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March 14, 2009

Faith of a Kind: Aggressive Hermeneutics, Felicitous Weak Ontologies, and the Possibility of Interpretive Communities

Juliette Losq, Palimpsest I

by EILEEN JOY

Thanks to Karl’s flash review of James Simpson’s book Burning to Read, of which I have only read portions, I find myself continuing to be intrigued by the connections between Simpson’s book and his article, “Faith and Hermeneutics: Pragmatism versus Pragmatism” [JMEMS 33.2], especially in relation to Karl’s point [one that Holly Crocker also touched upon when she first mentioned Simpson’s book in her comment to my earlier post on Prendergast/Trigg/Dinshaw on medievalism and the supernatural] that Simpson, in his book, essentially damns William Tyndale as an intolerant fundamentalist while he also attempts to recuperate Thomas More as a more liberal reader [who nevertheless did heartily endorse execution for those who interpreted Scripture wrongly–so this is a bit of a conundrum, of course, as concerns Simpson’s argument, although in his book he freely admits this, I might add, and also offers some excuses], and all of this then raises the intriguing question [which I think Karl hints at] of whether or not Simpson brings a sort of [medieval/early modern/modern] Catholic bias to his book, which brings us right back to the question of faith and interpretation.

I bring up Simpson’s 2003 JMEMS article again because I think it relates, in deep fashion, to Simpson’s project in his book, which, as Karl has illustrated, has something to do with both:

a) issuing a kind of warning regarding fundamentalist reading/interpretive practices [which are, ultimately, based on the worst kind of fallacious circular reasoning and which have led to real, historical violences that don’t remain only in the past, say, of the western European Reformation]…[Read the rest at In the Middle]

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