Lectures on Religious Belief

Abstract

In the last two chapters we have considered critically how religion appeared to Wittgenstein in the light firstly of the Tractatus, which was published in 1921, and secondly of the empiricist verificationism with which he seems to have sympathised during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Now we must turn to such evidence as we have concerning the views on religion which he held in the light of his late philosophy. This evidence consists mainly of notes taken by students who attended lectures on religious belief which he gave in Cambridge during 1938. Cyril Barrett, who compiled and published them in a volume entitled Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief Oxford, 1966), is careful to emphasise in his preface that they are not Wittgenstein’s own lecture notes, that he neither now nor checked them, and that he might not have approved of their publication in the present form. However, those who book them down were amongst Wittgenstein’s most ardent disciples and we may safely assume that they have provided a faithful record of his teaching.