Art and Interpretation

picture of man looking at art objectsEstimation in fine art refers to the attribution of meaning to a piece of work. A signal on which people frequently disagree is whether the artist's or author's intention is relevant to the interpretation of the piece of work. In the Anglo-American analytic philosophy of fine art, views about interpretation branch into 2 major camps: intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, with an initial focus on one art, namely literature.

The anti-intentionalist maintains that a piece of work's significant is entirely determined by linguistic and literary conventions, thereby rejecting the relevance of the writer'south intention. The underlying assumption of this position is that a work enjoys autonomy with respect to meaning and other aesthetically relevant properties. Extra-textual factors, such as the author's intention, are neither necessary nor sufficient for meaning determination. This early on position in the analytic tradition is often chosen conventionalism because of its strong emphasis on convention. Anti-intentionalism gradually went out of favor at the end of the 20th century, only it has seen a revival in the so-called value-maximizing theory, which recommends that the interpreter seek value-maximizing interpretations constrained by convention and, according to a different version of the theory, by the relevant contextual factors at the fourth dimension of the piece of work's production.

By dissimilarity, the initial make of intentionalism—bodily intentionalism—holds that interpreters should concern themselves with the author's intention, for a work'south meaning is affected by such intention. There are at to the lowest degree three versions of actual intentionalism. The accented version identifies a work'south meaning fully with the writer's intention, therefore assuasive that an author tin can intend her work to mean whatever she wants it to hateful. The farthermost version acknowledges that the possible meanings a work can sustain have to be constrained by convention. Co-ordinate to this version, the writer'due south intention picks the correct significant of the piece of work as long as it fits one of the possible meanings; otherwise, the work ends up being meaningless. The moderate version claims that when the writer'southward intention does not match any of the possible meanings, pregnant is fixed instead by convention and maybe also context.

A 2d make of intentionalism, which finds a centre form between actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, is hypothetical intentionalism. Co-ordinate to this position, a work's meaning is the appropriate audience's best hypothesis about the author'south intention based on publicly bachelor information about the writer and her work at the time of the piece's production. A variation on this position attributes the intention to a hypothetical author who is postulated past the interpreter and who is constituted by work features. Such authors are sometimes said to exist fictional considering they, being purely conceptual, differ decisively from flesh-and-blood authors.

This article elaborates on these theories of estimation and considers their notable objections. The argue about interpretation covers other art forms in add-on to literature. The theories of interpretation are also extended across many of the arts. This broad outlook is assumed throughout the article, although nix said is affected even if a narrow focus on literature is adopted.

Table of Contents

  1. Key Concepts: Intention, Pregnant, and Estimation
  2. Anti-Intentionalism
    1. The Intentional Fallacy
    2. Beardsley's Spoken communication Human activity Theory of Literature
    3. Notable Objections and Replies
  3. Value-Maximizing Theory
    1. Overview
    2. Notable Objections and Replies
  4. Actual Intentionalism
    1. Absolute Version
    2. Extreme Version
    3. Moderate Version
    4. Objections to Actual Intentionalism
  5. Hypothetical Intentionalism
    1. Overview
    2. Notable Objections and Replies
  6. Hypothetical Intentionalism and the Hypothetical Artist
    1. Overview
    2. Notable Objections and Replies
  7. Conclusion
  8. References and Further Reading

1. Key Concepts: Intention, Significant, and Interpretation

It is common for united states to ask questions nigh works of fine art due to puzzlement or curiosity. Sometimes we practice non understand the point of the work. What is the point of, for instance, Metamorphosis by Kafka or Duchamp's Fountain? Sometimes there is ambivalence in a piece of work and we want it resolved. For example, is the last sequence of Christopher Nolan's picture Inception reality or another dream? Or practise ghosts really exist in Henry James's The Turn of the Spiral? Sometimes nosotros make hypotheses about details in a piece of work. For instance, does the woman in white in Raphael'due south The Schoolhouse of Athens represent Hypatia? Is the conch in William Golding'due south Lord of the Flies a symbol for civilization and commonwealth?

What these questions take in common is that all of them seek subsequently things that become across what the work literally presents or says. They are all concerned with the implicit contents of the work or, for simplicity, with the meanings of a work. A distinction can exist fatigued between ii kinds of meaning in terms of scope. Meaning can be global in the sense that it concerns the work's theme, thesis, or point. For example, an audience first encountering Duchamp's Fountain would want to know Duchamp'southward signal in producing this readymade or, put otherwise, what the work equally a whole is made to convey. The same goes for Kafka's Metamorphosis, which contains so bizarre a plot as to make the reader wonder what the story is all about. Meaning can too exist local insofar as it is about what a part of a work conveys. Inquiries into the meaning of a particular sequence in Christopher Nolan's pic, the woman in Raphael'due south fresco, or the conch in William Golding's Lord of the Flies are directed at only part of the work.

We are said to be interpreting when trying to find out answers to questions almost the meaning of a work. In other words, interpretation is the attempt to attribute work-meaning. Hither "aspect" can mean "recover," which is retrieving something already existing in a piece of work; or it can more than weakly mean "impose," which entails ascribing a significant to a work without ontologically creating annihilation. Many of the major positions in the debate endorse either the impositional view or the retrieval view.

When an interpretative question arises, a frequent way to deal with it is to resort to the creator's intention. We may ask the artist to reveal her intention if such an opportunity is available; we may also bank check what she says about her piece of work in an interview or autobiography. If we have access to her personal documents such equally diaries or letters, they too will get our interpretative resources. These are all evidence of the artist's intention. When the bear witness is compelling, we have good reason to believe it reveals the artist's intention.

Certainly, there are cases in which external evidence of the artist'south intention is absent-minded, including when the work is anonymous. This poses no difficulty for philosophers who view entreatment to creative intention as crucial, for they accept that internal evidence—the work itself—is the all-time evidence of the artist's intention. Nearly of the time, close attention to details of the work will atomic number 82 united states of america to what the creative person intended the work to mean.

Only what is intention exactly? Intention is a kind of mental state usually characterized as a design or plan in the artist'south mind to exist realized in her artistic creation. This crude view of intention is sometimes refined into the reductive analysis 1 will notice in a contemporaneous textbook of philosophy of mind: intention is constituted by belief and desire. Some actual intentionalists explain the nature of intention from a Wittgensteinian perspective: authorial intention is viewed equally the purposive structure of the work that can be discerned by shut inspection. This view challenges the supposition that intentions are always private and logically independent of the work they cause, which is often interpreted as a position held by anti-intentionalists.

A 2005 proposal holds that intentions are executive attitudes toward plans (Livingston). These attitudes are house but defeasible commitments to acting on them. Contra the reductive analysis of intention, this view holds that intentions are distinct and real mental states that serve a range of functions irreducible to other mental states.

Clarifying each of these basic terms (meaning, estimation, and intention) requires an essay-length treatment that cannot exist done here. For electric current purposes, it suffices to introduce the aforesaid views and proposals commonly assumed. Behave in mind that for the virtually office the contend over art interpretation proceeds without consensus on how to ascertain these terms, and clarifications appear only when necessary.

2. Anti-Intentionalism

Anti-intentionalism is considered the first theory of interpretation to emerge in the analytic tradition. It is commonly seen as affiliated with the New Criticism motility that was prevalent in the middle of the twentieth century. The position was initially a reaction against biographical criticism, the chief idea of which is that the interpreter, to grasp the meaning of a work, needs to study the life of the writer considering the work is seen as reflecting the author'south mental world. This approach led to people considering the author'south biographical data rather than her work. Literary criticism became criticism of biography, non criticism of literary works. Against this trend, literary critic William One thousand. Wimsatt and philosopher Monroe C. Beardsley coauthored a seminal paper "The Intentional Fallacy" in 1946, marking the starting point of the intention debate. Beardsley later extended his anti-intentionalist stance beyond the arts in his monumental book Aesthetics: Issues in the Philosophy of Criticism ([1958] 1981a).

a. The Intentional Fallacy

The main idea of the intentional fallacy is that appeal to the artist's intention outside the work is fallacious, because the work itself is the verdict of what meaning it bears. This contention is based on the anti-intentionalist's ontological assumption most works of art.

This underlying assumption is that a work of art enjoys autonomy with respect to meaning and other aesthetically relevant properties. As Beardsley's Principle of Autonomy shows, critical statements will in the end need to be tested against the work itself, not against factors outside it. To give Beardsley's case, whether a statue symbolizes human destiny depends not on what its maker says simply on our being able to make out that theme from the statue on the basis of our knowledge of artistic conventions: if the statue shows a man confined to a cage, nosotros may well conclude that the statue indeed symbolizes human destiny, for by convention the prototype of solitude fits that alleged theme. The anti-intentionalist principle hence follows: the interpreter should focus on what she tin can find in the work itself—the internal evidence—rather than on external evidence, such every bit the artist's biography, to reveal her intentions.

Anti-intentionalism is sometimes called conventionalism considering it sees convention as necessary and sufficient in determining work-meaning. On this view, the artist's intention at all-time underdetermines significant even when operating successfully. This can be seen from the famous argument offered by Wimsatt and Beardsley: either the artist'south intention is successfully realized in the work, or it fails; if the intention is successfully realized in the work, appeal to external prove of the artist'due south intention is not necessary (nosotros can detect the intention from the work); if it fails, such entreatment becomes insufficient (the intention turns out to be inapplicable to the work). The conclusion is that an appeal to external evidence of the artist'due south intention is either unnecessary or bereft. As the second premise of the argument shows, the artist's intention is insufficient in determining meaning for the reason that convention lone can practice the trick. Every bit a event, the overall argument entails the irrelevance of external prove of the creative person's intention. To recollect of such bear witness as relevant commits the intentional fallacy.

In that location is a second way to formulate the intentional fallacy. Since the artist does non ever successfully realize her intention, the inference is invalid from the premise that the artist intended her work to hateful p to the conclusion that the piece of work in question does mean p. Therefore, the term "intentional fallacy" has two layers of significant: normatively, it refers to the questionable principle of interpretation that external evidence of intent should be appealed to; ontologically, it refers to the beguiling inference from probable intention to work-meaning.

b. Beardsley's Speech Act Theory of Literature

Beardsley at a later point develops an ontology of literature in favor of anti-intentionalism (1981b, 1982). Reviving Plato's simulated theory of art, Beardsley claims that fictional works are essentially imitations of illocutionary acts. Briefly put, illocutionary acts are performed by utterances in particular contexts. For example, when a detective, convinced that someone is the killer, points his finger at that person and utters the judgement "you did it," the detective is performing the illocutionary human action of accusing someone. What illocutionary human activity is being performed is traditionally construed as jointly determined past the speaker's intention to perform that human activity, the words uttered, and the relevant weather condition in that particular context. Other examples of illocutionary acts include asserting, alert, castigating, asking, and the like.

Literary works can be seen as utterances; that is, texts used in a particular context to perform different illocutionary acts by authors. However, Beardsley claims that in the instance of fictional works in particular, the purported illocutionary forcefulness will e'er be removed so as to make the utterance an imitation of that illocutionary act. When an attempted human action is comparatively performed, it ends upwardly being represented or imitated. For case, if I say "please pass me the salt" in my dining room when no one except me is at that place, I stop upward representing (imitating) the illocutionary human action of requesting because there is no uptake from the intended audition. Since the illocutionary act in this case is only imitated, it qualifies as a fictional act. This is why Beardsley sees fiction as representation.

Consider the uptake status in the example of fictional works. Such works are not addressed to the audience every bit a talk is: there is no concrete context in which the audience tin exist readily identified. The uttered text hence loses its illocutionary force and ends up beingness a representation. Aside from this "accost without admission," another obtaining condition for a fictional illocutionary act is the existence of non-referring names and descriptions in a fictional work. If an author writes a poem in which she greets the keen detective Sherlock Holmes, this greeting will never obtain, because the proper noun Sherlock Holmes does not refer to any existing person in the world. The greeting will but finish up beingness a representation or a fictional illocution. By parity of reasoning, fictional works end up being representations of illocutionary acts in that they always comprise names or descriptions involving events that never take place.

Now we must ask: by what benchmark do nosotros make up one's mind what illocutionary act is represented? It cannot be the speaker or author's intention, because even if a speaker intends to correspond a particular illocutionary human action, she might end up representing another. Since the possibility of failed intention always exists, intention would not exist an appropriate criterion. Convention is again invoked to determine the correct illocutionary act beingness represented. It is true that any practice of representing is intentional at the start in the sense that what is represented is determined by the representer's intention. Nevertheless, once the connection betwixt a symbol and what information technology is used to represent is established, intention is said to be detached from that connection, and deciding the content of a representation becomes a sheer thing of convention.

Since a fictional work is essentially a representation of an insufficiently performed illocutionary act, determining what it represents does not require us to go beyond that incomplete performance, but as determining what a mime is imitating does non require the audience to consider anything outside her performance, such as her intention. What the mime is imitating is completely determined by how we conventionally construe the act being performed. In a like mode, when because what illocutionary human activity is represented by a fictional piece of work, the interpreter should rely on internal evidence rather than on external evidence of authorial intent to construct the illocutionary act being represented. If, based on internal data, a story reads similar a castigation of war, information technology is suitably seen as a representation of that illocutionary act. The conclusion is that the author's intention plays no function in fixing the content of a fictional work.

Lastly, information technology is worth mentioning that Beardsley'due south mental attitude toward nonfictional works is ambivalent. Obviously, his spoken language act statement applies to fictional works only, and he accepts that nonfictional works can be genuine illocutions. This category of works tends to have a more than identifiable audience, who is hence non addressed without access. With illocutions, Beardsley continues to argue for an anti-intentionalist view of significant according to which the utterer's intention does not make up one's mind meaning. But his accepting nonfictional works as illocutions opens the door to considerations of external or contextual factors that go against his earlier stance, which is globally anti-intentionalist.

c. Notable Objections and Replies

Ane firsthand concern with anti-intentionalism is whether convention alone can point to a single meaning (Hirsch, 1967). The common reason why people debate almost interpretation is precisely that the work itself does non offer sufficient prove to disambiguate meaning. Very frequently a piece of work tin can sustain multiple meanings and the trouble of choice prompts some people to entreatment to the artist's intention. It does not seem plausible to say that one can assign only a single meaning to works like Ulysses or Picasso's abstruse paintings if one concentrates solely on internal evidence. To this objection, Beardsley (1970) insists that, in well-nigh cases, appeal to the coherence of the work can eventually leave u.s.a. with a single correct interpretation.

A second serious objection to anti-intentionalism is the instance of irony (Hirsch, 1976, pp. 24–5). It seems reasonable to say that whether a work is ironic depends on if its creator intended it to be so. For example, based on internal prove, many people took Daniel Defoe's pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters to be genuinely against the Dissenters upon its publication. Yet, the merely ground for saying that the pamphlet is ironic seems to be Defoe's intention. If irony is a crucial component of the work, ignoring it would neglect to respect the work's identity. It follows that irony cannot be grounded in internal evidence lone. Beardsley's answer (1982, pp. 203–vii) is that irony must offering the possibility of understanding. If the artist cannot imagine anyone taking information technology ironically, at that place would be no reason to believe the work to be ironic.

However, the trouble of irony is only function of a bigger concern that challenges the irrelevance of external factors to interpretation. Many factors nowadays at the fourth dimension of the work'due south creation seem to play a primal role in shaping a work's identity and content. Missing out on these factors would lead us to misidentifying the work (and hence to misinterpreting information technology).

For instance, a work will non be seen as revolutionary unless the interpreter knows something about the contemporaneous artistic tradition: ignoring the work's innovation amounts to accepting that the work can lose its revolutionary character while remaining cocky-identical. If we see this character as identity-relevant, we should then take it into consideration in our estimation. The aforementioned line of thinking goes for other identity-conferring contextual factors, such as the social-historical conditions and the relations the piece of work bears to contemporaneous or prior works. The present view is thus called ontological contextualism to foreground the ontological claim that the identity and content of a work of fine art are in part determined by the relations information technology bears to its context of production.

Contextualism leads to an of import stardom between work and text in the case of literature. In a nutshell: a text is non context-dependent but a piece of work is. The anti-intentionalist stance thus leads the interpreter to consider texts rather than works considering it rejects considerations of external or contextual factors. The same distinction goes for other fine art forms when we draw a comparing betwixt an artistic product considered in its brute form and in its context of creation. For convenience, the word "work" is used throughout with notes on whether contextualism is taken or not.

Equally a reply to the contextualist objection, information technology has been argued (Davies, 2005) that Beardsley'south position allows for contextualism. If this is disarming, the contextualist criticism of anti-intentionalism would non be conclusive.

iii. Value-Maximizing Theory

a. Overview

The value-maximizing theory can exist viewed equally being derived from anti-intentionalism. Its cadre claim is that the main aim of fine art interpretation is to offer interpretations that maximize the value of a work. At that place are at least two versions of the maximizing position distinguished by the commitment to contextualism. When the maximizing position is committed to contextualism, the constraint on interpretation will be convention plus context (Davies, 2007); otherwise, the constraint will be convention only, as endorsed past anti-intentionalism (Goldman, 2013).

As indicated, the discussion "maximize" does non imply monism. That is, the present position does non merits that in that location can exist but a single way to maximize the value of a work of art. On the reverse, it seems reasonable to assume that in most cases the interpreter tin can envisage several readings to bring out the value of the work. For instance, Kafka's Metamorphosis has generated a number of rewarding interpretations, and it is difficult to debate for a single all-time among them. As long as an estimation is revealing or insightful under the relevant interpretative constraints, nosotros may count it as value-maximizing. Such being the instance, the value-maximizing theory may be relabelled the "value-enhancing" or "value-satisfying" theory.

Given this pluralist picture, the maximizer, unlike the anti-intentionalist, volition need to accept the indeterminacy thesis that convention (and context, if she endorses contextualism) alone does not guarantee the unambiguity of the work. This allows the maximizing position to bypass the challenge posed by said thesis, rendering it a more flexible position than anti-intentionalism in regard to the number of legitimate interpretations.

Encapsulating the maximizing position in a few words: it holds that the primary aim of fine art interpretation is to enhance appreciative satisfaction by identifying interpretations that bring out the value of a work within reasonable limits set up by convention (and context).

b. Notable Objections and Replies

The actual intentionalist will maintain that figurative features such as irony and innuendo must be analysed intentionalistically. The maximizer with contextualist commitment tin can counter this objection by dealing with intentions more sophisticatedly. If the relevant features are identity conferring, they will exist respected and accepted in interpretation. In this case, any interpretation that ignores the intended characteristic ends up misidentifying the work. Just if the relevant features are not identity conferring, more room will exist left for the interpreter to consider them. The intended feature tin be ignored if it does not add to the value of the work. By contrast, where such a feature is not intended but tin be put in the work, the interpreter can still build information technology into the interpretation if it is value enhancing.

The most important objection to the maximizing view has it that the present position is in danger of turning a mediocre piece of work into a masterpiece. Ed Wood's moving-picture show Programme nine from Outer Space is the most discussed example. Many people consider this work to be the worst film ever made. However, interpreted from a postmodern perspective as satire—which is presumably a value-enhancing interpretation—would plough it into a classic.

The maximizer with contextualist leanings tin respond that the postmodern reading fails to identify the pic equally authored by Wood (Davies, 2007, p, 187). Postmodern views were not bachelor in Wood's fourth dimension, then it was impossible for the film to be created as such. Identifying the film equally postmodernist amounts to anachronism that disrespects the piece of work's identity. The moral of this example is that the maximizer does not blindly enhance the value of a work. Rather, the work to be interpreted needs to be contextualized first to ensure that subsequent attributions of aesthetic value are washed in low-cal of the true and fair presentation of the piece of work.

4. Bodily Intentionalism

Contra anti-intentionalism, actual intentionalism maintains that the creative person's intention is relevant to interpretation. The position comes in at least iii forms, giving different weights to intention. The absolute version claims that work-meaning is fully determined past the creative person's intention; the extreme version claims that the work ends upwardly beingness meaningless when the artist'due south intention is incompatible with it; and the moderate version claims that either the artist's intention determines pregnant or—if this fails—meaning is determined instead by convention (and context, if contextualism is endorsed).

a. Absolute Version

Absolute bodily intentionalism claims that a piece of work means whatever its creator intends it to mean. Put otherwise, it sees the creative person's intention as the necessary and sufficient condition for a work's meaning. This position is ofttimes dubbed Humpty-Dumptyism with reference to the character Humpty-Dumpty in Through the Looking-Drinking glass. This character tries to convince Alice that he tin make a word mean what he chooses it to mean. This unsettling conclusion is supported by the statement almost intentionless meaning: a mark (or a sequence of marks) cannot have meaning unless information technology is produced past an amanuensis capable of intentional activities; therefore, pregnant is identical to intention.

It seems plausible to abandon the thought that marks on the sand are a poem once we know they were caused by accident. Merely this at best proves that intention is the necessary condition for something's being meaningful; it does not prove further that what something means is what the agent intended it to mean. In other words, the statement about intentionless meaning does a improve job in showing that intention is an indispensable ingredient for meaningfulness than in showing that intention infallibly determines the pregnant conveyed.

b. Extreme Version

To avoid Humpty-Dumptyism, the extreme actual intentionalist rejects the view that the artist's intention infallibly determines work-meaning and accepts the indeterminacy thesis that convention alone does not guarantee a unmarried evident meaning to be institute in a work. The farthermost intentionalist claims further that the meaning of the piece of work is stock-still by the creative person's intention if her intention identifies one of the possible meanings sustained by the piece of work; otherwise, the work ends up being meaningless (Hirsch, 1967). Amend put, the extreme intentionalist sees intention as the necessary rather than sufficient condition for work-meaning.

Bated from the unsatisfactory effect that a piece of work becomes meaningless when the artist's intention fails, the present position faces a dilemma when dealing with the example of figurative language (Nathan, in Iseminger (1992)). Accept irony for case. The showtime horn of the dilemma is as follows: Constrained by linguistic conventions, the range of possible meanings has to include the negation of the literal pregnant in order for the intended irony to exist constructive. Merely this results in absolute intentionalism: every expression would be ironic equally long as the author intends it to be. But—this is the second horn—if the range of possible meanings does not include the negation of literal meaning, the expression just becomes meaningless in that at that place is no advisable meaning possible for the author to actualize. It seems that a broader notion of convention is needed to explicate figurative linguistic communication. But if the extreme intentionalist makes that movement, her intentionalist position will be undermined, for the author'due south intention would be given a less important role than convention in such cases. Nonetheless, this problem does not arise when the bodily intentionalist is committed to contextualism, for in that instance the contextual factors that brand the intended irony possible volition exist taken into account.

c. Moderate Version

Though there are several different versions of moderate actual intentionalism, they share the common ground that when the creative person's intention fails, significant is fixed instead by convention and context. (Whether all moderate actual intentionalists take context into account is controversial and this commodity will not dig into this controversy for reasons of infinite.) That is, when the artist's intention is successful, it determines meaning; otherwise, significant is determined past convention plus context (Carroll, 2001; Stecker, 2003; Livingston, 2005).

Every bit seen, an intention is successful so long as it identifies one of the possible meanings sustained by the work even if the pregnant identified is less plausible than other candidates. Merely what exactly is the interpreter doing when she identifies that pregnant? It is reasonable to say that the interpreter does not need to ascertain all the possible meanings and see if there is a fit. Rather, all she needs to do is to run across whether the intended significant tin can be read in accord with the work. This is why the moderate intentionalist puts the success status in terms of compatibility: an intention is successful and so long as the intended meaning is compatible with the work. The fact that a sure meaning is compatible with the work means that the work can sustain it as one of its possible meanings.

Unfortunately, the notion of compatibility seems to allow strange cases in which an insignificant intention can determine piece of work-meaning as long as it is not explicitly rejected by the relevant interpretative constraint. For instance, if Agatha Christie reveals that Hercule Poirot is actually a smart Martian in disguise, the moderate intentionalist would need to take information technology because this declaration of intention can still be said to be compatible with the text in the sense that it is not rejected by textual evidence. To avoid this bad upshot, compatibility needs to be qualified.

The moderate intentionalist then analyses compatibility in terms of the meshing condition, which refers to a sufficient degree of coherence between the content of the intention and the work's rhetorical patterns. An intention is compatible with the work in the sense that it meshes well with the work. The Martian case will hence be ruled out by the meshing condition considering it does not engage sufficiently with the narrative fifty-fifty if it is not explicitly rejected past textual evidence. The meshing condition is a minimal or weak success condition in that it does not require the intention to mesh with every textual feature. A sufficient amount volition do, though the moderate intentionalist admits that the line is non always easy to draw. With this weak standard for success, information technology tin happen that the interpreter is not able to discern the intended meaning in the work earlier she learns of the artist'south intention.

