Art and Interpretation

picture of man looking at art objectsEstimation in art refers to the attribution of significant to a work. A point on which people often disagree is whether the artist'southward or author'southward intention is relevant to the interpretation of the work. In the Anglo-American analytic philosophy of art, views near interpretation co-operative into two major camps: intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, with an initial focus on one art, namely literature.

The anti-intentionalist maintains that a work's meaning is entirely determined by linguistic and literary conventions, thereby rejecting the relevance of the author'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 writer'south intention, are neither necessary nor sufficient for meaning determination. This early position in the analytic tradition is often called conventionalism because of its strong emphasis on convention. Anti-intentionalism gradually went out of favor at the end of the 20th century, but it has seen a revival in the so-called value-maximizing theory, which recommends that the interpreter seek value-maximizing interpretations constrained past convention and, co-ordinate to a different version of the theory, past the relevant contextual factors at the time of the piece of work's product.

By contrast, the initial brand of intentionalism—actual intentionalism—holds that interpreters should concern themselves with the writer's intention, for a piece of work'due south pregnant is affected past such intention. There are at least three versions of actual intentionalism. The absolute version identifies a work'south significant fully with the author's intention, therefore allowing that an author can intend her piece of work to mean whatever she wants it to mean. The farthermost version acknowledges that the possible meanings a work tin can sustain have to exist constrained by convention. According to this version, the author's intention picks the right meaning 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 author's intention does non match any of the possible meanings, meaning is stock-still instead by convention and perhaps as well context.

A second make of intentionalism, which finds a middle class between actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, is hypothetical intentionalism. According to this position, a work's meaning is the appropriate audience'due south best hypothesis about the writer'south intention based on publicly bachelor information about the author and her work at the fourth dimension of the piece'due south 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 be fictional considering they, being purely conceptual, differ decisively from flesh-and-claret authors.

This article elaborates on these theories of interpretation and considers their notable objections. The debate virtually estimation covers other art forms in improver to literature. The theories of estimation are also extended beyond many of the arts. This broad outlook is assumed throughout the article, although aught said is afflicted fifty-fifty if a narrow focus on literature is adopted.

Table of Contents

  1. Key Concepts: Intention, Pregnant, and Interpretation
  2. Anti-Intentionalism
    1. The Intentional Fallacy
    2. Beardsley's Oral communication Human action 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. Farthermost 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 Creative person
    1. Overview
    2. Notable Objections and Replies
  7. Decision
  8. References and Further Reading

1. Key Concepts: Intention, Meaning, and Interpretation

It is mutual for usa to ask questions about works of art due to puzzlement or marvel. Sometimes nosotros exercise not understand the betoken of the work. What is the point of, for example, Metamorphosis by Kafka or Duchamp's Fountain? Sometimes there is ambivalence in a work and nosotros want information technology resolved. For example, is the final sequence of Christopher Nolan'due south film Inception reality or another dream? Or exercise ghosts really be in Henry James'south The Plow of the Screw? Sometimes we make hypotheses about details in a work. For example, does the adult female in white in Raphael'due south The School of Athens represent Hypatia? Is the conch in William Golding's Lord of the Flies a symbol for civilization and republic?

What these questions accept in common is that all of them seek afterwards things that get beyond what the piece of work literally presents or says. They are all concerned with the implicit contents of the work or, for simplicity, with the meanings of a piece of work. A distinction can be fatigued betwixt ii kinds of meaning in terms of telescopic. Pregnant can be global in the sense that it concerns the work's theme, thesis, or bespeak. For example, an audience first encountering Duchamp's Fountain would want to know Duchamp's betoken in producing this readymade or, put otherwise, what the work as a whole is fabricated to convey. The same goes for Kafka's Metamorphosis, which contains then baroque a plot equally to make the reader wonder what the story is all about. Significant tin also be local insofar every bit information technology is nearly what a part of a piece of work conveys. Inquiries into the meaning of a item sequence in Christopher Nolan's film, the woman in Raphael's fresco, or the conch in William Golding's Lord of the Flies are directed at only office of the work.

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

When an interpretative question arises, a frequent mode to deal with information technology is to resort to the creator'southward intention. Nosotros may inquire the artist to reveal her intention if such an opportunity is available; nosotros may also check what she says about her work in an interview or autobiography. If nosotros have admission to her personal documents such as diaries or messages, they besides will become our interpretative resource. These are all evidence of the artist'southward intention. When the prove is compelling, we have good reason to believe information technology reveals the artist's intention.

Certainly, in that location are cases in which external testify of the artist's intention is absent, including when the piece of work is anonymous. This poses no difficulty for philosophers who view appeal to artistic intention every bit crucial, for they accept that internal bear witness—the piece of work itself—is the best bear witness of the creative person's intention. Well-nigh of the fourth dimension, close attention to details of the work volition lead united states to what the creative person intended the work to hateful.

