Customer Reviews

The Fall of the Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic

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This is a wonderful little book. Smith's criticism of positivism and Hegelianism (i.e. the teleological overcoming of finitude) are sound and welcome. In my own intellectual journey, Smith has been a very helpful guide in what I take to be the strongest point in this text: his critique of the `violent mediation model' ala Heidegger and Derrida. If finitude is a decisive feature and enabling condition of being-in-the-world, then it is fair to question why this condition should be thought to be violent. Lurking under this determination is the very figure of the `other' or object as a `transcendental signified,' as a worldless entity, present-at-hand, and so forth. Once such a figure is put into question, the force and significance of `violence,' as understood in modern philosophy, must itself be put into question, and new notion of violence articulated. Smith gestures in this direction without developing it further, and while this is understandable given the focus of the book, the question of violence followed me as I read his own proposal. As interesting as Smith's own `creational' hermeneutic may be, it suffers from a rather severe lacuna. Insofar as Smith's hermeneutics is, in specific ways, indebted to Heidegger and Derrida, it is not surprising that this gap is precisely POLITICAL.

Post-structuralism (Derrida, Foucault, et al) and Hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur, et al) are - in their own ways - the twin-children of Heidegger. If the former revels in extravagant claims concerning the necessity of violence, the redemptive quality of `transgression' and `perversion,' and a general but happy pessimism concerning the possibility of a peaceful and just world; the latter tends toward an overly irenic optimism which politically translates into a mere recitation of and apology for humanist sentiments. Now don't get me wrong, Smith does NOT do this in his book. Yet his model of hermeneutics seems very close to positions like Gadamer and Ricoeur. And while he wants to give the `object' a limiting quality, the general thrust of his method tends toward idealism: language playfully and loving makes us and we playfully and loving affect and transform it. The resistance of the `object' is not sufficiently determinate, and the violence that irrupts in conflicting interpretations of, say, US foreign policy, myths of Manifest Destiny, social Darwinism, etc., is not sufficiently thematized.

What is the nature and force of `negativity'? how do we mediate between mediations (read: interpretations)? Is violence only ever the leveling violence of Enlightened conceptuality? The post-structuralist `critique' of enlightenment may be decisively over-determined; and the hermeneutic critique, somewhat underdetermined.
Jamie seems to incorporate both of these in his own hermeneutic model: overly pessimistic regarding the Enlightenment heritage and overly optimistic about the innocence of method, including his own. In either case, the Heideggerian or postmodern problem of politics haunts Jamie as it perhaps haunts us all.

It seems to me that Smith's hermeneutics needs a companion method capable of thematizing and criticizing socio-political violence, especially structural violence evident in the material reproduction of society. In the 21st century we can no longer think materialism in reductive terms, yet it would seem that institutionally grounded modes of economic organization do in fact play a role in mediating social relationships and the human relation to nature. Such themes might give strategies to lend some force to the limiting quality of the `object,' and suggest appropriate forms of agency in transforming a situation that is fundamentally violent. Again, I am being unfair to Jamie. This is not his project in this book, but these thoughts were provoked in thinking with the book. Needless to say, our hermeneutics must be as critical as it is `creative,' and should be sensitive to the material we go to work on. Jamie opens us in these directions.
Thanx to Smith, I am capable of raising such questions. This review should bot be read as critical per se, but rather raising THE question with which we must cope in current theory. It is clear that Enlightened modernity has severe limits, and as clear that postmodern particularism does too. Where we go from here? This book, and Jamie's work generally, offers some promising directions.

What I wrote in another review applies here as well:

"All in all, in spite (or perhaps because) of my critical questions, I love this book. This is a book that's worth reading, worth arguing with, and worth critiquing; ...Smith is asking the right questions, pointing us in essential trajectories, and opening a site for theological reflection that moves beyond the Biblicism and positivism of so much Evangelical theology. From *Fall of Interpretation* to this book, Smith is trailblazing a new mood of inquiry and questioning. We hope that his work gains a wide reading!!! God knows, Evangelicalism is in need of legible, creative, effective, insightful thinking. Thanks Jamie!"

Smith pleads for an affirmation of finitude and temporality in understanding interpretation, and the need to return to both. Smith highlights his claim against the common evangelical desire to "get to the Bible's meaning," or "to get the biblical interpretation" on the matter. He suggests that this is naive and un-Augustinian. Smith argues that we will bring our interpretation to the text and that we will do so because we are human.

Overview

Smith notes that many Evangelicals either look forward to the day when sin is gone and they will be able to understand the text *im*mediately, or if they read enough commentaries they can achieve the same results. At this point Smith interacts with Continental philosophers who wrestle with the same questions. Smith follows St Augustine who said that language makes public the private intentions of the "other." Language must span a gulf between interiorities, since the other has no means of entering my soul. (and here is the key point). The space between souls requires the mediation of signs, which in turn requires interpretation. Interpretation, therefore, is ubiquitous.

Interpretation is part of what it is to be human. Human is to be finite. Finitude preceded the fall. Interpretation preceded the fall. But if everyone has their own interpretation, does anything go? Smith disagrees. Interpretations are also communal and tradition-ed. There are built-in rules that will apply.

Conclusion:
A radical book. Changed the way I look at reality. However, I wish a few more questions were answered, such as those dealing with hermeneutical police. While I appreciate his critique of anti-hermeneutical positions (e.g., the evangelical bible study group), the average reader will wonder how Smith doesn't end up with hermeneutical relativism. This issue really isn't addressed aside from some appeal to "community."