Textualism and Scepticism: Post-modern Philosophy and the Theology of Text

Abstract

This paper addresses the religious notion of “textualism” – the formalistic assumption that a text is meaningful only when it is understood in itself and solely from itself. In the present paper, I will implicitly refer to this legal notion of “textualism” but I will be more generic with respect to the interpretation of the text and more specific with respect of the nature of the text itself. On the one hand, I will refer to “textualism” as to the hermeneutical assumption that the meaning of a text is inherently autonomous and does not require extra-textual sources; on the other hand, I will specifically refer here to religious texts and assume that they shall not be understood outside from their inherent cultural perimeter. This paper addresses the religious notion of “textualism” – the formalistic assumption that a text is meaningful only when it is understood in itself and solely from itself. More specifically, the notion of “textualism” has been introduced in contemporary jurisprudence in order to justify interpretations of legal texts under the presupposition that their ordinary meaning – eventually provided both by their rhetoric and their legal vocabulary – should govern their exhaustive interpretation. This assumption obviously has a clear consequence: non-textual sources would necessarily escape the intention of the legislator and therefore shall be excluded from ordinary hermeneutical means by which to interpret the legal texts themselves.1 In the present paper, I will implicitly refer to this legal notion of “textualism” but I will be more generic with respect to the interpretation of the text and more specific with respect of the nature of the text itself. On the one hand, I will refer to “textualism” as to the hermeneutical assumption that the meaning of a text is inherently autonomous and does not require extra-textual sources; on the other hand, I will specifically refer here to religious texts and assume that they shall not be understood outside from their inherent cultural perimeter. In the present paper I will refrain from treating the notion of “textualism” within Scripture itself, since this would rather require a specific treatment of a number of unavoidable very complex issues, such as: the definition of Biblical canon and the distinction between Jewish, Catholic, Christian-Orthodox, and Protestant Biblical canon; 2 the difference and battle for supremacy between different Biblical languages * Post-doctoral fellow at the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. Email: fdalbo@gmail.com 1 On a critical appreciation of the notion of “textualism” as a doctrine about statutory interpretation applied especially to the Anglo-Saxon Common Law, see: Andrei Marmor, Law in the Age of Pluralism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 197-214. For a philosophical definition of “textualism,” see: Richard Rorty, “NineteenthCentury Idealism and Twentieth-Century Textualism,” The Monist 64.2 (1981): 155-174, published also in Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism. Essays, 1972-1980 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982): 139-159. 2 On this, see for instance, the recent: Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon. Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006); see also: Lee Martin McDonald, The Canon Debate, ed. James A. Sanders (Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002). TEXTUALISM AND SCEPTICISM (DAL BO) 85 (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Syriac, and Latin);3 finally, the definition of Jewish Biblical canon with respect to the vocalization of the Hebrew Scripture.4 Therefore, I will assume as self-evident that Scripture represents the fundamental horizon for any Jewish definition of “textualism” and I will distinguish between four different notions in Rabbinic literature in particular and in Judaism in general. More specifically I will assume that each of these kinds of “textualism” involves a specific appreciation of the interpreter’s mind, the modes of interpretation, and the epistemological result of investigating a text.5 These four notions of “textualism” are: 1. the Rabbinic notion of “Scripture,” 2. the Midrashic notion of “Scripture,” 3. the Kabbalistic notion of “Scripture,” 4. the post-modern philosophical notion of “Text.” My working thesis is that the Rabbinic notion of “Scripture” has developed in parallel – both chronologically and conceptually – to a Midrashic and a Kabbalistic notion of “Scripture” since the assumption of “Scripture” as the fundamental text of Judaism. As far as it is problematic to provide a generic definition of each of these kinds of Jewish “textualism,” I would assume the following: a Rabbinic notion of “Scripture” assumes Scripture as the ultimate gnoseological – that is: cognitive – horizon; a Midrashic notion of “Scripture“ assumes Scripture as the ultimate cosmological horizon; a Kabbalistic notion of “Scripture” assumes Scripture as the ultimate ontological horizon; conversely, postmodern philosophy – both in Marc-Alain Ouaknin,6 Jacques Derrida,7 and Catherine Malabou8 – tends to refrain from directly addressing Scripture, assumes rather the horizon 3 On linguistic tensions and struggle for predomination, see: Louis-Jean Calvet, Language Wars and Linguistic Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 4 On this topic see: Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992); see also: Stefen Schorch, “Rewritten Bible and the Vocalization of the Biblical Text,” in Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years. Text, Terms, or Techniques, ed. J. Zsengellér (Leiden: Brill, 2014): 137-152. 