Language Games Flashcards
Strengths
Recognises the value of religious language
Negates need to distinguish cognitive and not uses if language with the purpose of which the language serves.
Policies boundaries between uses of language preventing confusion
It is possible to defend religious language within a religious form of life.
Weaknesses
No criteria for objective truths outside of language games leading to relativism
Those outside the language game will not understand it
As the rules occur from a way of life it is hard to see how they can change
Some language is not fixated with a form of life but transcendent and have an absolute meaning.
Wittgenstein
Words have different meanings when in different contexts. These contexts are ‘forms of life’
If the words are mixed up in different contexts it creates confusion so he thought that it was the point of philosophy to prevent confusion.
When we see how language is being used in a certain context we have detected the language Game
A form of life provides the context in which words are used.
“This is an electron” only makes sense when in discussion with those who know its meaning.
Religious beliefs and language are not scientific hypotheses. They are ways of regulating life by relating to realities science couldn’t appreciate
Rejects both cognitive and non cognitive use of religious language.
“God is love” this is not talking about the nature of God but testing how the word God is used within a religious Context. Outside of this context the language seems empty.
