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Meaning, intention, and application: Speech act theory in the hermeneutics of Francis Watson and Kevin J. Vanhoozer

Trinity Journal, Fall 2002 by Blue, Scott A

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3Ibid., 216-17. 3Ibid., 217. 37Ibid., 218. 381bid.

39Ibid., 221. 40Ibid.

411bid., 230 (author's emphasis). 42*id., 232.

43Ibid., 244.

"Watson, Text and Truth, 97.

4Watson does not deny certain parallels between classic texts and Scripture, but notes one crucial point where any parallels break down: "Christian Scripture bears witness, in many and various ways, to the decisive series of events in which God is held to have uniquely disclosed himself, and to the pattern of life shaped in response to that self-disclosure" (Text and Truth, 97-98).

461bid., 111.

47Kevin J. Vanhoozer, "A Lamp in the Labyrinth: The Hermeneutics of 'Aesthetic' Theology," Tj 8 (1987): 26.

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48Ibid., 53. Nigel Watson similarly defends authorial intention on ethical grounds. Drawing from the notion that the more personal a text is, the more attention should be given to authorial intent, Watson examines the NT books, noting that the Epistles, Gospels, and even Revelation are examples of personal texts which should be afforded a heightened focus on authorial intent. Therefore, "the obligation to respect authorial intention becomes inescapable" ("Authorial Intention: Suspect Concept for Biblical Scholars?" ABR 35 [1987]: 10).

49Vanboozer, Is There a Meaning in this Text? 202 5(bid.

stJames F. Harris, "Speech Acts and God Talk," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3 (1980):168.

Ibid., 169.

53Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? 43-78.

s*Ibid., 209.

55John R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969),16 (emphasis added).

56Watson, Text and Truth, 103.

57Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? 229. 58Searle, Speech Acts, 131.

59Anthony C. Thiselton claims that Searle "moved well beyond Austin in developing a wider, more rigorous, and more systematic framework of languagetheory which addresses a broader range of issues" (New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading [London: Marshall Pickering, 1992], 293). Thiselton has written extensively on the implications and applications of speech act theory in hermeneutics. See also The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980); "Communicative Action and Promise in Interdisciplinary, Biblical, and Theological Hermeneutics," in The Promise of Hermeneutics, by Roger Lundin, Anthony C. Thiselton, and Clarence Walkout (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 133-239; "Christology in Luke, Speech-Act Theory and the Problem of Dualism in Christology after Kant," in Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ (ed. Joel B. Green and Max Turner; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 453-72.

6Searle, Speech Acts, 16. 61Ibid., 18.

62bid.

63 rbi(1., 44.

Why? Vanhoozer asserts that language use falls under the domain of ethics; Searle's work dismantles the "shining barrier" between ordinary and poetic language so prized by Romanticism; Searle is able to stand toe-to-toe with philosophers such as Derrida; and his work revises intentionality, making room once again for the author ("A Lamp in the Labyrinth," 54). Elsewhere, Vanhoozer asserts that speech act theory offers a means of doing "justice to the 'ordinariness' of the biblical texts" ("The Semantics of Biblical Literature: Truth and Scripture's Diverse Literary Forms," in Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon fed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995], 86).

Meaning, intention, and application: Speech act theory in the hermeneutics of Francis Watson and Kevin J. Vanhoozer

Trinity Journal, Fall 2002 by Blue, Scott A

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