To the object of our discussion, Christian discourse about God as we have determined it in the preceding chapter, we will be applying primarily two philosophical methods – linguistic analysis as elaborated by Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Philosophical Investigations, and phenomenological ‘reduction’ as developed by Edmund Husserl. Given the intricacy of these two methods we need first to explain the methods themselves and call attention both to their potential and to the limits of their specific usefulness for an analysis of the Christian discourse about God.

To speak about Wittgenstein and his philosophy means to speak about speech, about the philosophy of language, and specifically about linguistic analysis — a philosophical movement that has profoundly conditioned today’s philosophical climate. At the same time, to speak about linguistic analysis as a philosophical ‘method’ means to speak principally of Wittgenstein. To be sure, not all of the philosophers who practice linguistic analysis follow Wittgenstein strictly. An approach or style closely resembling Wittgenstein’s would be difficult indeed, given the elasticity and non-systematic character of Wittgenstein’s second period of philosophical development. However all the philosophers who engage in linguistic analysis have come under the influence of Wittgenstein in one way or another: the Vienna Circle and Neopositivism in general were inspired by the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The "Common Language Philosophy" of Ryle, Austin, and others was at least in part stimulated by Wittgenstein’s manuscripts, the "Blue Book" and the "Brown Book", which circulated among Cambridge and Oxford students during the 1930’s and 40’s. All of the current research and publications in the field of linguistic analysis stand under the influence of the Philosophical Investigations.

As we shall see, the analytical method of this work of Wittgenstein’s second period is not a part of a philosophical system; indeed its method is resoundingly anti-systematic. Moreover the method itself is quite complex, as we also shall see.

Even generally speaking, one does not truly comprehend a method unless one knows how it relates not just to one single area or field but to a variety of fields. This general rule becomes especially true in the case of the analytical method of the Philosophical Investigations. Since we will be making frequent use of this method during the course of our analysis of the way in which Christians speak about God (indeed, we have employed it already in Chapter One), we need to examine that method in some detail. This obliges us also to look, if only briefly, at the systematic philosophy of Wittgenstein’s earlier period, that of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

One cannot grasp the Philosophical Investigations without a thoroughgoing familiarity with the Tractatus. Not only is there a certain continuity between the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations, but even more importantly the opinions discussed, attacked and refuted in the Philosophical Investigations are, with some exceptions, exactly those expounded by the younger Wittgenstein in the Tractatus.1

The argumentation of the Tractatus is closely connected with not only its contents, but also its structure.2 The point of departure for a reading of the Tractatus is the proposition which Wittgenstein puts forth in the Preface: "That which can be said, can be said clearly." In other words, the Tractatus assumes that human language is meaningful. The fundamental thesis of the Tractatus is that a proposition is meaningful only if its meaning has been fully determined. A reading of the work should thus begin with Thesis.3 Everything which comes before and after is an articulation of the presuppositions that one must necessarily make if the proposition is to have a determinate significance.3 These necessary conditions for the possibility of a proposition’s determinate significance include:

a) The foundations of language are the ’atomic propositions’, which are not at all dependent upon one another and are joined solely by means of external or extrinsic relations in an extensional logic.

b) Assuming a realistic interpretation of language, language then has a refigurative function with respect to reality: the proposition must be a picture of a fact.

c) So as to guarantee this refigurative function to the atomic propositions, which are the foundation of the significance of speech, reality must be composed of ‘atomic facts’, that are themselves the conjunctions of simple objects. In other words one presupposes an atomistic ontology.

Wittgenstein never gives an example of these propositions or of these atomic facts: they are not empirical data but are as it were a "transcendental condition" for the possibility of making a significant proposition, and they form part of that which cannot be said but which shows itself.

