Dr. David Egan – Wittgenstein and the Religious Point of View

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) once remarked to a friend: “I am not a religious man, but I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.” This remark might surprise someone who has struggled through Wittgenstein’s philosophical writings. His principal concerns seem to be logic and language and he writes with austere analytical precision. And yet Wittgenstein’s more private reflections–recorded in diaries and from conversations with friends–reveal a thinker more concerned with the spirit in which he conducts his investigations than in their result. This presentation will try to connect these two aspects of Wittgenstein–the analytic philosopher concerned with logic and language and the spiritual aspirations of a man who claimed not to be religious but to look on things from a religious point of view–with a particular focus on the later philosophy that finds its fullest expression in the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953). The talk will show why Wittgenstein’s seemingly abstract philosophical preoccupations can be understood as carrying deep spiritual significance.

DAVID EGAN is assistant professor of philosophy at Koç University in Istanbul. He earned his DPhil in philosophy from Oxford University and has also taught at a number of institutions in the UK, USA, and Canada. He is the author of The Pursuit of an Authentic Philosophy: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and the Everyday (Oxford University Press, 2019) and is currently working on a book about humans and animals.