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Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim That God Speaks
Divine discourse comprises Nicholas Wolterstorff philosophical reflections on the claim that God speaks. This claim figures large in the canonical texts and traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but there has been remarkable little philosophical reflection on it, in good measure (so Professor Wolterstorff argues) because philosophers have mistakenly assimilated divine speech to divine revelation. He embraces contemporary speech-action theory as his basic approach to language; and after expanding the theory beyond its usual applications, concludes that the claims that God performs illocutionary actions is coherent and entails no obvious falsehoods. Moving on to issues of interpretation, he considers how one would interpret a text if one wanted to find our what God was saying thereby. Prominent features of this part of the discussion are his defense, against Ricoeur and Derrida, of the legitimacy of interpreting a text to find our what its author said, and his analysis of the double hermeneutic involved when the discourse of the person is appropriated into the discourse of another person. The book closes with a discussion of the epistemological question of whether we are ever entitled to believe that God speaks.
Availability
8701 | 231.041 Wol d | Available |
Detail Information
Series Title |
-
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Call Number |
231.041 Wol d
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Publisher | Cambridge University Press : Cambridge, New York., 1995 |
Collation |
x + 326hlm: 15x23cm
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Language |
English
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ISBN/ISSN |
0-521-47557-0
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Classification |
231.041
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Content Type |
-
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Other version/related
No other version available