Reviews for Religion, truth, and language-games

The average rating for Religion, truth, and language-games based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-15 00:00:00 Matt Tranovich The book left me with very mixed feelings. I enjoyed it very much, but reading it was a struggle. I like most of what it says, but I disagree with the conclusions! It is a journey through the history of religious fundamental questions and controversies, and of the unavoidable clashes between the ways of thinking conditioned by the Sacred and the Profane. This is not a book for the impatient: the narrative is florid, rich in metaphors and in philosophers' jargon; but it is also beautifully written and well-structured. As a notorious fence-sitter, I was not surprised to discover that I often happen to agree and/or sympathise with both sides of the conflict between the sacrum- and the profanum-oriented ways of thinking. I was amazed to find the astonishing similarity in the phrasing used by the historical mystics, quoted by Kołakowski, and the modern particle physicists - more precisely, Brian Cox in his Quantum Universe, which I have read recently. Brian Cox, apparently unaware of this likeness, deprecates any association of quantum physics with mysticism. I guess he did not read many mystics. Kołakowski, on the other hand, probably did not read much about evolution, as evidenced by his argument against one of the radical naturalistic theories of religion, a theory that suggests that religion evolved as a replacement for inborn mechanisms facilitating the survival of (pre-)human communities. I don't think it is a particularly convincing idea myself, but Kołakowski's argument against it is refutable: he thinks that the theory is made invalid by the existence of such religious tenets as the Christian demand to love one's enemy, or the Buddhist contempt for life. But I think there is no contradiction there. The history of evolution, and especially of all the inbreeding facilitated by human culture, is full of cases of very popular evolutionary traits that in time turned to be dysfunctional. Yet the most important part of Kołakowski's conclusions that I don't agree with is his assumption that human dignity cannot be validated within a naturalistic concept of man, or that the lack of faith devoids the perceived world of any true meaning. With this I don't agree on the basis of my own perception of the world, which does not involve any elements of faith in higher powers, but it is not devoid of dignity, meaning, or sense. I believe in no gods, yet I am far from assuming that the nihilistic 'impersonal game of atoms' is all that there is to our lives. What science tells us is that, as a result of that game of atoms, we can (more or less) consciously watch ourselves and the world around us be. We are the eyes of the Universe, for gods' sake. How much more dignity can you want?

Review # 2 was written on 2009-04-09 00:00:00 Bradley Leifermann I bought the older Fontana Masterguides edition of this book in a secondhand bookstore in a remote city of Australia called Tweed Heads, which is in the border of New South Wales & Queensland. What made me buy this is because I know Leszek Kolakowsi is a Polish Marxist philosopher, he authored the reputable 3 volumes of Main Current in Marxism. But to my surprise, in this book he is somewhat is in favor of religion. I haven't really read this book, but I hope someday I will cuz I'm always interested on knowing what how the non-believers percieve religion, God & faith. Sometimes they are more honest & articulate than those religion leaders.