There is a theory that the early Wittgenstein had provided a sophisticated and subtle defence of religion. Particularly individual and private religious experience.

6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

The mystical is beyond words, quite probably ineffable. Wittgensteins theory of the mystical in the Tractatus is that the limits of what can be meaningfully said do not coincide with the limits of what can be thought. On the contrary there are things which ought not be said, or perhaps cannot be meaningfully said but which can nonetheless be shown or thought of, manifesting themselves in a non-linguistic manner.

Thus Wittgensteins view of religious experience, or personal (non-institutional) religion is very similar to the pragmatic approach of William James that concerns its analysis with “fruits not roots”.

The Tractatus explicitly rejects metaphysics as being meaningless. Wittgenstein consistently held this view, yet whilst defending the mystical which he insisted should remain unspoken of. The view of the Tractatus towards religion is that the more one attempts to elucidate religious/mystical experiences into words, the deeper one is entering into making metaphysical propositions, thus the more nonsense one is uttering.

The Logical Positivists, who were broadly speaking fans of the Tractatus, interpreted the anti-metaphysical nature of his work as the basis of an attack on religion. If religious doctrines are explained with reference to metaphysics, then non-empirical religious doctrines can be attacked as being meaningless and nonsensical. But Wittgensteins demarcation between the mystical (that can be known/shown but must remain unsaid) and the logical atomist approach that he championed (that what is said can be analytically de-constructed and atomic facts known) was actually an attempt to disengage from (for example) arguments concerning the existence/non-existence of God. Instead of attempting to solve the question he simply sidestepped it. The question is unresolved and dissolved. Because the experience of God is something that is mystical, something that cannot be spoken of, any attempt to prove or disprove God’s existence was equally meaningless and nonsense.

Wittgensteins theory on religion would appear to be very closely related to his personal experience. Religion is meaningful only in an existential way not in an intellectual way. Thus he attempts to shield it from the pitfalls of metaphysics (encouraging silence instead) and from the attacks of logical positivism.

The later Wittgenstein, as emerging from Philosophical Investigations maintains many of his earlier themes. Religion as an existential and private enterprise remains important to him, and likewise Metaphysics remains nonsense and should be discarded by Philosophy.

But the later Wittgenstein adds a technical distinction to the term nonsense, and seems to apply it towards metaphysics. Instead of nonsense, as in gobbledook or unintelligible rubbish, he begins to talk of non-sense as in not-sense. Here he begins to expound his language-games theory. Metaphysics instead of being meaningless nonsense, i.e. something that means nothing, becomes instead meaningful non-sense, i.e. something that means something outside of the sense language game.

Metaphysics is nonsense when judged by the criteria of the critico-rationalist language game. But it remains perfectly meaningful within the context of the metaphysics language game. The immunity from rational criticism that he once offered to mysticism now applies to other forms of language. The later Wittgenstein sought to analyse the content of these language games and no longer to judge their value. The key to this volte face is his rejection of the picture idea theory of words and his development of the ‘meaning=use’ theory. (More of which in the next post).