The doctrine of "that which cannot be said but which shows itself" is essential to the Tractatus. It applies not only to Wittgenstein’s famous ‘mystical’ (6.522), to values and ethics (6.43), and the ‘transcendental subject’ (5.62-5.641), but to the whole primordial, elemental structure of reality and of language itself (3.22-3.23, 3.262), to the structure of the logical picture and of the proposition, the form of the refiguration, the logical form (4.022, 4.121), the internal and formal relations, the formal concepts (4.122-4.126), and even to the meaning and truth of the singular picture of the singular proposition, and to the very existence of the elementary propositions (5.5562-5.5571). This distinction between that which can be spoken, and that which cannot be spoken but which show, revives a central theme of transcendental philosophy: this corresponds to the Kantian division between the object of the intelligence ("Gegenstand der Verstandserkenntnis), i.e., the domain of the ‘pure reason’ on the one hand, and the idea of the reason, i.e., the domain of the ‘practical reason’, on the other. In the Tractatus this latter in fact comprehends the ultimate structure of the universe, the transcendental subject, ethics and the beyond.

In recent years the resurgence of interest in the relations between logic and ontology has brought a renewed attention to the Tractatus. But quite apart from this, the Tractatus’ speculations on linguistic analysis, logic, ontology, and epistemology have secured it the reputation of a masterwork of analysis.

For an analysis of religious language the approach expounded in the Tractatus can be employed in the sense of a negative and apophatic theology: the specific significance of religious language cannot be said but rather shows itself. This echoes an ancient theme in both philosophy and theology, very evident in the whole of the neoplatonic movement. One must however take pains not to reduce all that shows but cannot be stated to the ‘mystical’ and then that to ‘God’. In any case one needs to respect the ‘elucidations’ ("Erläuterungen") which Wittgenstein continually made in the Tractatus.4 And obviously an ontology which is exclusively atomistic is unacceptable — and Wittgenstein himself, precisely by virtue of the doctrine of that which cannot be said but which rather shows itself, does not propose it. For our own inquiry however the Philosophical Investigations of Wittgenstein’s second period are more significant.

The philosophy which emerges in this later period is profoundly and deliberately nonsystematic, even anti-systematic, to such a degree that it is erroneous to speak, for example, of a ‘philosophy of language games’. Thus the following observations do not in any way constitute the central ‘theses’ of the philosophy of Wittgenstein’s latter period. They serve solely as points of orientation.

The meaning of linguistic expressions does not consist in their being names of real things, or of sense impressions, or of mental images, or of ideas or of contents or of anything.5 "Naming’ is a special linguistic game, often used as a preparation for the use of words within a determined context according to their customary function as, for example, is the case when teaching words to children. The ‘ostensive definition’,6 so important to Bertrand Russell, can neither guarantee nor impart a foundation for speech. The ostensive definition is not univocal and can be misunderstood. More importantly, even to understand an ostensive definition, a certain prior linguistic competence must be assumed: to learn a word, whether by means of an ostensive definition or by any other means, I must at the same time learn how to use the word later. This is to say that for any given word a place in the context of speech must already exist where it can be situated.7 To say that words are signs all of which have a meaning is not to say very much, given that the very word ‘meaning’ can be used in a number of senses. Linguistic expressions have ‘meaning’ and are ‘significative’ in many different ways inasmuch as they have many and varied functions. This functional diversity of linguistic expressions is particularly apparent in the fact that we use them in diverse language games.

Unquestionably the concept of ‘language games’ is central to the later Wittgenstein’s thought — which is not to say that Wittgenstein elaborated a ‘theory of language games’. Rather, what is intended is an analogy between the term ‘language’ and the term ‘game’. Through this analogy he wants to insist on the following points:

