Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T13:59:52.723Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The metaphysics of belief: a Wittgenstein and Collingwood convergence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2016

JAMES E. GILMAN
JAMES E. GILMAN*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Religion, Mary Baldwin University, Frederick & New Sts., Staunton, Virginia 24401, USA
*
e-mail: jegilman@marybaldwin.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article I make plausible ‘a metaphysics of belief’ by showing how Collingwood's metaphysics of absolute presuppositions helps us understand various comments and fragments by Wittgenstein regarding ‘the metaphysical subject’. For both, metaphysical beliefs are presuppositional; as such, they constitute twin foci – a terminus ad quem and a terminus a quo – without which the activity of thinking rationally, scientifically, and morally is impossible. Finally, although for both philosophers metaphysical beliefs are not susceptible to conventional modes of explanation, justification, and verification, both seem to suggest in various ways that metaphysical beliefs are nevertheless susceptible to a certain kind of ‘practical’ justification.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 497 - 520
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Clack, Brian (1999) An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).Google Scholar
Collingwood, R. G. (1939/1978) An Autobiography (Oxford: Oxford).Google Scholar
Collingwood, R. G. (1940/1970) An Essay on Metaphysics (Chicago IL: Henry Regnery Co., in cooperation with Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Collingwood, R. G. (1940) ‘Fascism and Nazism’, Philosophy, 15, 168–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collingwood, R. G. (1942) The New Leviathan (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Connelly, James et al. (2014) R. G. Collingwood: A Research Companion (London: Bloomsbury Academic).Google Scholar
D'Oro’, Guiseppina (2015) ‘Unlikely bedfellows: Collingwood, Carnap, and the internal/external distinction’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23, 802–817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilman, James E. (2007) Faith, Reason, and Compassion: A Philosophy of the Christian Faith (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield).Google Scholar
Grayling, A. C. (1988) Wittgenstein (New York: Oxford).Google Scholar
Klagge, James (2010) Wittgenstein in Exile (Cambridge MA: MIT).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malcolm, Norman (1994) Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Mitchell, Basil (1973) The Justification of Religious Belief (New York: Seabury).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monk, Ray (1990) Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (New York: Free Press, Macmillan).Google Scholar
Rhees, Rush (ed.) (1981) Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1922) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Pears, D. F. & McGuiness, B. F. (trs) (London: Routledge).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953) Philosophical Investigations, Anscombe, G. E. M. (tr.) (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1964) Philosophical Remarks, Rhees, Rush (ed.) (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969) On Certainty, Anscombe, G. E. M. & von Wright, G. H. (eds), Paul, Denis & Anscombe, G. E. M. (trs) (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1972) Lectures and Conversations: On Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, Barrett, Cyril (ed.) (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1956/1978) Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, von Wright, G. H., Rhees, R., & Anscombe, G. E. M. (eds) (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980) Culture and Value, von Wright, G. H. et al. (eds), Peter Winch, (tr.) (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar