowicz, Alois Pichler, and Thomas Wallgren (Routledge 2024). At one point in the chapter, Gakis writes: "Fascism, viewed as a family‑resemblance concept, i.e. as dynamic and open‑ended, is not a historical relic or a reified, historically limited, ideal type to which today’s reality either conforms or not, but a complex and diverse, continuously developing living reality that many experience (and understand as such) first‑hand today." (Gakis 2024, 187)

This sort of approach to thinking about fascism is sensitive to differences small and large between different instances; however, what is true of one historical form of fascism will not necessarily be true of a new instance. A key difficulty in this is that if one labels Trumpism as a form of fascism, one thereby knows some *possibilities* for the future for which we need to prepare ourselves, not necessarily that there will be some sort of historical repetition of a prototype (as, say, with a Spenglerian conception of history). But two features of Trumpism that are abundantly clear are its cruelty and cronyism. Directly or indirectly, these features are already leading to considerable fear and suffering.

But we can still prepare for these uncertain times. To that end, grounding oneself psychologically, ethically, and emotionally may be helpful. For me, among other things, this means I am listening a lot to John Coltrane these days and writing.

John Coltrane at the Village Vanguard, "Spiritual" (1961)

Like a great many people, I was struck by Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon last week (was it just last week!?). I found it to be grounding in its way. It was a heartening instance of moral and spiritual call, even if it could not and would not be heard by its intended audience. I hope her appeal for mercy will inspire others to make their own appeals for mercy as well as empathy and humaneness. 

Bishop Mariann Budde's Sermon at the Washington National Cathedral on 1/21/25

It is necessary to reach deep into our wells of empathy and centeredness if we are going to be able to face the cruelty emerging in Washington and around the country. While I have no illusions about the efficacy of empathetic speech when hearts have been “hardened,” to use what seems perhaps an apt Biblical expression, they are not the only audiences out there. There are significant numbers of people who are scared by cruel power, who are depressed in the face of it, or who feel it is pointless to resist tyranny. Budde’s plea shows it is not pointless. 

Living in concert with one’s higher values and aspirations and in solidarity with those who are vulnerable is what makes one truly free. Acts of daring love are needed to make our society worth living in and, if one were to speak as a Christian, churches worth supporting.

Whatever movements for freedom and resistance to cruelty are called for in these Trumpist times, they too will bear family resemblances to movements of the past. We may take inspiration from figures like John Lewis, Ella Baker, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but our times call for new artists, leaders, and critics—and ordinary people just trying to live lives of decency—who will offer their own improvisational variations on tactics and strategies of the past. In anticipating the democratic movements of near future, attending to the patterns of the past may help us to have an ear for where, when, and how to act.

Detail of the "Human Rights Half Boss" at the Washington National Cathedral.

The sign for this small sculpted piece included this passage from Amos 5:24: 

"Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream."

Reference

Gakis, Dimitris. 2024. "Wittgenstein’s 'Family Resemblances' and Their Political Potential," in Lotar Rasiński, Anat Biletzki, Leszek Koczanowicz, Alois Pichler, and Thomas Wallgren, eds, Wittgenstein and Democratic Politics, New York: Routledge.

"In Dialogue with Humanity"

This semester, I am teaching a required course of all undergraduates at CUHK-Shenzhen, called "In Dialogue with Humanity." It's basically a global core texts course, with readings such as Plato's Symposium, Biblical texts such as Genesis and the Gospel of Mark, the Analects, the Zhuangzi, Sura 2 from the Qur'an, the Heart Sutra, Adam Smith and Karl Marx (among others). From time to time, I've also added other texts such as Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, the Bhagavad-Gita, Simone De Beauvoir's The Second Sex, and Elie Wiesel's Night to the itinerary. In moving from text to text from week to week, the course never stays put for very long. 

In many ways, the course is like one of those epic trips you might go on where you stay just a night or two in a variety of different cities or towns. While you don't get the benefit of lingering in one place for an extended time (which is often the way I prefer to travel), you have a different sort of travel experience, one of testing your skills as a traveler (did you pack efficiently? did you remember all your chargers?) and your ability to make sense of a place and what you are looking for in your stay. On such trips, it is good also to be flexible and go with the flow. You might not get to see and do everything you'd like, but if you're open to it, you might get to glimpse a window into a historical period or event, perhaps an expansion of your concept of what it is to be human, that you had no idea about prior to the journey.

In many ways, the course is an introductory course in cross-cultural textual hermeneutics. How does one approach so many different texts that each come from distinct historical periods and cultural locations? What background knowledge do you need to have before attempting to read one of these texts?