As is the case with playing, speaking is an activity. Speaking is moreover a complex activity that unites diverse elements, both linguistic and non- linguistic. Speaking, which is to say, using language, is a multiform activity, in a way analogous to the multiformity of that which we call ‘playing’, and as a multiform activity it is not reducible to some ‘common essence’ of speech. Moreover it is an activity intrinsically subject to public rules, which are more or less rigid according to the type and object of a given linguistic game. One must be aware however that for Wittgenstein, ‘following a rule’ is something which is public and institutional, and does not consist in feeling oneself directed or led by a rule. The significance of any single expression depends on its relation with other elements in the same linguistic game and thus on the logic, or on the ‘grammar’,8 specific to the linguistic game in question. In addition, a number of language games pertain to a certain "form of life",9 whereas speaking, i.e., using language in general, comprises part of the ‘natural human story’.10 The term ‘linguistic game’ refers both to the totality of speech and to singular ‘games’. Wittgenstein considers speech as an integral part of the total picture of human behavior.11 ‘Private language’, in the sense of expressions whose significance are wholly private, is non-sense.
Meaning. "The significance of a word is its use in language" runs the well-known dictum of Wittgenstein. But here too we need to take care to be precise, for this dictum is not a definition of meaning, but a functional description and analogy, given that "the use" can be most varied. Moreover, the use of which Wittgenstein is speaking is the institutional use which the word possesses in speech, not the personal use which one may make of it. Meaning is never something psychological and private, but always a reality which is public, social and cultural. Also, the exception of which Wittgenstein speaks in this context12 refers to the fact that the words ‘meaning’ and ‘significance’ have various meanings. (For example, sometimes ‘meaning’ means ‘importance’.)

In contrast with the philosophical position of the Tractatus, the Philosophical Investigations abandons the idea of certain ‘ultimate elements’ of language that would be intrinsically simple, i.e., not susceptible of further analysis and to which all linguistic expressions could be reduced by means of the appropriate analysis. For the later Wittgenstein not only the words ‘simple’, ‘compound’, but also ‘identical’ and ‘diverse’, have no absolute meaning but a meaning which varies according to the context of their appearance in various language games.

One uses the same word in speaking of various things not because all these things have a common essence or certain definable common characteristics, but rather because there exists a certain ‘family resemblance’ among the things13 . We find no fixed limits separating diverse concepts; the borders of a concept is rather a question of use. It follows that questions of essence then are questions of grammar.14 That which is considered as ‘essence’ depends upon the special logic of the linguistic game to which the concept in question appertains. Note that this does not negate the possibility that for the specific use of a word in a determinate language game, the use of the word – its content – becomes more rigorously fixed.

It follows then that the various concepts we humans employ are not the results of individual abstraction operations, but rather we acquire them in learning a language. The intellectual aspect of the formation of concepts consists in the intelligent appropriation of them which is demanded in order to learn a language. As a consequence all our everyday concepts are analogies. Only technical locutions which are part of a scientific terminology approach a certain univocality.

All this notwithstanding, Wittgenstein is no simple nominalist; the use of a word has reasons which are both objective and actual. However he is certainly no longer the ultrarealist of the Tractatus.

Psychological vocabulary is worth special attention. The words which refer to human mental states, such as ‘to feel pain’, ‘to want’, ‘to think’, ‘to understand’, and so on, have meaning not insofar as they refer to an activity, to an event, or to a psychic state (i.e., something private and interior to consciousness), nor insofar as they refer to an external, observable behavior; the mentalist explanation of the Cartesians is as inaccurate as the comportmentalist explanation of the behaviorists. The psychological concept of pain, for example, is one but it is asymmetrical: its grammar for the first-person present indicative is different from its grammar in the other forms ("He feels pain" but also different from the first-person past tense: "I felt pain"). In the first instance ("I feel pain") the grammar is similar to that of the sheer expressions "Ow", "Ouch" — there are no criteria possible here; it makes no sense if one says: "I am certain that I am in pain", or " I’m probably in pain." (Though of course it is possible to tell a lie and to sham it.) In the other cases however there are criteria, and there exists the possibility of error, as well as the possibilities of doubt and of certainty. The concept however is single; such a concept is acquired and used – it has meaning – as a single concept though with asymmetrical use – not as two distinct concepts.

The importance of Wittgenstein’s observations here for an elaboration of a philosophical anthropology are apparent, but we must leave them aside.

The method. The method employed in the Philosophical Investigations is still that of linguistic analysis but with important differences. The method is no longer reductive as in the Tractatus, but descriptive, expository. He puts forth a theory of logical function, not of psychological function, a ‘depth grammar’ of various language games, not that of language in general.

In this, his method is not one of putting forth an argument, whether causal, physical, psychological, metaphysical, still less that of an inquiry into the existential determinations of speech or human communication. Nor is his method explicative in the way a scientific method attempts to explain facts or phenomena. Wittgenstein rigorously distinguishes philosophy from science and rejects any ideal ‘scientific philosophy’. Linguistic analysis is concerned solely with meaning.

