Scriptures and the Guidance of Language Evaluating a Religious Authority in Communicative Action

In this book, Steven G. Smith focuses on the guidance function in language and scripture and evaluates the assumptions and ideals of scriptural religion in global perspective. He brings to language studies a new pragmatic emphasis on the shared modeling of life-in-the-world by communicators constantly depending on each other's guidance. Using concepts of axiality and axialization derived from Jaspers' description of the 'Axial Age', he shows the essential role of scripture in the historical progress of communicative action. This volume clarifies the formative power of scriptures in religions of the 'world religion' type and brings scripture into philosophy of religion as a major cross-cultural category of study, thereby helping philosophy of religion find a needed cross-cultural footing.

Part I. Problematics of Communicative Action: Introduction: on the powers and problematics of language; 1. The guidance problematic; 2. The speaking problematic; 3. The writing problematic; 4. The religious language problematic; Part II. Problematics of Scripture: 5. What is scripture?; 6. Evaluating the scripture premise; 7. The scripturalist; 8. Multiscripturalism; Concluding thoughts on the necessity of guidance and ideal scripturalism.

Steven G. Smith is a professor of philosophy and religious studies at Millsaps College, Mississippi and the author of numerous works in philosophy of religion and related fields, including The Concept of the Spiritual (1988), Gender Thinking (1992), Worth Doing (2004), Appeal and Attitude (2005), Full History (2016), and Centering and Extending (2017).