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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
Vanhoozer considers a text an act, and notes four distinct ways in which meaningful action resembles a speech act. First, "doing" an action relates to the locution; as speaking is fixed by writing, an action is fixed by doing. Second, actions have "propositional content," someone does something to someone when an action is done. Actions have an objective content. Third, actions have force, a particular stance is taken by an agent towards the object of the action, therefore corresponding to the illocutionary force. Finally, actions have both planned and unexpected effects. These effects correspond to the perlocutions of utterances.39 Vanhoozer concludes that
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understanding texts is ultimately a matter of interpreting human action. My point is twofold: (1) If we can interpret actions, then we can interpret texts; (2) we can only interpret actions in light of their agents.40
In defending the notion of authorial intention, Vaanhoozer redefines the idea of the author, against a "Cartesian methodology" of psychological probing into the private subjective consciousness, but through the author as communicative agent: "It is important to recover the author's thought, but this is best done not by psychological intuition, but by historical inference-by an analysis of the author's public communicative action."" Those engaging in the interpretation of texts must therefore search for the "communicative agent implied in and by the text" rather than "the thinking subject or mind behind the text."42 Vanhoozer takes a blended approach in defending authorial intent, incorporating both linguistic and literary conventions into his theory of communication and intention:
Individual authors cannot determine the meaning of a word by intention alone, no matter how sincere or intense it may be. Indeed, many things that we do with words and with texts would not be possible without linguistic conventions. Language is a rulegoverned behavior: conventional and covenantal.43
IV. WATSON'S AND VANHOOZER'S COMMON GROUND
Despite distinctions between Watson and Vanhoozer, including their hermeneutical approaches and implementation of speech act theory, both stand together in several important areas. Both engage a common foe in postmodern hermeneutics, attempt to move the hermeneutical discussion beyond the foundation of linguistics, find value in the notion of language as a communicative action, and uphold a dichotomy between meaning and significance. The uniting factor in the similarities noted between them is an attention to the benefits of Austin's foundational work in the area of speech act philosophy.
A. Recovering Hermeneutics From Postmodernism
Both Watson and Vanhoozer are outspoken critics of postmodernists who abandon the role of authorial intent and gut the text of any determinate meaning. In Watson's defense of the "unfashionable concepts" of authorial intent, the literal sense, and objective interpretation, he specifically criticizes the main elements in postmodern biblical interpretation. Underlying his attack is his conviction that
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