Considered positively, the method of the Philosophical Investigations is analytic; in his reflection on the multiform reality of speech he deliberately avoids generalized considerations. He describes various language games, indicating some similarities among them but emphasizing the differences.15 Such a way of doing philosophy does indeed lend itself to a global and synthetic vision, but in this case that certainly does not entail a system to which everything can be reduced and from which all can be deduced; rather what we have here is an image of an ancient city in which one has learned to find the streets with ease. Wittgenstein never draws conclusions from nor abstracts a ‘Summa’ from his analyses; he does not, for example, pull together the various ways in which language functions in an attempt to make a statement about human nature. His method doesn’t permit such an enterprise. For Wittgenstein the existence of a linguistic game is something ultimate, about which it makes no sense to ask why.

The point of the later Wittgenstein’s linguistic analysis is primarily therapeutic-critical, not only against the sterile generalizations and one-sided nature of philosophy, but even more against the spontaneous errors inspired by the superficial grammar of our language. In reply to the question, What is the intention of your philosophy?, Wittgenstein said, "To show the fly the way out of the fly bottle."16

The ultimate utility of the linguistic analysis of the Philosophical Investigations does not end here, however. Its great contribution is clarificatory, bringing to light the way in which language games actually function, the relationships among them, and the illimited variety of speech.

If one wishes to elaborate a specific logic for a linguistic game, one must first compare the use of the linguistic expressions in this game with their use in other, similar games, indicating however the differences. In a second move, one must look in other language games for usages similar to those which, in the original case under analysis, seemed at first glance unique and simple. Thirdly, between the usage in the case under analysis and the other different uses, one must search for intermediate cases, even inventing them,17 to create a continuum of these ‘family resemblances’.

Now what are the characteristics of Wittgenstein’s logical-linguistic method which make it useful for an analysis of Christian discourse about God?

1) The method of the Philosophical Investigations is a philosophical method. The method of linguistic analysis is neither philological nor sociological nor psychological. The question posed by Wittgenstein is a philosophical question: how is it that a linguistic expression has a meaning? How is the activity in which human beings engage when speaking, understood? This method is not a method specific to positive theology, which is to say, it is not an exegetical method of immediate usefulness in the interpretation of Sacred Scripture or of official documents of the Magisterium. Nor is it a method of speculative theology insofar as its function is neither one of hermeneutics nor of synthesis.

2) The method of the Philosophical Investigations is a descriptive method. This is to say that the method of linguistic analysis makes no claims to being normative. We observe how people speak, how they use their words, what meaning is had by that which they say. We cannot prescribe how they ought to speak, ought to use their words, or what meaning should be had by that which they say, according to a previously conceived norm. Precisely for this reason the method of Wittgenstein is not reductive. If the language is used in a determinate manner, i.e., if it has a determinate significance for those who use it, then this is simply to be accepted as a matter of fact, as a given. This is not the same as saying that all which is said is true, nor that the using of speech in this determinate manner is useful, advisable or necessary.18

For the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations it is not legitimate to say: "Such and such a linguistic expression cannot have this meaning, because the language cannot have such a meaning; thus the ‘true’ significance of certain linguistic expressions must be some other" — e.g., empirical, social, economic, political or simply poetic, mythical, etc. — that is, the ‘true significance’ must be one of the meanings which are admitted in virtue of a philosophical, religious or other position taken up a priori.

(3) The method of the Philosophical Investigations is an analytical method. It serves only to arrive at syntheses whose scope is relatively limited and specific; it makes no attempt to reach a global systematization in which everything — world, human existence, history, or even simply language — is embraced by means of one grand perception.19 Wittgenstein was on guard against any such attempts.

