Abstract

In what follows I would like to interpret one of Kafka's most intriguing pieces (“On Similes,” written around 1922/23, but never published during the author's lifetime), and at the same time point out what seems to me a striking similarity between the ways in which Kafka and the early Wittgenstein thought about religious language. My interest in this paper is confined to investigating how Kafka and Wittgenstein approached the problem of religious statements qua “similes,” although what is known about both authors points to further significant parallels in their thinking.