It seems that some people are concerned about the use of the term 'cult' without a definition of the word having been given in advance 'so we know what the word means'.
But it is not the case that all thoughtful and intelligent people - or even eminent philosophers - have always agreed that one needs a definition of a word (such as 'cult') in order to use it sensibly, and to reflect usefully on one's employment of that term:
65. Here we come up against the great question that lies behind all these considerations.-For someone might object against me: "You take the easy way out! You talk about all sorts of language-games, but have nowhere said what the essence of a language-game, and hence of language, is: what is common to all these activities, and what makes them into language or parts of language. So you let yourself off the very part of the investigation that once gave you yourself most headache, the part about the general form of propositions and of language."
And this is true.-Instead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am saying that these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all,-but that they are related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all "language". I will try to explain this.
66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? -- Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games' "-but look and see whether there is anything common to all. -- For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look! – .
Look for example at board-games, with their multifarious relationships.
Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear.
When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost.-- Are they all 'amusing'? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience. In ball games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis.
Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared! sometimes similarities of detail.
And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear.
And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and cries-crossing: sometimes overall similarities.
67. I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances"; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and cries-cross in the same way.-And I shall say: 'games' form a family.
Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Philosophical Investigations.
http://users.rcn.com/rathbone/lw65-69c.htmIf one felt like following Wittgenstein's advice in the case of the word 'cult' (and whether you do or not is entirely up to you), you might simply ask whether (say) the Unification Church, The Church of Scientology, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have enough 'family resemblance' to make them worth thinking of as a special 'cult' group inside the larger family grouping that might include Episcopalianism, Zen Buddhism, and Greek Orthodox Christianity. No advance definition of 'cult' would then be required for the discussion to proceed.
My purpose in citing Wittgenstein is not to demand that definitions be dispensed with on his authority - board members can read his lucid and unpretentious phrasing and see if they agree with it without knowing anything about Wittgenstein's place in the history of philosophy. It is simply to say that it may not be essential to have a formal definition of a word before we can use it, and that this may perhaps apply to the word 'cult'.