Undoubtedly, the method does serve to elaborate partial syntheses, and is not confined to pure observation and analysis of single instances. Wittgenstein wanted to elaborate the special logic of various language games. But one does not achieve this through a perception of the essence of the respective games, nor by means of a simple abstraction of the general concept in a certain number of singular concrete cases. One needs instead to analyze single examples, comparing them, confronting examples of this game with examples from other similar games, and bringing to the fore in this way the similarities and dissimilarities. What is thus attained is not a perception of a fixed and stable essence, but something similar to the rules of a game that one can continue to play in common.

In a certain way the method does yield a global vision — not in the sense of a ‘mother idea’ – some generative concept, like a law of formation in mathematics (ax–by=c),20 but in the sense of a map, or better: the ‘global vision’ of a city possessed by one who has lived there for years. Thus the method can serve as a preparation for new knowledge, perceptions and innovations. It can yield a rather precise picture — precise because detailed and, even more: nuanced, "analogical", one might say — of the relational ‘sets’ which are speech, science, knowledge, and also theology and the Christian faith.

4) The method of the Philosophical Investigations is a therapeutic method. When one begins to reflect upon language, the seeming immediacy of its structure can be delusive. Wittgenstein named this deceptive immediacy its ‘superficial grammar’. This can especially happen when one transposes a speech form from its original context to a different context, as for example: when everyday language, or biblical language or the language employed in evangelization is brought into philosophy or theology. Problems then appear which in actuality do not exist. It is thus essential to dissipate these problems by demonstrating the real functioning of these linguistic expressions in their ‘natural environment’, which is not philosophical and not theological — that is, in the respective language games to which they originally belong.21

This kind of philosophical and theological problem is quite frequent. Often we encounter it in the guise of a difficulty of comprehension or communication. The ‘solution’ consists not so much in argumentation with respect to the truth or falsehood of the given statements but in a clarification of the meaning of the linguistic expressions. Certain apparent problems dissolve when it is demonstrated that they simply do not apply. In this sense Wittgensteinian analysis has a therapeutic scope, inasmuch as it throws into relief how various speech forms are really used. It is ‘therapeutic critique’ not so much of language itself as of the spontaneous and uncritical acceptance of language which can prove very misleading. To this end Wittgenstein rigorously distinguishes between actual problems and logical/linguistical/grammatical problems.

Uses and limitations of the method. Generally speaking, one can borrow the analytical method of the Philosophical Investigations as the first move in any philosophical or theological undertaking, and often even for enterprises which are apparently scientific. At the same time it is obvious that this method remains one philosophical method among other philosophical methods which continue to be indispensible. Not all philosophical problems can be resolved or even handled by linguistic analysis, and not all can be ‘cured’ as if they were just so many maladies. It remains legitimate and necessary to do philosophy in ways other than those followed by Wittgenstein, to do things that philosophers have been doing for almost 2500 years with very different methods: the phenomenological method which seeks the structural unity of conscious human life in the world; the transcendental method which seeks the conditions of possibility of experience; the traditional metaphysical method which analyzes reality in analogical principles such as the principle of non-contradiction. However, linguistic analysis as Wittgenstein proposes it can well constitute not only a first pass, but also a continual test of meaningfulness, without which one falls all too easily into pseudo-problems.

In all this, but especially in the context of religious Christian discourse, the distinction between actual problems and other, logical-grammatical problems — a distinction so dear to Wittgenstein — must not be considered absolute and satisfying in all respects.

The phenomenological method of Edmund Husserl has been often adopted, even if in a synthetical way, and for some time has found interest and application also in the theological sphere Thus our exposition here can be briefer.

Husserl’s philosophy has a mathematical origin. He originally studied mathematics and quickly became engrossed in the conflict between the psychologists who sought to give a psychological foundation to the fundamental concepts of mathematics and the formalists who renounced any foundation, philosophical, psychological or otherwise, considering mathematics purely formal. In his first book, On the Concept of Number, the problem for Husserl is the mathematical ‘one’ as the fundamental concept not only for all of mathematics, but even for simple counting. This concept of ‘one’ has no meaning if not that of not being the ‘other’ – settting aside for a moment the question of any additional differences. The reduction of number to psychic process related to simple counting, inspired by the Brentano’s notion of genetic reconstruction, leads Husserl to the concept of the pure ‘something’, without any differentiating qualification, as the foundation of the ‘one’. And this concept of ‘something’; would emerge from the unifying psychological act of identifying something as a one.

