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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Two
Spring 2003
Thought, Belief, and Instinct
- Page 4
by Albert Min
In order to fully address the limitations of the two accounts of truth described above, we must first turn to the causal problem. To address the causal problem of desire we must turn to Wittgenstein's philosophical views on religion as interpreted by Brian Clack in An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Religion . Clack describes Wittgenstein's analysis of belief in this way: "The language of religion causes much perplexity because its belief-statements do not function as 'normal' beliefs, but are instead the linguistic component of a particular mode of living and cannot meaningfully be divorced from its context of conduct" (71). In his analysis, Wittgenstein is focusing on the linguistic function of statements about religious beliefs. The phrase "normal beliefs" refers to beliefs about the existence or nonexistence of objects. A statement like "I believe in God" is not a statement about whether some object (God) exists or not. It functions as an expression about the way the believer sees the world ("mode of living") and consequently acts ("context of conduct"). We would say that there is a huge difference between the speaker of the first statement and one who says, "I'm not sure, maybe"; whereas, we would say that there is little difference between one who says, "There's a rabbit in the distance," and one who says, "I'm not sure, maybe." In the first two statements, the second speaker vacillates on the issue of an entire way of life, while the latter two statements are evidence of only a slight disagreement about the accuracy of a person's judgment regarding a simple fact.
At first glance, then, Wittgenstein seems to be using a similar methodology as that proposed by Rabinow in the quote above. The truth of belief-statements is cashed out in terms of their social and political values. Here, "conduct" refers to the social value, and "mode of living" has a political value in determining the conduct. Rabinow also describes truth as being "linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it" (240). Here, the phrase "regime of truth" mentioned above is appropriate. The relationship is between truth and the "systems of power" which extend their power through the use of truth. The believers described above extend the power of their ways of seeing the world or modes of living through their conduct. Furthermore, and more importantly, both Wittgenstein and Rabinow are interested in the active role of truth. That is, they are interested in giving an account truth that captures truth as a functioning component in the believers' lives and society.
However, unlike Rabinow, Wittgenstein does not stop there. He is able to offer an explanation for the causes of truth. Yet there are objections to his views regarding belief-statements; in particular, to his analysis of belief-statements through their expressive function as irreducibly meaningful to believers. The contentions of one of Wittgenstein's objectors, for instance, "centres on what he sees as the 'compartmentalisation' of social life entailed by talking of institutions and practices as distinctive language-games" (Clack 85). In this objection religion is designated as a "language-game." The objection is that this view gives religion, among other "institutions and practices" that fall under language-games, the right to be isolated from criticism by anyone who is not a believer. Within this understanding of Wittgenstein, only those involved in a mode of living could rightfully understand and criticize that mode of living. The answer to this objection lies in a further specification of language-games that Clack describes: "Language-games seem, rather, to be quite small-scale units of language-usage which occur in various human contexts" (87). This means that the term language-games refers to the methodology that Wittgenstein uses to analyze religious belief-statements. It does not, however, refer to the whole category of religion. Religion, or any large-scale language system built around irreducible expressions involved with ways of living, therefore, is not an isolated or compartmentalized institution. Categories such as religion do not have to be seen as generating statements that cannot have meaning outside their respective categories. Wittgenstein implies that belief-statements made by believers can have meaning to those that do not believe so that the believers, and the respective categories they work within, are not isolated from each other. This question of isolation or compartmentalization seems to be problematic for Rabinow's methodology.
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