Customer Reviews

Whose Community? Which Interpretation?: Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture)

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In his "Whose Community? Which Interpretation?" Westphal has - as he so often does - written a lucid, masterfully organized and beautifully styled book. Those who are familiar with Westphal's (prodigious) body of previous work know that this is about as surprising as hearing that the sun rose again today; those who are not familiar with Westphal, should be.

I can't really think of any work by Westphal that I don't find to be of commendable quality, so I must say at the outset that I was quite favorably inclined toward it from the beginning. What I found within it as I read, however, is a particularly unique variegation of focus that I think it deserves a special explanation of and advocation for its ample merit.

I'm a 26 year old philosophy student who, after over 15 individual philosophy classes over the last 7 years - each of which had reading a glut of "primers," "introductions" or "companions" to this philosopher, that philosophy, or these philosophical movements - has come to realize that most of the works in this book's genre fall into one of two categories:

1) Overly simplistic, reductionistic to the point of misrepresentation or plain error, and able to do little but create or propogate a false understanding of good philosophical thinking in undergraduate minds, especially those non-majors who, outside of having - hopefully! - taken Philosophy 101 their freshman year will probably never again think about Plato aside from inadvertent contact occasioned by, say, a fortuitous spelling goof while googling certain pieces of dinnerware for their new apartment, or...

2) Books which are primarily, quite possibly entirely, composed of sentences like this: "Considerable historiographical scrutiny, especially within certain veins of later French post-structuralism which exhibit a latent and sure-to-be-protested proclivity for phenomenological approach and methodological syntax, has been given to what have come to be seen as the 'pre-post-modernist' rumblings of 19th century thinkers like..." No joke - this is a real sentence in one of my "primers."

This book, however, is among those rare few that actually manages to walk the line between reductionism and academic drivel, and it does so better than most of the rest of this already elite class of "popular-level" scholarship.

Anyway, enough prefatory praise. What makes this book so unique is that although there are no official groupings of chapters in the table of contents to signify this, it addresses three very different issues or concepts over the course of the course of its content - each of which is roughly a third of the book - but does each of them WELL. The first part of the book, chapters 1-5, is an introduction to the hermeneutical issues and questions germane to the relativism inherent to postmodernism as well as a history of the (failed) attempts to formulate an objectivist methodology which guarantees certainty and universality in interpretation, particularly biblical interpretation, with brief but informative discussions of greats like Schleiermacher, Ricoeur, Foucault, Derrida, et. al. The focus of chapters 6-9 is an extremely well-written overview and exploration of the hermeneutical theory of Hans-Georg Gadamer, with an eye towards his hugely influential "Truth and Method," which somehow manages to fit most of the salient questions and issues into 4 measly chapters while still diving well beyond the surface level of this (extremely) difficult thinker. At the risk of using up all of my hyperbole credit (if I haven't done so already) these 4 chapters alone are worth double the price of the book: there are not many readable, clear guides to Gadamer out there, and those who have tried to read him alone without any prefatory context or learned guidance know that unless one possesses a Gadamerian intellect oneself it can feel about as difficult (and successful) as, say, trying to create a glassblown exact replica of the statue of David while underwater and in the dark. Without arms. The last part of the book, chapters 10-12, are Westphal's own ideas as to how to analyze, appropriate, and apply Gadamerian insights into these hermeneutical issues to Christian church praxis. I won't give away the details, but this part is no less helpful or worth reading than either of the other two parts.

So, there you have it - Westphal packs it into 12 chapters but unpacks each chapter's ideas in a way that is informative and just difficult enough to be challenging without being discouraging, making this book a proverbial diamond in the rough, indeed. Given the glut of books on hermeneutial theory out there, I hope this helps persuade you to steer your wallet Westphal's way. You won't regret it.

For Christians who are dissatisfied with the way some Christians handle truth and meaning and biblical interpretation/hermeneutics, this is awesome. Showing us how the tables have changed with Postmodernism (while not giving into an "anything goes" mentality/attitude). Awesome read. Very accessible and well-written.