Husserl later abandoned the attempt at genetic reconstruction, whether of the fundamental concepts of mathematics or of any objectival content of consciousness. The horizons of Husserl’s philosophical reflection became universal and all-inclusive. The center of his attention became the content, which is to say, the datum of consciousness in its pure objectivity ("Die Sachen selbst"). In the first part of his Logical Investigations Husserl poses the problem of the meaningfulness of signs — linguistic now as well as mathematical — and he confronts this problem by ‘bracketing off’ both the communicative moment and the sign’s naturalistic reference. Husserl is seeking the pure reality of the ‘logical’, which he calls the ‘essence’ ("Wesen") — the reality of the pure phenomenon as such, as it presents itself to consciousness. This ‘Wesen’, the ‘essence’, is a unity which is no longer a simple ‘something’, but rather a unity of sense — it includes the perceiver; it is the reality of logic because logic as such already implies relational structures. At the same time, it is a ‘phenomenon‘, describable as it presents itself, in a form, to consciousness. One refrains then from any interpretative identification of it, whether with the natural reality of things or with the reality of psychic acts. For this reason Husserl calls not only his method but his whole philosophy ‘phenomenology’.

Immediately the problem of method thrusts itself forward. How does one arrive at and grasp this ‘phenomenon’ in its objectival purity? In the Logical Investigations Husserl uses the term ‘abstraction’, though not in the Lockean sense of simply putting aside concrete, particular and sensible differences – abstracting from them. Husserl, on the other hand, intends abstraction rather as a ‘bracketing off’ or ‘switching off’ ("Ausschalten") of that which he calls the natural attitude ("die natürliche Einstellung") – an attitude which leads us to consider a datum of consciousness either as a natural physical reality or as an event in the psychological development of the mind. Husserl wants thus to concentrate on the pure presence of content, i.e., on the phenomenon. This phenomenon is, of course, a content of consciousness; however, what counts is not the content of consciousness as such but the phenomenon in itself. At the same time Husserl continues to say with Brentano that the consciousness is intentional, that is, it is a consciousness of something; it is ‘cogitatio’ in which "ego cogitatio cogitatum qua cogitatum."

The Mature Phenomenology of the "Ideas on a Pure Phenomenology"22 

In the "Ideas", Husserl deepens his phenomenology. The center of his attention is clearly the content of consciousness, now characterized as "that originarily and absolutely lived", anterior to any predication with factual interpretative references. The term used for this ‘content’ is first ‘noema’,’Eidos’, and then later ‘essence’ ("Wesen"), which is to be understood as the intelligible structure of the contents of consciousness (and not in the Aristotlean-thomistic sense of an ontological element constitutive of the finite singular being).

Husserl’s phenomenological method continues to be refined and in a certain way takes a turn towards a subjective pole. If in fact the datum of consciousness must be purely objective, one must pass beyond the abstraction from the sensible and the particular. One must ‘put in parentheses’ the double existence of the datum: its psychological existence in me, and its realistic existence in itself, since both are contingent. "Bracketing off" or "switching off" ("Ausschalten") and "putting into parentheses" thus receive a new significance as the key word becomes "epochè"23 – epochè not only from the act and from the subject, i.e., from my experience, but also from its concrete existence. With this Husserl’s philosophical reflection takes a turn towards the subjective pole. Of interest now is not only the noema but also the noesis, which is to say, the diverse relationships of the subject, the manifold of his ‘intentionality’ towards the diverse kinds of content. The end of phenomenology remains, however, the same: the pure description of ‘essence’, i.e., of the unity of sense in every field of experience, from the most restricted to the most cosmic. But the experience is always essentially of an intentional character. Thus the ‘rigorous science’ towards which Husserl leans must have a twofold character: the description of the objective pole demands that we commit ourselves also to a description of the subjective pole.24 Only thus, in the reference of the pure noesis to the pure noema does one come to the full ‘adaequatio’ of truth, and doubt ceases because one has all the evidence. The is the real sense of epochè.