5 Here and in the next pages I follow: Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfection. Kabbalah and Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). 6 Marc-Alain Ouaknin (1957) is a prominent French rabbi and a philosopher, especially famous for his best-known work Le livre brûlé, Lire le Talmud (Paris: Lieu Commun, 1986 and Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1992) in which he elaborated on the Gentile animosity to the Talmud and interprets its “burning” also in light of an unwitting act of complicity as a self-indulgent practise of “self-effacement.” On his work, see: Martin Kavka, “Saying Nihilism: A Review of Marc-Alain Ouaknin’s ‘Burnt Book,’” in Shaul Magid (ed), God’s Voice from the Void (Albany: State University of New York, 2002): 217-236. 7 Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was one of the most representative figures in post-war French philosophy. His work is universally associated with the notion of “deconstruction” – a specific form of semiotic analysis that he developed from the Heideggerian notion of “destruction of metaphysics.” Derrida progressively abandoned his initial post-phenomenological orientation, prominent in his first works, for a more post-hermeneutical one, usual in his later works and influenced by the American hermeneutical school (the so called “Yale Critics”). Scholarship on him is immense. See: Albert Leventure, “A Bibliography of the French and English Works of Jacques Derrida, 196290,” Textual Practice 5, no. 1 (1991). William R. Schultz, Jacques Derrida: an Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1992); Mano Daniel, “A Bibliography of Derrida and Phenomenology,” in Derrida and Phenomenology, eds. William R. McKenna and J. Claude Evans (Dodrecht: Springer, 1995), 201-211; Peter Zellinger, Jacques Derrida: Bibliographie der Französischen, Deutschen und Englischen Werke (Wien: Turia & Kant, 2005); Gidon Ofrat, haBerit ṿe-ha-milah shel Z’aḳ Deridah: ʿal Yahadut ke-Petsaʿ, ke-Hotam u-khe-Aḥerut (Tel Aviv: ha-Kibutz haMeuhad, 2008); Michael Fisch, Jacques Derrida: Bibliographie der Deutschsprachigen Veröffentlichungen in Chronologischer Folge, Geordnet nach den Französischen Erstpublikationen, Erstvorträgen oder Erstabdrucken von 1959 bis 2009 (Berlin: Weidler, 2011). 8 Catherine Malabou (1959) is a UK-based French philosopher who has developed the notion of “plasticity” with respect of the Hegelian notion of “future” (avenir), by combining elements from both continental philosophy and modern neuro-sciences, in resonance with Giorgio Agamben’s notion of “bare life” (nuda vita). For a short sample of MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES 12 (2015) 86 of “secularization,” usually conforming to Carl Schmitt’s philosophy of law,9 and inclines for ‘‘a kind of atheism,’’ as he emphasized on textuality and plurivocality – that is: the unavoidable, disseminating openness to “many voices,” in contrast with the towering, normative “single voice” of the text.10 As a consequence of this, post-modern philosophy exhibits scepticism as well as a certain residue of Kabbalistic thought in their “cult” of the book or textuality – probably developing into what Eco has called: ‘‘atheistic mystics.’’11 1. The Rabbinic notion of “Scripture” The Rabbinic notion of “Scripture” designates a textual universe in which everything is essential and autonomous – especially from an epistemological and legal point of view. This notion is exemplified in a famous statement from the Mishnah, specifically from the later tractate Avot: Ben Bag Bag said: Turn it [the Torah] over and over, since everything is in it. Look into it, grow old and worn over it, and never move away from it, for you will find no better portion than it. (mAvot 5:26) The meaning of this famous dictum is at first quite obvious – Scripture is the ultimate, both existential and scientific for a pious Jewish man, who should never keep away from learning it every moment of his life. In the present context I want to emphasize the anomalous nature of tractate Avot. As some scholars maintain, tractate Avot would be an “addition” to the final redaction of the Mishnah and would play a substantial “ideological” role – emphasizing the importance of the Pharisaic law over any other secular discipline. With respect to this, the Rabbinic notion of “Scripture” would essentially pertain to the epistemological prominence of Scripture over ot