The course is structured in a discussion oriented way (hence the importance of "dialogue" being in the title of the course). We spend twice as much time in "tutorial"--think discussion section in the US--as we do in lecture. (Even in lecture, I prefer to incorporate discussion among students and with me; I suppose I'll always be a product of my experiences at Occidental College, where discussion oriented class time was more or less the norm.) The course is modeled on the course of the same name offered at our parent campus in Hong Kong. So, discussion and student leadership of exploration of the texts is built into the design of the course. 

I conceive of my own role in this course as being a facilitator of student investigation of the texts. I'm no specialist, not on these texts texts at least (see Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations). The point is not to completely understand these texts (whatever that might mean), but to gain confidence in struggling with them and in talking with classmates about them. Learning to tolerate uncertainty--perhaps in tune with Zhuangzi--in the process of learning how to read carefully and critically is central to the spirit of the course. 

Influential Books

Photo of a bust of Socrates at the library at Trinity College Dublin

Recently on Bluesky, I did one of those things where people post about things (in this case, books) that have “influenced them or stayed with them.” I enjoyed doing it because it was also an occasion to think a little about my intellectual development. It occured to me that the list would have been quite different if I had compiled it as an undergraduate or graduate student. Likewise, should I live so long, my list in another decade or two might look quite different. This list speaks ultimately to my thinking and my library today.

Aside from selecting which books have influenced you, it’s challenging to consider what to leave out. There are many other books that didn’t make the list below but that also have been important to me. I arbitrarily excluded Biblical texts and novels. Some of these probably should be on the list, but you have to make judgment calls when a list is limited to 20 items, which is probably too long anyway for readers on social media!

For what it's worth, I don't interpret "influence" as suggesting that I take myself to understand the significance of these works (whatever that might mean) and that this is what I carry with me. Instead, what I mean is that I have read these books, and the books provoked me in some way that did not fade over time. In different ways, each of these books remains present to my thinking. 

Here's my list. (I'm leaving out publication information because with lots of these books, there are multiple editions and translations.)

1. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

2. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations

3. Collingwood, R. G., The Principles of Art 

4. The Zhuangzi 

5. Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation

6. Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius

7. Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason

8. Diamond, Cora, The Realistic Spirit

9. Kierkegaard, Søren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript

10. Horwich, Paul, Truth

11. Putnam, Hilary, Renewing Philosophy

12. Smart, Ninian, Dimensions of the Sacred

13. Asad, Talal, Genealogies of Religion

14. Sells, Michael, Mystical Languages of Unsaying

15. Masuzawa, Tomoko, The Invention of World Religions

16. Popkin, Richard, The History of Scepticism

17. The Analects

18. Appiah, Kwame Anthony, Cosmopolitanism

19. Yang, Fenggang, Religion in China

20. Baldwin, James, The Fire Next Time

Not a big surprise that Wittgenstein looms large over my list, but I tried to contain it as much as possible. (So, other works of Wittgenstein's and Wittgenstein interpretation were left off the list.) Other books in the list reflect either Wittgenstein-adjacent philosophy, existential contemplation, theology, and/or historical and historiographical work in philosophy and religious studies.

Many books were left on the shelf, as it were. My extended list also included these books -- 

Alston, William, Perceiving God

Ames, Roger, Confucian Role Ethics

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

Augustine, Confessions

Beauvoir, Simone de, The Second Sex

Clayton, John, Religions, Reasons, and Gods (left off the list because I played a role in preparing the posthumous manuscript for publication).

Davidson, Donald, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation

Dennett, Daniel, Consciousness Explained

Goldman, Alvin, Epistemology and Cognition

Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy as a Way of Life

Hume, David, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Johnson, Ian, The Souls of China

Montaigne, Michel de, Apology for Raymond Sebond

Nagel, Thomas, The View from Nowhere

Neville, Robert, The Truth of Broken Symbols

Nietzsche, Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morals 

Phillips, D. Z., Wittgenstein and Religion

Plato, Republic

Putnam, Hilary, Realism with a Human Face

Quine, W. V. O., Word and Object

Sartre, Jean-Paul, No Exit

Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism

Taylor, Charles, The Ethics of Authenticity

Tillich, Paul, The Courage to Be

Wiesel, Elie, Night

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty

The Xunzi

It also occurred to me when making the list that many of the works that had the most influence on me have been articles, and that this book-focused portrait of intellectual influence completely ignores that dimension. Maybe one day I will write up a sequel on 20 or so articles that have likewise influenced my thinking.