There is a 2d kind of success status which adopts a stronger standard (Stecker, 2003; Davies, 2007, pp. 170–1). This standard for success states that an intention is successful just in case the intended meaning, amongst the possible meanings sustained by the work, is the 1 nearly likely to secure uptake from a well-backgrounded audition (with contextual knowledge and all). For example, if a work of art, within the limits set by convention and context, affords interpretations ten, y, and z, and x is more readily discerned than the other two by the advisable audience, then ten is the significant of the work.

These accounts of the success condition answer a notable objection to moderate intentionalism. This objection claims that moderate intentionalism faces an epistemic dilemma (Trivedi, 2001). Consider an epistemic question: how practice we know whether an intention is successfully realized? Presumably, nosotros figure out piece of work-meaning and the creative person's intention respectively and independently of each other. And then nosotros compare the 2 to encounter if there is a fit. Nevertheless, this move is redundant: if we tin can effigy out piece of work-meaning independently of bodily intention, why exercise we need the latter? And if piece of work-significant cannot exist independently obtained, how tin can we know information technology is a case where intentions are successfully realized and non a case where intentions failed? Information technology follows that entreatment to successful intention results in back-up or indeterminacy.

The showtime horn of the dilemma assumes that work-meaning can be obtained independently of noesis of successful intention, but this is simulated for moderate intentionalists, for they acknowledge that in many cases the work presents ambiguity that cannot be resolved solely in virtue of internal evidence. The moderate intentionalist rejects the 2nd horn by claiming that they do not decide the success of an intention past comparison independently obtained work-meaning with the creative person'due south intention (Stecker, 2010, pp. 154–5). Every bit already discussed, moderate intentionalists propose dissimilar success conditions that do not appeal to the identity between the creative person's intention and work-meaning. Moderate intentionalists adopting the weak standard concord that success is defined by the caste of meshing; those who adopt the potent standard maintain that success is divers by the audition'southward power to grasp the intention. Neither requires the interpreter to identify a work'southward pregnant independently of the artist'southward intention.

d. Objections to Actual Intentionalism

The most commonly raised objection is the epistemic worry, which asks: is intention knowable? Information technology seems impossible for one to really know others' mental states, and the epistemic gap in this respect is thus unbridgeable. Actual intentionalists tend to dismiss this worry every bit insignificant and maintain that in many contexts (daily conversation or historical investigations) we have no difficulty in discerning some other person'southward intention (Carroll, 2009, pp. 71–5). In that case, why would things suddenly stand differently when it comes to art interpretation? This is not to say that we succeed on every occasion of interpretation, but that nosotros do then in an amazingly large number of cases. That beingness said, nosotros should not reject the entreatment to intention solely because of the occasional failure.

Another objection is the publicity paradox (Nathan, 2006). The principal idea is this: when someone S conveys something p past a production of an object O for public consumption, there is a 2nd-order intention that the audience need not get across O to reach p; that is, in that location is no demand to consult S'south first-order intentions to understand O. Therefore, when an creative person creates a work for public consumption, there is a 2d-gild intention that her showtime-society intentions not exist consulted, otherwise it would indicate the failure of the creative person. Actual intentionalism hence leads to the paradoxical merits that we should and should not consult the artist's intentions.

The actual intentionalist's response (Stecker, 2010, pp. 153–4) is this: not all artists have the 2nd-order intention in question. If this premise is imitation, then the publicity argument becomes unsound. Even if information technology were true, the argument would still exist invalid, because it confuses the intention that the creative person intends to create something continuing alone with the intention that her first-social club intention demand not be consulted. The paradox will not hold if this distinction is made.

Lastly, many criticisms are directed at a popular argument among bodily intentionalists: the conversation statement (Carroll, 2001; Jannotta, 2014). An analogy between conversation and fine art interpretation is drawn, and bodily intentionalists claim that if we have that art interpretation is a course of conversation, nosotros need to accept actual intentionalism equally the correct prescriptive account of interpretation, because the standard goal of an interlocutor in a conversation is to grasp what the speaker intends to say. (This is a premise even anti-intentionalists accept, merely they obviously pass up the further claim that art interpretation is conversational. See Beardsley, 1970, ch.1.) This analogy has been severely criticized (Dickie, 2006; Nathan, 2006; Huddleston, 2012). The greatest disanalogy between conversation and art is that the latter is more similar a monologue delivered by the creative person rather than an interchange of ideas.

I fashion to meet the monologue objection is to specify more clearly the role of the conversational interest. In fact, the actual intentionalist claims that the conversational interest should constrain other interests such as the aesthetic interest. In other words, other interests can be reconciled or work with the conversational interest. Accept the case of the hermeneutics of suspicion for example. Hermeneutics of suspicion is a skeptical attitude—often heavily politicized—adopted toward the explicit stance of a work. Interpretations based on the hermeneutics of suspicion accept to be constrained by the artist's non-ironic intention in club for them to count as legitimate interpretations. For instance, in attributing racist tendencies to Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, in which the black slave Nib is portrayed as docile and superstitious, we need to suppose that the tendencies are not ironic; otherwise, the suspicious reading becomes inappropriate. In this instance, the artistic conversation does non terminate up being a monologue, for the suspicious hermeneut listens and understands Verne before responding with the suspicious reading, which is constrained by the conversational interest. A conversational interchange is hence completed.

5. Hypothetical Intentionalism

a. Overview

A compromise between actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism is hypothetical intentionalism, the core claim of which is that the correct meaning of a work is determined by the best hypothesis almost the artist's intention made by a selected audition. The aim of interpretation is then to hypothesize what the artist intended when creating the piece of work from the perspective of the qualified audience (Tolhurst, 1979; Levinson, 1996).

Ii points call for attention. Offset, information technology is hypothesis—not truth—that matters. This means that a hypothesis of the actual intention will never be trumped past knowledge of that very intention. 2nd, the membership of the audition is crucial considering it determines the kind of evidence legitimate for the interpreter to use.

A 1979 proposal (Tolhurst) suggests that the relevant audience be singled out past the creative person's intention, that is, the audience intended to be addressed past the creative person. Work-meaning is thus adamant by the intended audience's best hypothesis well-nigh the artist's intention. This means that the interpreter will need to equip herself with the relevant behavior and background cognition of the intended audience in society to brand the best hypothesis. Put another fashion, hypothetical intentionalism focuses on the audience's uptake of an utterance addressed to them. This being so, what the audience relies on in comprehending the utterance will exist based on what she knows most the utterer on that detail occasion. Following this contextualist line of thinking, the meaning of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal will not exist the suggestion that the poor in Ireland might ease their economic force per unit area by selling their children every bit nutrient to the rich; rather, given the background noesis of Swift'due south intended audience, the best hypothesis well-nigh the writer's intention is that he intended the work to be a satire that criticizes the heartless mental attitude toward the poor and Irish policy in general.

However, at that place is a serious problem with the notion of an intended audience. If the intended audience is an extremely pocket-size group possessing esoteric noesis of the creative person, significant becomes a private matter, for the work can only be properly understood in terms of private information shared between creative person and audience, and this results in something close to Humpty-Dumptyism, which is feature of absolute intentionalism.

To cope with this problem, the hypothetical intentionalist replaces the concept of an intended audience with that of an platonic or appropriate audience. Such an audition is not necessarily targeted by the artist'south intention and is platonic in the sense that its members are familiar with the public facts about the artist and her work. In other words, the ideal audition seeks to ballast the work in its context of creation based on public evidence. This avoids the danger of interpreting the work on the basis of individual bear witness.

The hypothetical intentionalist is enlightened that in some cases there will exist competing interpretations which are equally skilful. An artful criterion is then introduced to adjudicate betwixt these hypotheses. The artful consideration comes as a tie breaker: when nosotros reach two or more epistemically best hypotheses, the one that makes the work artistically better should win.

Another notable distinction introduced past hypothetical intentionalism is that betwixt semantic and categorial intention (Levinson, 1996, pp. 188–ix). The kind of intention nosotros take been discussing is semantic: it is the intention by which an artist conveys her bulletin in the work. Past contrast, categorial intention is the creative person'southward intention to categorize her production, either as a work of art, a sure artform (such as Romantic literature), or a particular genre (such as lyric poetry). Categorial intention indirectly affects a piece of work'southward semantic content because information technology determines how the interpreter conceptualizes the piece of work at the primal level. For example, if a text is taken as a grocery list rather than an experimental story, we will translate it as proverb nothing beyond the named grocery items. For this reason, the creative person'south categorial intention should be treated as among the contextual factors relevant to her work'southward identity. This motility is often adopted by theorists endorsing contextualism, such as maximizers or moderate intentionalists.

b. Notable Objections and Replies

Hypothetical intentionalism has received many criticisms and challenges that merit mention. A oft expressed worry is that it seems odd to stick to a hypothesis when newly found evidence proves information technology to be false (Carroll, 2001, pp. 208–9). If an artist's individual diary is located and reveals that our all-time hypothesis virtually her intention regarding her work is faux, why should we cling to that hypothesis if the newly revealed intention meshes well with the work? Hypothetical intentionalism implausibly implies that warranted assertibility constitutes truth.

The hypothetical intentionalist clarifies her position (Levinson, 2006, p. 308) past proverb that warranted assertibility does not found the truth for the utterer'south significant, but it does found the truth for utterance meaning. The ideal audience's best hypothesis constitutes utterance meaning fifty-fifty if it is designed to infer the utterer'due south meaning.

Another troublesome objection states that hypothetical intentionalism collapses into the value-maximizing theory, for, when making the best hypothesis of what the creative person intended, the interpreter inevitably attributes to the artist the intention to produce a slice with the highest degree of artful value that the work tin sustain (Davies, 2007, pp. 183–84). That is, the epistemic criterion for determining the best hypothesis is inseparable from the artful criterion.

In respond, information technology is claimed that this objection may stem from the impression that an creative person normally aims for the best; however, this does not imply that she would anticipate and intend the artistically best reading of the work. Information technology follows that information technology is non necessary that the all-time reading be what the artist nearly likely intended even if she could have intended it. The objector replies that, still, the situation in which nosotros have two epistemically plausible readings while one is inferior cannot arise, considering we would adopt the inferior reading just when the superior reading is falsified by prove.

The tertiary objection is that the distinction betwixt public and private evidence is blurry (Carroll, 2001, p. 212). Is public evidence published evidence? Does published information from private sources count as public? The reply from the hypothetical intentionalist emphasizes that this is not a distinction betwixt published and unpublished information (Levinson, 2006, p. 310). The relevant public context should be reconstrued as what the artist appears to accept wanted the audience to know almost the circumstances of the piece of work's creation. This means that if it appears that the artist did non want to make sure proclamations of intent known to the audience, and then this evidence, even if published at a later point, does non plant the public context to be considered for interpretation.

Finally, two notable counterexamples to hypothetical intentionalism have been proposed (Stecker, 2010, pp. 159–60). The first counterexample is that West ways p but p is not intended by the artist and the audience is justified in believing that p is not intended. In this case hypothetical intentionalism falsely implies that W does not mean p. For example, it is famously known among readers of Sherlock Holmes adventures that Dr. Watson's war wound appears in two different locations. On one occasion the wound is said to be on his arm, while on another information technology is on his thigh. In other words the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson's wound. But given the realistic style of the Holmes adventures, the best hypothesis of authorial intent in this case would deny that the impossibility is part of the meaning of the story, which is manifestly fake.

Even so, the hypothetical intentionalist would non maintain that W means p, because p is non the all-time hypothesis. She would not claim that the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson's wound, for the all-time hypothesis made by the platonic reader would be that Watson has the wound somewhere on his body—his arm or thigh, but exactly where we do non know. It is a error to presuppose that W means p without following the strictures imposed by hypothetical intentionalism to properly reach p.

The second counterexample to hypothetical intentionalism is the case where the audience is justified in believing that p is intended by the artist but in fact Due west ways q; the audience would and so falsely conclude that W means p. Once again, what W means is determined by the ideal audience'due south all-time hypothesis based on convention and context, not by what the work literally asserts. The significant of the piece of work is the product of a prudent assessment of the total evidence available.

vi. Hypothetical Intentionalism and the Hypothetical Artist

a. Overview

At that place is a second variety of hypothetical intentionalism that is based on the concept of a hypothetical creative person. Generally speaking, it maintains that estimation is grounded on the intention suitably attributed by the interpreter to a hypothetical or imagined creative person. This version of hypothetical intentionalism is sometimes called fictionalist intentionalism or postulated authorism. The theoretical apparatus of a hypothetical artist can be traced dorsum to Wayne Booth's account of the "implied writer," in which he suggests that the critic should focus on the writer we can make out from the work instead of on the historical writer, because there is often a gap between the two.

Though proponents of the present brand of intentionalism disagree on the number of adequate interpretations and on what kind of evidence is legitimate, they agree that the interpreter ought to concentrate on the appearance of the piece of work. If information technology appears, based on internal evidence (and perhaps contextual information if contextualism is endorsed), that the creative person intends the piece of work to hateful p, then p is the correct interpretation of the piece of work. The artist in question is not the historical creative person; rather, it is an artist postulated past the audition to exist responsible for the intention made out from, or implied by, the work. For example, if there is an anti-war mental attitude detected in the piece of work, the intention to castigate war should be attributed to the postulated artist, not to the historical artist. The motivation behind this movement is to maintain work-centered estimation but avoid the fallacious reasoning that whatever we observe in the work is intended by the real artist.

Inheriting the spirit of hypothetical intentionalism, fictionalist intentionalism aims to make interpretation piece of work-based only author-related at the same time. The biggest difference between the two stances is that, every bit said, fictionalist intentionalism does not appeal to the bodily or existent artist, thereby avoiding any criticisms arising from hypothesizing well-nigh the real artist such equally that the best hypothesis about the real artist's intention should be abandoned when compelling evidence against it is obtained.

b. Notable Objections and Replies

The first business concern with fictionalist intentionalism is that constructing a historical variant of the actual artist sounds suspiciously similar hypothesizing almost her (Stecker, 1987). But there is still a difference. "Hypothesizing virtually the actual artist," or more than accurately, "hypothesizing the bodily artist'southward intention," would be a label of hypothetical intentionalism rather than fictionalist intentionalism. The latter does non track the actual creative person's intention just constructs a virtual one. As shown, fictionalist intentionalism, different hypothetical intentionalism, is allowed to any criticisms resulting from ignoring the actual artist's announcement of her intention.

A second objection criticizes fictionalist intentionalism for not being able to distinguish between different histories of artistic processes for the same textual advent (Livingston, 2005, pp. 165–69). For example, suppose a work that appears to be produced with a well-conceived scheme did result from that kind of scheme; suppose further that a second work that appears the same actually emerged from an uncontrolled process. Then, if we follow the strictures of fictionalist intentionalism, the interpretations we produce for these two works would turn out to exist the same, for based on the same appearance the hypothetical artists we construct in both cases would be identical. But these ii works have different creative histories and the difference in question seems too crucial to exist ignored.

The objection here fails to consider the subtlety of reality-dependent appearances (Walton, 2008, ch. 12). For case, suppose the exhibit note beside a painting tells us it was created when the painter got heavily drunk. Whatsoever well-organized feature in the work that appears to result from careful manipulation by the painter might now either wait disordered or structured in an eerie mode depending on the characteristic'south actual presentation. Compare this scenario to another where a (virtually) visually indistinguishable counterpart is exhibited in the museum with the exhibit notation revealing that the painter spent a long menstruum crafting the work. In this 2d case the audience's perception of the work is not very likely to be the same as that in the first case. This shows how the apparent artist account can still discriminate betwixt (appearances of) different creative histories of the same artistic presentation.

Finally, at that place is often the qualm that fictionalist intentionalism ends up postulating phantom entities (hypothetical creators) and phantom actions (their intendings). The fictional intentionalist tin can reply that she is giving descriptions merely of appearances instead of quantifying over hypothetical artists or their actions.

7. Conclusion

From the higher up discussion we tin notice two major trends in the debate. First, virtually late twentyth century and 21st century participants are committed to the contextualist ontology of art. The relevance of fine art'south historical context, since its outset philosophical appearance in Arthur Danto's 1964 essay "The Artworld," continues to influence analytic theories of art estimation. There is no sign of this trend diminishing. In Noël Carroll'south 2016 survey article on interpretation, the contextualist basis is still assumed.

2d, actual intentionalism remains the most pop position among all. Many substantial monographs have been written in this century to defend the position (Stecker, 2003; Livingston, 2005; Carroll, 2009; Stock 2017). This intentionalist prevalence probably results from the influence of H. P. Grice's work on the philosophy of language. And once again, this trend, like the contextualist vogue, is notwithstanding ongoing. And if we meet intentionalism as an umbrella term that encompasses not simply actual intentionalism but besides hypothetical intentionalism and probably fictionalist intentionalism, the influence of intentionalism and its related accent on the concept of an artist or author will be even stronger. This presents an interesting dissimilarity with the trend in mail service-structuralism that tends to downplay authorial presence in theories of interpretation, equally embodied in the author-is-dead thesis championed by Barthes and Foucoult (Lamarque, 2009, pp. 104–15).

8. References and Further Reading

  • Beardsley, M. C. (1970). The possibility of criticism. Detroit, MI: Wayne Land University Press.

  • Contains four philosophical essays on literary criticism. The first two are among Beardsley'due south most important contributions to the philsoophy of interpretation.

  • Beardsley, Thou. C. (1981a). Aesthetics: Issues in the philosophy of criticism (2nd ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.

  • A comprehensive volume on philosophical issues across the arts and also a powerful statement of anti-intentionalism.

  • Beardsley, M. C. (1981b). Fiction as representation. Synthese, 46, 291–313.

  • Presents the spoken communication act theory of literature.

  • Beardsley, K. C. (1982). The aesthetic point of view: Selected essays. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

  • Contains the essay "Intentions and Interpretations: A Fallacy Revived," in which Beardsley applies his speech communication act theory to the estimation of fictional works.

  • Booth, W. C. (1983). The rhetoric of fiction (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

  • Contains the original account of the implied author.

  • Carroll, N. (2001). Across aesthetics: Philosophical essays. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

  • Contains in particular Carroll'southward conversation argument, word on the hermenutics of suspicion, defense of moderate intentionalism, and criticism of hypothetical intentionalism.

  • Carroll, N. (2009). On criticism. New York, NY: Routledge.

  • An engaging book on artistic evaluation and estimation.

  • Carroll, N., & Gibson, J. (Eds.). (2016). The Routledge companion to philosophy of literature. New York, NY: Routledge.

  • Anthologizes Carroll's survey commodity on the intention debate.

  • Currie, 1000. (1990). The nature of fiction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

  • Contains a defence of fictionalist intentionalism.

  • Currie, One thousand. (1991). Work and text. Mind, 100, 325–40.

  • Presents how a commitment to contextualism leads to an important stardom betwixt work and text in the case of literature.

  • Danto, A. C. (1964). The artworld. Journal of Philosophy, 61, 571–84.

  • Outset paper to describe attention to the relevance of a work's context of production.

  • Davies, Due south. (2005). Beardsley and the autonomy of the work of art. Periodical of Aesthetics and Fine art Criticism, 63, 179–83.

  • Argues that Beardsley is actually a contextualist.

  • Davies, South. (2007). Philosophical perspectives on art. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

  • Part Ii contains Davies' defence force of the maximizing position and criticisms of other positions.

  • Dickie, G. (2006). Intentions: Conversations and fine art. British Periodical of Aesthetics, 46, 71–81.

  • Criticizes Carroll's chat statement and actual intentionalism.

  • Goldman, A. H. (2013). Philosophy and the novel. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

  • Contains a defense of the value-maximizing theory without a contextualist commitment.

  • Hirsch, Due east. D. (1967). Validity in interpretation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

  • The almost representative presentation of extreme intentionalism.

  • Hirsch, Eastward. D. (1976). The aims of interpretation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

  • Contains a drove of essays expanding Hirsh'due south views on interpretation.

  • Huddleston, A. (2012). The conversation argument for actual intentionalism. British Journal of Aesthetics, 52, 241–56.

  • A vivid criticism of Carroll's conversation statement.

  • Iseminger, G. (Ed.). (1992). Intention & interpretation. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

  • A valuable collection of essays featuring Beardsley's account of the work'south autonomy, Knapp and Michaels' absolute intentionalism, Iseminger'due south extreme intentionalism, Nathan's account of the postulated artist, Levinson's hypothetical intentionalism, and eight other contributions.

  • Jannotta, A. (2014). Estimation and chat: A response to Huddleston. British Journal of Aesthetics, 54, 371–80.

  • A defense force of the conversation argument.

  • Krausz, Thousand. (Ed.). (2002). Is there a single right estimation? University Park: Pennsylvania Land University Printing.

  • Another valuable anthology on the intention debate, containing in detail Carroll's defense of moderate intentionalism, Lamarque's criticism of viewing work-meaning as utterance meaning.

  • Lamarque, P. (2009). The philosophy of literature. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

  • The third and the fourth chapters talk over analytic theories of interpretation forth with a critical cess of the author-is-dead claim.

  • Levinson, J. (1996). The pleasure of aesthetics: Philosophical essays. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

  • The tenth chapter is Levinson's revised presentation of hypothetical intentionalism and the distinction between semantic and categorial intention.

  • Levinson, J. (2006). Contemplating art: Essays in aesthetics. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

  • Contains Levinson's replies to major objections to hypothetical intentionalism.

  • Levinson, J. (2016). Aesthetic pursuits: Essays in philosophy of fine art. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

  • Contains Levinson'southward updated defense of hypothetical intentionalism and criticism of Livingston'due south moderate intentionalism.

  • Livingston, P. (2005). Art and intention: A philosophical report. Oxford, England: Oxford Academy Press.

  • A thorough word on intention, literary ontology, and the problem of interpretation, with emphases on defending the meshing condition and on the criticisms of the two versions of hypothetical intentionalism.

  • Nathan, D. O. (1982). Irony and the artist's intentions. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 22, 245–56.

  • Criticizes the notion of an intended audition.

  • Nathan, D. O. (2006). Art, significant, and artist's meaning. In M. Kieran (Ed.), Contemporary debates in aesthetics and the philosophy of art (pp. 282–93). Oxford, England: Blackwell.

  • Presents an account of fictionalist intentionalism, a critique of the chat argument, and a brief recapitulation of the publicity paradox.

  • Nehamas, A. (1981). The postulated writer: Disquisitional monism as a regulative ideal. Critical Inquiry, 8, 133–49.

  • Presents another version of fictionalist intentionalism.

  • Stecker, R. (1987). 'Credible, Unsaid, and Postulated Authors', Philosophy and Literature 11, pp 258-71.

  • Criticizes dissimilar versions of fictionalist intentionalism

  • Stecker, R. (2003). Estimation and construction: Fine art, voice communication, and the law. Oxford, England: Blackwell.

  • A valuable monograph devoted to the intention debate and its related problems such every bit the ontology of art, incompatible interpretations and the application of theories of art interpretation to law. The book defends moderate intentionalism in particular.

  • Stecker, R. (2010). Aesthetics and the philosophy of art: An introduction. Lanham, Medico: Rowman & Littlefield.

  • Contains a chapter that presents the disjunctive formulation of moderate intentionalism and the two counterexamples to hypothetical intentionalism.

  • Stecker, R., & Davies, S. (2010). The hypothetical intentionalist'south dilemma: A reply to Levinson. British Periodical of Aesthetics, 50, 307–12.

  • Counterreplies to Levinson's replies to criticisms of hypothetical intentionalism.

  • Stock, Yard. (2017). Only imagine: Fiction, interpretation, and imagination. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

  • Contains a defense force of absolute (the author uses the term "farthermost") intentionalism.

  • Tolhurst, W. E. (1979). On what a text is and how it means. British Journal of Aesthetics, nineteen, three–fourteen.

  • The founding document of hypothetical intentionalism.

  • Trivedi, S. (2001). An epistemic dilemma for bodily intentionalism. British Periodical of Aesthetics, 41, pp. 192–206.

  • Presents an epistemic dilemma for actual intentionalism and defense of hypothetical intentionalism.

  • Walton, K. L. (2008). Marvelous images: On values and the arts. Oxford, England: Oxford University Printing.

  • A drove of essays, including "Categories of Art," which might take inspired Levinson's formulation of categorial intention; and "Style and the Products and Processes of Art," which is a defense of fictionalist intentionalism in terms of the notion "credible creative person."

  • Wimsatt, W. One thousand., & Beardsley, Grand. C. (1946). The intentional fallacy. The Sewanee Review, 54, 468–88.

  • The first thorough presentation of anti-intentionalism, ordinarily regarded as starting indicate of the intention debate.

Author Information

Szu-Yen Lin
Email: lsy17@ulive.pccu.edu.tw
Chinese Culture University
Taiwan