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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
65Vanhoozer, "A Lamp in the Labyrinth," 55. 66Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? 244.
67Watson, Text and Truth, 98. 6Ibid., 124 n. 2.
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6Jeffrey Stout suggests that meaning, as a term, should be jettisoned in favor of a less troublesome word. He takes a pragmatic approach in asserting that due to the "considerable verbal disagreement," it is "better to avoid the term, or at least be wary of it, here above all" ("What is the Meaning of a Text?" New Literary History 14 [1982]: 11). S. E. Fowl takes up Jeffrey Stout's position, claiming that "meaning" should be eliminated and replaced with "other terms that will both suit our interpretive interests and be precise enough to put a stop to futile discussions." Fowl proposes that Stout's position be adopted by those in biblical studies, addressing disputes not in terms of "meaning" but "interpretive interests." These interests might include the author's intentions, "a text's contextual connections to the material or gender-based means of its production," or a reading which synthesizes all or most of these interests into a "macro-reading" ("The Ethics of Interpretation or What's Left Over After the Elimination of Meaning," in The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield [ed. David J. A. Clines, Stephen E. Fowl, and Stanley E. Porter; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990], 381-83).
7*Sandra M. Schneiders, indicative of postmodernist interpreters, follows Gadamer and Ricouer in blurring the line between meaning and significance. Schneiders speaks from a Roman Catholic perspective in arguing that an exegetical method which seeks the author's intended meaning before finding its application for contemporary readers does not go far enough in discovering meaning for the present day. She favors a "hermeneutical method," which views interpretation as including the task of seeking contemporary application in order to discover meaning ("From Exegesis to Hermeneutics: The Problem of the Contemporary Meaning of Scripture," Hor 8 Spring 1981]: 23-39).
7 Bernard Ramm., Protestant Biblical Interpretation (3d ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970), 24. See also David S. Dockery, "Study and Interpretation of the Bible," in Foundations for Biblical Interpretation (ed. David S. Dockery, Kenneth A. Matthews, and Robert Sloan; Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994); Brian A. Shealy, "Redrawing the Line Between Hermeneutics and Application," MSJ 8 (Spring 1997): 83-105.
72Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1991), 344.
731bid., 318.
74Vern Poythress, God Centered Biblical Interpretation (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1999), 76.
,Watson, Text and Truth, 104 (author's emphasis).
'Ibid. 77bid., 106.
78Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? 260. 79Ibid.
8OIbid., 261. 8'Ibid., 265.
82Watson, Text, Church and World, 3. 83Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? 29. 8Ibid. (author's emphasis).
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