The essential moment therefore in Husserl’s method is the ‘phenomenological reduction’, by means of which one passes from the ‘natural attachment’, in which our attention is immediately and spontaneously drawn to the things in their natural existence, to the ‘eidetic vision’, i.e., to the vision of the logical forms constitutive of this world.

Husserl’s chosen terminology has not only a Skeptic but also a Cartesian flavor (epochè —> methodological doubt). Not only does it therefore bring with it the problem of the subject as the counterpart of the ideal content, but also a turn towards the transcendental becomes explicit, precisely because the ideal content is not to be understood in a Platonic key. At the same time, this content is an absolute content, and thus the pure ‘cogitatio’ has need of a pure ‘ego cogitans’; thus the subject cannot be other than transcendental. This level of the problem becomes clearly apparent in the Husserl’s "Ideas", and indeed many of the faithful disciples of the Master of Göttingen felt themselves betrayed by this ‘transcendental turn’ which seemed to be a return to Kant.

We must leave aside Husserl’s last and ultimate exploration of a transcendental phenomenology for despite its importance it does not address our own interests here. We need now to examine the application of Husserl’s method to religious discourse.

In the first place, Husserl’s phenomenological method25 deals with objects, or rather with objectuality. For Husserl himself that which remains important is the paradigm of number, the idea of meaning, and in general the eidos. But in the disciples of Husserl we encounter the ‘community’ ("Gemeinschaft"), the ‘society’ ("Gesellschaft"), the ‘state’ (Scheler and Stein) and also the ‘sacred’ (Rudolf Otto); we do not however encounter ‘language’ or ‘religious language’ as the focus of attention. On the other hand, Husserl himself, and even more so his disciples, undertook the analysis of diverse types of intentionality on the part of the subject (the ‘noesis’), towards the ‘noema’, the content of consciousness. Thus in a second move the phenomenological method of Husserl can be applied (and has been so) to intentional human actions (Stein: empathy; Merleau-Ponty: sensibility; Ricoeur: will, etc.) Such intentional human actions would include, for example,"to believe", "to pray", "rite", "sacrifice", etc. This is obviously most important for a phenomenology of religion and especially for a phenomenology of the Christian faith, in which there is a strict correlation between content and act of faith.

Only in a third move does this method serve to determine a global reality such as ‘society’ (Scheler) or ‘religion’, and then it must be supported by results from the first and second levels of application of the phenomenological method.

In the use of the phenomenological method at the first two levels, one seeks to individuate an objective structural reality, distinguishing in its specificity from all others. This reality is neither individual nor collective, but simply objective. In a reductive act one then eliminates from this every singular and particular aspect, and also every dependence on the subject, whether individual or collective. For this very reason an application of the phenomenological method to problems of faith should lead neither to a psychologization nor to a sociologization of theology. At the same time however it precludes a naturalistic realism with regard to the contents of the Christian faith.

In the context of this book the phenomenological method will serve us not so much to determine religious language, but rather the objects and acts specific to the Christian faith. We will employ it most fully in the last two chapters.

As distinct from linguistic analysis, the phenomenological method reduces a concrete diversity to a single unique structural essence, and does not seek to make the institutional rules of a game manifest. Moreover, this structural essence becomes determined as unitary, not as multiform, and it tends to distinguish precisely this essence from other similar ones.26

At this point one could justifiably ask why two methods so diverse could be used together in an analysis of Christian discourse about God. For quite some time I have been of the opinion that there is no such thing as one philosophical method; rather there are a plurality of methods which are to be used in philosophy: besides the logical-analytical and the phenomenological methods there are also the classical aristotelian-scholastic method, the transcendental method, etc., etc. One needs to have a variety of methods at one’s disposal – not only in the various branches of philosophy but also for each particular philosophical problem.

Moreover the differences between Husserl’s phenomenology and the linguistic analysis of the later Wittgenstein are not so great as may appear. In the latter part of the Philosophical Investigations one finds formulations very similar to Husserl’s . And certain paragraphs on linguistic meaning in the Logical Investigations and in the Ideas resembles those of Wittgenstein. More importantly, however, the way in which the logic of a linguistic game is to be understood is not unlike the ‘eidetic vision’ of an ‘essence’. Both require a labor of methodical preparation which is both long and difficult, but in the end ‘comprehension’ is achieved. Both treat of the ‘vision’ of a whole, not reducible to its parts and not ‘reconstructible’ from them.

