Religious Language -Unit 4.3 Language Games

Key Words  - 

• Form of life.

• Language Game Theory

• Picture theory of Language

• Function theory of lanuage

• the coherence theory of truth.

• Realism 

• Anti-realism

• cognitive

• non-cognitive

• familienahnlichkeit "family resemblence"

• look and see

Key Scholars

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951)

D Z Phillips (1934CE– 2006CE)

Alfred J. Ayer (1910 – 1989)

Key Texts

Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Context

• Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early work had argued that the purpose of language was to picture the world. Words represented objects that could be found.

• However, he became disillusioned with this idea as too narrow, meaning that any language that cannot be verified or falsified is meaningless.

• Wittgenstein’s later work proposed that the meaning of a word can be found in its function in the language.

• Language can be used for a variety of different purposes including to thank, curse, greet, command, joke and exclaim. None of these purposes can be verified, yet all are meaningful if we understand their function.

• Like a full toolbox, the function of words is as varied as the function of tools. They all do different things.

• We must ‘look and see’ how a word is used to understand its meaning.

• Each function of language is a different language game or activity within a form of life.

• Forms of life are contingent upon culture and context.

• ‘Builders language’ is a primitive game of labelling items such as ‘pillars’, ‘risers’, or ‘beams; that builder A calls for and builder B brings out. The meaning of these words is specific to the form of life of a builder.

• All humans are immersed in different forms of life. When immersed in a form of life, you will understand its rules, and the language will be meaningful.

• A painting is a patchwork of colour on canvas, the arrangement of colours and shapes and image gives them meaning; the same is true of sounds. They mean something because we have learned to understand their use in context.

• Language games are a group activity, the rules must be learned and understood by others.

• Some language games may be non-cognitive so they cannot be verified or falsified. They still have meaning provided there are others in the game.

• Language games show a ‘familienahnlichkeit’ (family resemblance) as there are features that they have in common and an overlapping relationship, but they are not identical.

• Just as a chess game cannot be challenged with the rules of tennis, it is not legitimate to challenge the rules of religious language with the language of science or logical positivism.

• Religious language is meaningful according to the coherence theory of truth. This is an anti-realist position. It is meaningful because it fits with religious people’s understanding of the world and helps them make sense of it.

Language Game Theory 

• Wittgenstein argued that language worked like games in that it follows different rules in different contexts. He called these sets of rules for language ‘Lebensforms’.

• Wittgenstein argued religious language in a religious context has meaning because it shapes our view of the world 

Key Quotes

• ‘The speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.’ (Wittgenstein)

• ‘Consider... the proceedings that we call ‘games’. I mean board games, card-games, Olympic games and so on. What is common to them all? ...If you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships and a whole series of them at that. (Wittgenstein)

Possible Exam Questions

Section A

1. Examine ideas about language games.

2. Assess the vto religious language.

Section B

3a Clarify the ideas illustrated in this passage about.

3b Analyse the implications for religious language of .

Section C

Evaluate the view that religious language is meaningful is understood correctly.