A Confusion of the Spheres Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion

by Schönbaumsfeld, Genia

• ISBN13: 9780199229826
• ISBN10: 0199229821
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-11-17
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Cursory allusions to the relation between Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein are common in the philosophical literature, but there has been little in the way of serious and comprehensive commentary on the relationship of their ideas. Genia Schonbaumsfeld closes this gap and offers new readings of Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's conceptions of philosophy and religious belief. Chapter one documents Kierkegaard's influence on Wittgenstein, while chapters two and three provide trenchant criticisms of two prominent attempts to compare the two thinkers, those by D. Z. Phillips and James Conant. In chapter four, Schonbaumsfeld develops Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's concerted criticisms of the "spaceship view" of religion and defends it against the common charges of "fideism" and "irrationalism". As well as contributing to contemporary debate about how to read Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's work, A Confusion of the Spheres addresses issues which not only concern scholars of Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, but anyone interested in the philosophy of religion, or the ethical aspects of philosophical practice as such.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. viii
Introduction	p. 1
Kierkegaard's Influence on Wittgenstein's Thought	p. 10
Introduction	p. 10
Testimonial Evidence	p. 13
References to Kierkegaard in Wittgenstein's Writings	p. 22
Conclusion	p. 35
The Point of Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's Philosophical Authorship	p. 37
Introduction	p. 37
Parallels in Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy	p. 38
Objections to a 'Symmetrical' Reading	p. 59
Conclusion	p. 83
Sense and Ineffabilia-Kierkegaard and the Tractatus	p. 84
Introduction	p. 84
Conant's Reading of the Tractatus	p. 87
A Critique of Conant's Reading of the Tractatus	p. 93
Interim Conclusions	p. 118
Conant's Reading of the Postscript	p. 119
A Critique of Conant's Reading of the Postscript	p. 123
Interim Conclusions	p. 138
Kierkegaard and the Mysticism of the Tractatus	p. 139
Conclusion	p. 151
A Confusion of the Spheres-Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's Conception of Religious Belief	p. 156
Introduction	p. 156
The 'Target View' of Religion	p. 157
A Critique of the 'Target View': The Kierkegaard-Wittgenstein Conception	p. 159
Objections to the Kierkegaard-Wittgenstein Conception	p. 175
Conclusion	p. 195
Conclusion	p. 197
Select Bibliography	p. 202
Index	p. 211
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