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:
Introduction1 Crisscrossing Landscapes of Religiosities2 “Grasping the Difficulty in Its Depth”: Wittgenstein and Globally Engaged Philosophy3 Wittgenstein and Ascriptions of “Religion”4 The Problem of Evil in Critical and Comparative Philosophy of Religion5 Epistemology and Acknowledging Religious Differences6 Chinese Religious Diversities and Philosophy of Religion7 Baldwin and Wittgenstein on White Supremacism and Religion8 Religious Diversities, Racism, and the Ethics of ClarificationConclusion
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.