I thought of giving this a a 4-star rating but this would have been unfair. For, in effect, I would have been punishing Westphal for taking me on an exhilarating intellectual-imagination flight in his first 9 chapters while bringing we back in the last 3.

His exceptional writing, clarity of thought and deftness in opening Gadamer's writings on hermeneutics were so stimulating that the insights generated caused me to write a small book upon his book's margins.

When reading--especially my KJV Bible--I will no longer look for THE {object} writer's meaning but rather the exchange/interchange {communication} between the 2 living, subjective beings which--I now understand--could only ever be a writer's objective: creation {writing} and re-creation {reading} [remove the hyphen and note that term's 2 senses.]

Oh, we are "fearfully and wonderfully made"! The very fact that we can comprehend i.e. grasp meaning, should be proof enough of God.

I found this work to be consistent with much Post Modern Philosophy and Theology. However, since I am a critique of the movement I am also a critic of the work. With much postmodern thought there are basic Kantian assumptions baked into the cake in terms of how you know what you know( Epistemology). He rather just assumes( like many) that Kant is correct in his starting assumptions on interpreting the world. I would have liked to seen those positions( which are most fundamental) defended more ardently before moving on to a larger system of interpretation.

For those not familiar with Kant, he divided the world into two classes: things in themselves and phenomenon. He draws a sharp divide between the two and states that the latter can be known and the former can't. Now in Theological terms this assumption makes a huge amount of substance on whether or not God descends and breaks into/through space and time, to be know in a certain way as He determines. In all Kantian thought this is something that is always going to be prohibited as Kant places God in the category of Noumena( a thing in itself that can't be known) not with certainty at least( rather only assumed). In post modern circles the notion of any certain knowledge( including Biblical Interpretation) isn't going to be a tenable position, and it is usually assumed one must be god to have this sort of knowledge( this proposition needs to be tested for a fallacy). However, what if God wishes to make something known with certainty? Who prohibits God?

If you are a Christian this is not a work that should be read un critically as it makes certain assumptions that aren't consistent Biblically about the nature of God. Please note that I am not addressing any other audience with this comment.

This is a really fantastic book and an essential introduction to hermeneutics for those who are concerned as much with how we look at things as with what we look at. It is as James KA Smith suggests in the foreword, a "course in a box" -- a wonderful opportunity to learn from a master philosopher and a master communicator.

I am aware that some people, especially those who tend to find themselves on the conservative side of the theological fence, may have an allergic reaction to Westphal's suggestion of a relativist hermeneutics, but such a reaction would be out of place. In no way is Westphal suggesting an "anything goes" hermeneutics. In fact, he goes to a lot of trouble to explain that the fears that arise in the face of the 'specter of relativism' are largely unfounded. Do you actually know anyone who honestly believes that 'anything goes'? Let's be pragmatic about it: have you ever met someone who is well-and-truly a relativist? Even the most extreme philosophical anarchist abides by the fact that words mean particular things even if language itself is a little elastic. Even the most abstruse philosophical deconstruction is confined to the human condition. I.e. even the most rabid postmodernist still has to go to the shops to buy bread and milk and even the postmodern surgeon must use a scalpel rather than a penguin.

What Westphal does is navigate the territory between hermeneutical arrogance (and thus theological absolutism) and hermeneutical despair (and thus nihilism) and I suspect that those who are prone to either of these approaches will struggle to grasp the balance that Westphal is trying to maintain. But maintaining balance is something that he does very well. In the end what strikes me as being particularly remarkable about this book is the spirit in which it is written. It is assured, but humble. It considers our epistemological/creaturely limitations, but also takes into account our ability for understanding. In the end, by adopting a tertium quid, this book assumes the centrality of faith to philosophical hermeneutics -- something that overly rationalistic or nihilistic approaches to interpretation simply cannot achieve.