God's Words on God's Words

For anyone who might be interested (!) he's the first chapter (to be written) of the PhD I'm working on (which is intended to form chapter 2 of the final thesis). Entitled 'God's Words on God's Words: An outline and sketch of a standard Reformed Evangelical doctrine of scripture with developments from the philosophy of language and literary theory' (21 500 words). It summarises B. B. Warfield's doctrine of Scripture then summarises and evaluates the contribution that semiotics and speech act theory might make to a Reformed Evangelical doctrine of Scripture.

Calvin & A Speech Act View of the Supper

Calvin’s point that: “… the promises of the Lord do not extend beyond the use he has left us” of and in the Supper coheres well with a speech act account of language which locates meaning in interaction and communication by describing intent and action. (LCC Calvin’s Theological Treatises, ‘Treatise on the Lord’s Supper’, p163) Just as you must use the Supper in the way God intended, so you cannot rip his promises out of context and put them to wrong uses.

Speech Acts and Scripture

In the morning we're going to discuss Speech Act Theory & Scripture in the post-graduate seminar.

If you're really interested in this stuff, here are some Word documents:

My draft / work in progress (about 7000 words) on Speech Acts and Scripture.

And a bibliography on Speech Acts (Theology, Scripture etc.)

These are part of my research project on Scripture and the Lord Supper, which this old doucument introduces.

The stuff on speech acts and Scripture is intended to follow on from a statement of a standard Reformed Evangelical doctrine of Scripture as taught by Warfield. There's a section on semiotics underway and then I'm going to attempt a speech act and semiotic account of the Supper. d.v.

Trinity / Triads?

I guess every time one sees 3 things (a traid) its tempting for the Christian to think this is somehow related to or reflects the Trinity. Of course in a way everything is related to the Trinity and reflects the glory of the Triune God, but that’s another (related) story.

On this, see John Frame, The Doctrine of God, (P&R, 2002) Appendix A: “More Triads”, p743ff.

He gives, Frame says:

a list of triads… that have sometimes been thought to reflect or illumine the Trinity in some way…. I have tried to weed out those that seem to me to be obviously arbitary, contrived, or uninteresting…. I do not place any theological weight on these examples…. These triads are of some interest and they may in some measure reflect, illumine, or provide evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity…. I have been building up this list for many years, and I have lost track of many sources….

Frame cites locution, illocution and perlocution from Austin, How To Do Things With Words, as example 64 and meaning, author’s intention and hearer’s understanding as example 66 on p747.

Fitting Words to Worlds

One of the categories of speech act theory is to ask whether the “direction of fit” in an utterance is “world to words” or “words to world”; that is, is the speaker trying to conform his words to some realities in the world or is he trying to conform some realities in the world to his words.

This is a useful analytical tool, but the realities are rather more complex and if pressed the distinctions begin to break down.

Assuming we don’t simply think in the words of our utterance, a speaker will almost always be trying to conform his words to something that’s going on in the world, in his brain: his thoughts.

One of the basic insights of speech act theory is that we are always doing things with our words. When we speak we are usually trying to do something in the world, else there would be no point in speaking. As soon as our words are out there (even if they are “only” seeking to say something truthful about the world) they become a new fact in the world and have changed the world.

Sticks and Stones...

One of the potentially useful things about speech act theory, what I have been trying to think about, is that it emphasises the fact that words are things that persons use which establish personal relationships.

I quite liked this from Vanhoozer:

We can say of meaning what has been said of guns: words don’t kill (or state, or question, or promise, etc.); people do.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J., Is there a meaning in this text? The Bible, the reader and the morality of literary knowledge (Leicester, Apollos, 1998) p202

Speech Act Bibliography updated

I'm sure everyone will be fascinated to know that I've updated my speech act (words, language, Bible, Supper etc.) bibliography which now runs to 5pp and about 70 entries, if my counting serves me correctly.

Few Books & Good

Dr Garry Williams is fond of quoting Revd Professor O'Donnovan's advice to him: "few books and good".

Feeling that there are far too many books to read about words, language and speech acts, I'm going to look for a few important ones. Maybe:

Derrida, Jacques, Of Grammatology (trans. Spivak) (Baltimore, John Hopkins Univeristy Press, 1975)

- , Limited Inc. (ed. Graff) (Evanston, IL, Northwestern University Press, 1988)

Fish, Stanley, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1980)

Ricoeur, Paul, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth, Texas Christian University Press, 1976)

Saussure, Ferdinand de, Course in General Linguistics (London, Owen, 1960)

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford, Blackwell, 1967 / 1953)

God's Speech Act Vocabulary

Mainstream secular speech act theorists Vanderveken and Susumu recognise something of the power of the Word of God to do what it says:

… any verb at all that names an intentional action could be uttered performatively [i.e. do what intends by being said]. All depends on facts about how the world works and not on the meaning of action verbs. Because of His supernatural powers, God can use performatively many more verbs than we can.

(Vanderveken, Daniel and Kubo, Susumu, (ed.s) Essays in Speech Act Theory (John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam / Philadelphia, 2002), p8)

British Library Research Jolly day 2

Yes, I used wireless interweb technology for the first time today from my desk. Magic.

I’m at desk number 2175 today and I’m finding it a bit hard to find after leaving it. It has more natural light than yesterday’s, which is nice. Indeed, this blog post is brought to you from that very spot. Amazing.

It turns out the button that I thought might be to call an attendant is in fact for the attendant to call me to attend the collection desk if one of my called for items has arrived!

Stupidly came in without a pencil today. Pens are illegal contraband.

If you happen to be in the Humanities reading room right now and I'm looking lost or without a pencil....

Some of that speech act / pragmatics stuff of how to get someone to give you a pencil without asking might be of use.

Right, time to make the most of the café, I think.

I Know How You Feel

In Japanese you can’t usually say things like “he wants” or “they feel” which imply understanding of another person’s inner attitudes: you have to say “he appears to want” or “they show the signs of feeling”. (p15 citing Inoue 1979) In other languages, one is limited to direct quotation when speaking of the feelings of others (“I want”, he says). Hidden feelings of others can only be known with confidence if they speak to reveal themselves, and assuming that they speak accurately.

Based on: Wierzbicka, Anna, English Speech Act Verbs: A semantic dictionary (Marrickville, Academic Press Australia, 1987)

Homo Significans

“Homo sapiens is essentially, homo loquens, a speaking being, ‘speaking’ not in the sense (p1) in which parrots speak but in the sense of using sounds to convey meaning. This means that homo sapiens is really homo significans, a being who lives on expression and communication of meaning.” (p2)

Wierzbicka, Anna, English Speech Act Verbs: A semantic dictionary (Marrickville, Academic Press Australia, 1987)