Within Tractatus and other works related to Wittgenstein's early philosophy, the concept of "nonsense" is a central one and of great importancem which was the subject of several interpretations. Among them, traditional (metaphysical) interpretation is a lasting one which P.M.S. Hacker, G.E.M. Anscombe ...
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Within Tractatus and other works related to Wittgenstein's early philosophy, the concept of "nonsense" is a central one and of great importancem which was the subject of several interpretations. Among them, traditional (metaphysical) interpretation is a lasting one which P.M.S. Hacker, G.E.M. Anscombe and Hans-Johann Glock are its major figures. According to this interpretation, Wittgenstein maintains that there are a kind of truth which are "ineffable", including ethical and religious truths. Also, there are commentators who has used this kind of truth to conclude that Wittgenstein could (or should) be considered as continuing the negative theology tradition.In this paper, after articulation of traditional interpretation, the relation between Wittgenstein and negative theology will be studied. In the end, we will pose some critical remarks to show that, despite some priliminary similarities, not only Wittgenstein's philosophy has nothing to do with negative theology, but it is in a totally different direction than negative theology, even against it.
Use theory of meaning is an important theory in the realm of philosophy of language. According to this theory meaning of an expression is nothing but its use in the language. Meaning is a social fact that appears in a language game. So there is no room for private language. In any forms of life there ...
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Use theory of meaning is an important theory in the realm of philosophy of language. According to this theory meaning of an expression is nothing but its use in the language. Meaning is a social fact that appears in a language game. So there is no room for private language. In any forms of life there are unwritten rules that the contributors of that form of life follow them and give the words meaning. Thus one expression may find different meanings in different contexts in a way that these meanings don’t have any essential common core but shaping a meaning spectrum. Use theory of meaning has a huge influence on two subjects which are the argumentation about the religious beliefs and religious pluralism. Using this theory one should accept that God has different meaning for a theist and an atheist. A theist regards this word as a word denoting a unique real being but an atheist regards this word as a universal word which may have real extension or not. So an atheist find himself justified in believing the need of argument for the existence of God. The advocates of religious pluralism like John Hick and Mark Heim by applying use theory of meaning find themselves justified in accepting religious pluralism as a true theory.