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Article published In:
Argumentation and the interpretation of religious texts
Edited by Fabrizio Macagno and Lucia Salvato
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 12:1] 2023
► pp. 19–58

The boundaries of lying

Casuistry and the pragmatic dimension of interpretation

ORCID logo | Universidade Nova de Lisboa
| Universidade Nova de Lisboa
The Holy Scriptures can be considered a specific kind of normative texts, whose use to assess practical moral cases requires interpretation. In the field of ethics, this interpretative problem results in the necessity of bridging the gap between the normative source – moral precepts – and the specific cases. In the history of the Church, this problem was the core of the so-called casuistry, namely the decision-making practice consisting in applying the Commandments and other principles of the Holy Scriptures to specific cases or moral problems. By taking into account the sin of lying, this paper argues that casuistic texts reveal an extremely sophisticated interpretative method, grounded on “pragmatic” contextual and communicative considerations and argumentative structures that resemble the ones used in legal interpretation. These works show how the underspecified biblical text expressing an abstract norm was enriched pragmatically by completing it and modulating its meaning so that it could be used to draw a conclusion in a specific context on a specific case. The mutual interdependence between biblical interpretation, pragmatics, and argumentation sheds light on a much broader phenomenon, namely the pragmatic nature of argumentation.
Keywords: argumentative structures, best explanation, casuistry, ethical argumentation, ignoring qualifications, interpretation, moral precepts, pragmatics, textual analysis
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.The dimensions of biblical interpretation
  • 2.Casuistry as practical interpretation
  • 3.The pragmatic dimension. Casuistry and contextual meaning
  • 4.The arguments of interpretation
  • 5.Pragmatics and argumentation in the origins of casuistry: Lying in Saint Augustine
  • 6.Interpretation in casuistry – lying in the Summa Sylvestrina
    • 6.1The Summa Sylvestrina and the conditions of lying
    • 6.2The boundaries of interpretation
    • 6.3“Praesuppositio:” Explicatures, and tacit knowledge
    • 6.4Unilateral explicatures: Ambiguity and subintellectio
    • 6.5Implicatures and the speaker’s intention
  • 7. Secundum quid and casuistry
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 9 May 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.22009.mac
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