Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.
Download to your computer
Kindle Cloud Reader

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

by
Merold Westphal (Author)
› Visit Amazon's Merold Westphal Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central
Merold Westphal (Author), James Smith (Series Editor)
4.2 out of 5 stars 10 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0801031472
ISBN-10: 0801031478
Why is ISBN important?
ISBN
This bar-code number lets you verify that you're getting exactly the right version or edition of a book. The 13-digit and 10-digit formats both work.
Scan an ISBN with your phone
Use the Amazon App to scan ISBNs and compare prices.
Trade in your item
Get a $3.93
Gift Card.
Trade in
Learn More
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest <Embed>
Buy used On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
$15.04 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
Buy new On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
$22.00 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
More Buying Choices
23 New from $15.04 17 Used from $15.04
40 used & new from $15.04
See All Buying Options
Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Prime Student Free%20Two-Day%20Shipping%20for%20College%20Students%20with%20Amazon%20Student

Best Books of the Year So Far
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for the Best Books of the Year So Far in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.
$22.00 FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books. In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
click to open popover

Frequently Bought Together

  • Whose Community? Which Interpretation?: Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture)
  • +
  • Scripture as Communication: Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics
Total price: $42.87
Buy the selected items together
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
The latest book club pick from Oprah
"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead is a magnificent novel chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. See more

Product Details

  • Series: The Church and Postmodern Culture
  • Paperback: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Baker Academic (September 1, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0801031478
  • ISBN-13: 978-0801031472
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #311,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsWestphal on Gadamer's "Relativist Hermeneutics"
By Seth Thomas on September 16, 2009
Format: Paperback
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...Read more ›
12 Comments 34 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsAwesome
By Dean Chia on January 24, 2010
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
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.
Comment 7 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsTaking the middle road
By Duncan Reyburn on January 5, 2012
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
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.Read more ›
Comment 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsInspiring
By Charles Wenzel on January 24, 2011
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
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.
1 Comment 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
4.0 out of 5 starsMore or less fantastic
By Jacob on June 10, 2015
Format: Paperback
Thesis: Westphal, following James K. A. Smith's The Fall of Interpretation, argues that we should not seek a "pure stream" reading of the Bible that bypasses the act of interpretation. This position of seeking and *im*mediate reading of the text has precendents in Plato0 when he said the philosopher apprehends the purely intelligible structures (Phaedo 66e) In other words, our reading of the Bible is mediated to us by our hermeneutical filters, be they cultural, linguistic, philosophical, or whatever.

Westphal then examines recent moves in philosophical hermeneutics from the Romantics to Schlieirmacher to Wolterstorff.

But What About the Radical French Postmodernists?

The alleged problem comes with the French trio (Derrida, Foucault, and someone else) who assert, so it is said, "The death of the author."

But maybe they aren't saying exactly that (mind you, I have my own questions about Derrida).

Even the French trio doesn’t think the author is truly dead. “To deny that the author is the unilateral source of a text’s meaning is not to deny that the author plays an important role” (58). Westphal explains, “For our French trio, the finitude of the author in relation to the text is expressed in a double relativity. In the first place, human authors ‘create meaning’ only relative to the language available to them...this language shapes and conditions their thought in ways of which they are unaware and over which they do not preside” (59).

To say it yet another way: “The author is not a godlike, infinite creator of meaning” (65). Humans are finite and our sub-creations (what Milbank would call mythopoesis) are always within the realm of the finite and conditioned.Read more ›
Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Whose Community? Which Interpretation?: Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture)
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
This item: Whose Community? Which Interpretation?: Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture)
Set up a giveaway

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.

Pages with Related Products. See and discover other items: christianity