Logic and Sin in the Writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philip R. Shields shows that ethical and religious concerns inform even the most technical writings on logic and language, and that, for Wittgenstein, the need to establish clear limitations is both a logical and an ethical demand. Rather than merely saying specific things about theology and religion, major texts from the Tractatus to the "Philosophical Investigations" express their fundamentally religious nature by showing that there are powers which bear down upon and sustain us. Shields finds a religious view of the world at the very heart of Wittgenstein's philosophy.