"Is There a Meaning in This Text?", Chapter 5
Vanhoozer now sets out to offer a counter to the Derridean notion that language is master of us all. Instead, Vanhoozer suggests that being a citizen of language is an appropriate descriptive metaphor for the relationship between humans and language (202). He writes, "Language is indeed our environment, but it is neither open field nor prison house. Language is like a city in which there is both overall structure and diverse neighborhoods, a city in which speakers have freedom of movement within (city) limits" (202).
Vanhoozer begins by suggesting we think of "meaning" as "something people do" (202). Texts only mean something when someone means something by it. Vanhoozer notes that Ricoeur takes a step forward by suggesting that a sentence is not merely a higher order sign, but a new entity (204). For Ricoeur, semantics is not just the study of symbols, but of sentences--language used in actual situations. From here, V. defines language as a gift of God, "to be used gratefully and responsibly as we communicate with others" (205). Human beings also have communicative faculties which allow us to interpret correctly. Vanhoozer shows the theological base of his project: "the design plan of language is to serve as the medium of covenantal relations with God, with others, and with the world" (206). This means that language has to be used responsibly.
To defend this move, Vanhoozer enlists three philosophers: John Searle, Paul Ricoeur, and Jurgen Habermas. First, Searle, as part of the 'ordinary language cohort, notes that, contrary to Derrida's belief that language is unstable, language "works well enough." The fact that people use the same words to say something completely different does not mean that those words have no determinate meaning, and one that can often be deduced from context.
Second, Vanhoozer utilizes Ricoeur's interpretation theory. For Ricoeur, a text is a discourse fixed by writing. Texts join authors and readers together and makes shared meaning possible. Both Ricoeur and Derrida are post-structuralist, which means they do not believe there are basic and universal ways of articulating and understandings things like texts, but in different ways. Whereas Derrida held that language was all self-referential and there was nothing outside the text and everything was interpretation, Ricoeur believed that language had a structure to facilitate referring to "beyond itself to the world" (214). This means that authors use language as a "communicative social practice" (214). However, more than discourse, texts are their own. They have impacts on readers that authors do not intend, even separated from their semantic meanings. Hermeneutics thus includes this impact, not simply the semantic meaning. This means that "what the text means now matters more than what the author meant when he wrote it" (215, quoting Ricoeur). Obviously Ricoeur does not want to ground meaning in authorial intention, and so refers to the intention of the text. Vanhoozer notes, however, that texts do not have intentions; they do not act. Instead, Vanhoozer suggests that humans leave "traces" which can make up a kind of text.
Third, Vanhoozer turns to Habermas, who developed a new rationality outside the subject-object distinction. For Habermas, language "does not contaminate reality, but...contains it" (217). This means that communication has elements of inter-subjectivity. Three such elements to make such speech-acts competent are that it must be true (to the outside world); it must be truthful (to the speaker's intentions); it must be right (in the context of the society in which it is spoken).
The implications of these thinkers form Vanhoozer's thesis for the remainder of the chapter, that "meaning is a three-dimensional communicative action, with form and matter (propositional content), energy and trajectory (illocutionary force), and teleology or final purpose (perlocutionary effect)" (218). To use this notion of communicative action, Vanhoozer grounds texts in communicative action and writing (225). Therefore, Vanhoozer thinks that what an author means by the communicative act that is a text counts as what it means.
However, this meaning is not to be separated from community, but not because communities form meaning, but because communicative acts are made in community and authors are "embodied persons who form part of a language community" (231). This means that meaning is not to be found in the subjective consciousness of the author but in her communicative act. Vanhoozer takes this a step further. The author, in part, becomes something by doing what they do.
Let me summarize, using Vanhoozer's words, "Textual meaning, I have argued, enjoys an independence and integrity of its own, apart from the process of interpretation, thanks to the nature and directedness of the author's communicative act. The author attends to a particular matter (the propositional content) in a particular way (the illocutionary act); the author's intentions is what makes his or her words count as one kind of action rather than another" (254).
Vanhoozer begins by suggesting we think of "meaning" as "something people do" (202). Texts only mean something when someone means something by it. Vanhoozer notes that Ricoeur takes a step forward by suggesting that a sentence is not merely a higher order sign, but a new entity (204). For Ricoeur, semantics is not just the study of symbols, but of sentences--language used in actual situations. From here, V. defines language as a gift of God, "to be used gratefully and responsibly as we communicate with others" (205). Human beings also have communicative faculties which allow us to interpret correctly. Vanhoozer shows the theological base of his project: "the design plan of language is to serve as the medium of covenantal relations with God, with others, and with the world" (206). This means that language has to be used responsibly.
To defend this move, Vanhoozer enlists three philosophers: John Searle, Paul Ricoeur, and Jurgen Habermas. First, Searle, as part of the 'ordinary language cohort, notes that, contrary to Derrida's belief that language is unstable, language "works well enough." The fact that people use the same words to say something completely different does not mean that those words have no determinate meaning, and one that can often be deduced from context.
Second, Vanhoozer utilizes Ricoeur's interpretation theory. For Ricoeur, a text is a discourse fixed by writing. Texts join authors and readers together and makes shared meaning possible. Both Ricoeur and Derrida are post-structuralist, which means they do not believe there are basic and universal ways of articulating and understandings things like texts, but in different ways. Whereas Derrida held that language was all self-referential and there was nothing outside the text and everything was interpretation, Ricoeur believed that language had a structure to facilitate referring to "beyond itself to the world" (214). This means that authors use language as a "communicative social practice" (214). However, more than discourse, texts are their own. They have impacts on readers that authors do not intend, even separated from their semantic meanings. Hermeneutics thus includes this impact, not simply the semantic meaning. This means that "what the text means now matters more than what the author meant when he wrote it" (215, quoting Ricoeur). Obviously Ricoeur does not want to ground meaning in authorial intention, and so refers to the intention of the text. Vanhoozer notes, however, that texts do not have intentions; they do not act. Instead, Vanhoozer suggests that humans leave "traces" which can make up a kind of text.
Third, Vanhoozer turns to Habermas, who developed a new rationality outside the subject-object distinction. For Habermas, language "does not contaminate reality, but...contains it" (217). This means that communication has elements of inter-subjectivity. Three such elements to make such speech-acts competent are that it must be true (to the outside world); it must be truthful (to the speaker's intentions); it must be right (in the context of the society in which it is spoken).
The implications of these thinkers form Vanhoozer's thesis for the remainder of the chapter, that "meaning is a three-dimensional communicative action, with form and matter (propositional content), energy and trajectory (illocutionary force), and teleology or final purpose (perlocutionary effect)" (218). To use this notion of communicative action, Vanhoozer grounds texts in communicative action and writing (225). Therefore, Vanhoozer thinks that what an author means by the communicative act that is a text counts as what it means.
However, this meaning is not to be separated from community, but not because communities form meaning, but because communicative acts are made in community and authors are "embodied persons who form part of a language community" (231). This means that meaning is not to be found in the subjective consciousness of the author but in her communicative act. Vanhoozer takes this a step further. The author, in part, becomes something by doing what they do.
Let me summarize, using Vanhoozer's words, "Textual meaning, I have argued, enjoys an independence and integrity of its own, apart from the process of interpretation, thanks to the nature and directedness of the author's communicative act. The author attends to a particular matter (the propositional content) in a particular way (the illocutionary act); the author's intentions is what makes his or her words count as one kind of action rather than another" (254).
Labels: hermeneutics, Meaning in this Text, PhD, Vanhoozer
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