Common to both phenomenology and linguistic analysis is also their object, which is generally if not exclusively: meaning. In this lies their common limitation as well: neither phenomenology nor linguistic analysis can offer foundational arguments. Both analyze what a moral duty is or what religious faith is, but with neither of the two methods can one demonstrate the existence of God or the bindingness of a given moral imperative. Both the datum of consciousness and the linguistic game with its rules are, as it were, ultimate, and in this inheres their fatal attractiveness today. For if all of philosophy is exclusively phenomenology or linguistic analysis or both together, then we lose metaphysics, and with that we lose any attempt at an ultimate foundation. Neither Husserl nor Wittgenstein suggest this, but certain of their distant followers do.

2. The Tractatus is arranged by means of a decimal system from 1.000 to 7. See PG. 27 excerpts from tractatus.

3. The use of Kantian language here is deliberate and the reasons for its use will shortly become clear.

4. Cfr. for example, Tractatus 6.54.

5. Cfr. PU 1, 5, 26, 27, 40, 361.

6. An ‘ostensive definition’ refers to the presentation of a word by means of a verbal indicator ("this"), or a non-verbal indicator (pointing with the finger, etc.), while stating either a singular name ("This is Napoleon") or a general name ("This is a horse").

7. Cfr. PU 13,31,33,38.

8. Wittgenstein employs these two terms in an almost identical way.

9. Cfr. PU 19,21,241.

10. Cfr. PU 7.

11. The distinction between vaious language games is not absolute. According to the aspect under consideration, various language games can be considered as distinct or as one single unique game.

12. PU 43: "For the great number of cases, even if not for all cases, the word ‘meaning’ can be defined thusly: The meaning of a word is its use in the language."

13. Aristotle, in Book IV of the Metaphysics, speaks of a variety of similar terms as ‘pollachos legontai’. Aquinas translates this as ‘multipliciter dicuntur’.

14. Cfr. PU 371: "The essence is expressed in the grammar." Cfr. also 1, 46,65,92,97,113,116.

15. "I will teach you differences", he announced to his classes.

16. See: Garth Hallett, "The Bottle and The Fly," Thought, 46 (1971), 83-104.

17. These singular linguistic games of which Wittgenstein treats are either natural and realistic or simplified or even invented, impossible for human beings as we know them and therefore absurd. We see then that the philosophical method of the later Wittgenstein is not purely descriptive, and in a certain sense is similar to the method of phenomenology.

18. Here lies an essential difference between the method of linguistic analysis and that of phenomenology and existential analysis, which insists on the diverse authenticity and existential value of certain ways of speaking.

19. Here is another fundamental difference between the method of Wittgenstein and that of phenomenology and existential analysis.

20. Descartes’ ‘clear and distinct ideas’ are recalled here.

21. Biblical exegesis accomplishes something similar when it seeks to identify the Sitz im Leben of Gospel passages.

22. The name phenomenology is not taken so much form the Kantian distinction between "phenomenon" and "numenon" as from the "Phenomenology of the Spirit" of Hegel, and even more from the ancient astronomy that speaks of "sozein ta fainomena".

23. The term epochè is borrowed from the vocabulary of the ancient Greek sceptics, where it meant: to abstain from any affirmation so as to avoid the danger of falling into error. In Husserl, however, the meaning of epochè is to put into parentheses both the natural existence and the psychological existence. The function of the epochè is methodological. In this, Husserl comes quite close to the methodological doubt of Descartes.

24. This commitment to the subjective pole is quite distinct however from the psychologism with which Husserl began his career and which he was later to radically criticize).

25. There are other methods which go by the name ‘phenomenological’, but we will be using Hussserl’s, and using it rigorously insofar as that is possible.

26. In all this one can note Husserl’s affinity not only with Plato, but also with the ‘clear and distinct ideas’ of Descartes.