Limited Payoff

Cotterell and Turner spend many pages affirming Barr’s notions of meaning, in the process of which they distinguish between the lexical sense of a word and the “discourse concept,” that is, the particular connotations that might become part of the definition of a word in a particular context: “In the light of the distinction just made between lexical senses and discourse concepts, it is not unlikely that many interpreters will conclude that it is actually the broader discourse concepts , rather than the lexical, contextual, or specialized word senses , with which they are primarily concerned!”

Let me say this leaves me underwhelmed, and not a little suspicious. Why go to all the trouble of insisting on the distinction between concept and word-sense (lexical) when they finally admit that the contextualized discourse concept might well be the crucial factor in interpretation? What motivates this? What is at stake? In the end, would Barr et al be satisfied if Kittel just changed his title to “Theological Concept-Book of the New Testament”? Is this just an argument over a title?

Perhaps Barfield gives us the clue: This is further evidence of the spell of the physical sciences.