Beyond Dogma and Ideology

Wittgenstein on the purpose of philosophy

Abstract

In an ordinary sense, dogmatic and/or ideological thinking can be understood as a degeneration of religious and/or political thinking. In this paper, I argue that Ludwig Wittgenstein's late philosophy allows us to make sense of this idea through the notions of “world picture” and “hinges”, which account for the way our rational practices take place against the backdrop of certain non-epistemic commitments. Since the value of such commitments is given by their capacity to promote rational agency, dogmatic and/or ideological thinking is distinguished from other forms of religious and/or political thought at a categorial level and is philosophically objectionable.