But what is intention exactly? Intention is a kind of mental land usually characterized as a design or plan in the creative person's mind to be realized in her creative creation. This rough 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 close 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 firm just defeasible commitments to interim on them. Contra the reductive analysis of intention, this view holds that intentions are distinct and existent mental states that serve a range of functions irreducible to other mental states.

Clarifying each of these basic terms (meaning, interpretation, and intention) requires an essay-length handling that cannot be washed hither. For current purposes, it suffices to innovate the aforesaid views and proposals commonly causeless. Behave in heed that for the nearly part the argue over art interpretation proceeds without consensus on how to define these terms, and clarifications appear only when necessary.

two. Anti-Intentionalism

Anti-intentionalism is considered the get-go theory of interpretation to emerge in the analytic tradition. It is commonly seen every bit affiliated with the New Criticism movement that was prevalent in the middle of the twentieth century. The position was initially a reaction against biographical criticism, the main idea of which is that the interpreter, to grasp the meaning of a work, needs to study the life of the writer because the piece of work is seen as reflecting the author's mental world. This approach led to people because the author'southward biographical information rather than her work. Literary criticism became criticism of biography, non criticism of literary works. Against this tendency, literary critic William K. Wimsatt and philosopher Monroe C. Beardsley coauthored a seminal newspaper "The Intentional Fallacy" in 1946, mark the starting point of the intention debate. Beardsley later on extended his anti-intentionalist stance across the arts in his monumental book Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism ([1958] 1981a).

a. The Intentional Fallacy

The principal idea of the intentional fallacy is that entreatment to the artist's intention exterior the work is beguiling, considering the work itself is the verdict of what significant it bears. This contention is based on the anti-intentionalist's ontological assumption about works of art.

This underlying assumption is that a piece of work of art enjoys autonomy with respect to meaning and other aesthetically relevant properties. Every bit Beardsley'due south Principle of Autonomy shows, critical statements will in the terminate need to be tested against the work itself, not against factors exterior it. To requite Beardsley's example, whether a statue symbolizes human destiny depends non on what its maker says but on our being able to brand out that theme from the statue on the footing of our knowledge of artistic conventions: if the statue shows a man confined to a muzzle, we may well conclude that the statue indeed symbolizes human destiny, for past convention the image of confinement fits that alleged theme. The anti-intentionalist principle hence follows: the interpreter should focus on what she can find in the work itself—the internal evidence—rather than on external evidence, such as the artist's biography, to reveal her intentions.

Anti-intentionalism is sometimes called conventionalism because it sees convention as necessary and sufficient in determining work-meaning. On this view, the artist's intention at best underdetermines meaning fifty-fifty when operating successfully. This can exist seen from the famous argument offered by Wimsatt and Beardsley: either the artist's intention is successfully realized in the work, or it fails; if the intention is successfully realized in the work, appeal to external evidence of the artist'due south intention is non necessary (we can detect the intention from the work); if information technology 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's intention is either unnecessary or bereft. Every bit the 2d premise of the argument shows, the artist's intention is insufficient in determining meaning for the reason that convention alone can do the flim-flam. As a result, the overall argument entails the irrelevance of external testify of the artist's intention. To think of such evidence as relevant commits the intentional fallacy.

In that location is a second way to formulate the intentional fallacy. Since the artist does not always successfully realize her intention, the inference is invalid from the premise that the creative person intended her work to mean p to the conclusion that the work in question does hateful p. Therefore, the term "intentional fallacy" has two layers of meaning: normatively, it refers to the questionable principle of estimation that external evidence of intent should be appealed to; ontologically, it refers to the beguiling inference from probable intention to piece of work-meaning.

b. Beardsley's Spoken communication Act Theory of Literature

Beardsley at a later betoken develops an ontology of literature in favor of anti-intentionalism (1981b, 1982). Reviving Plato's imitation 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 sentence "you did information technology," the detective is performing the illocutionary deed of accusing someone. What illocutionary act is being performed is traditionally construed equally jointly determined by the speaker's intention to perform that act, the words uttered, and the relevant atmospheric condition in that particular context. Other examples of illocutionary acts include asserting, alarm, castigating, asking, and the similar.

Literary works can be seen every bit utterances; that is, texts used in a particular context to perform dissimilar illocutionary acts by authors. However, Beardsley claims that in the instance of fictional works in particular, the purported illocutionary forcefulness will ever be removed then as to brand the utterance an simulated of that illocutionary human action. When an attempted act is insufficiently performed, it ends up being represented or imitated. For case, if I say "please pass me the salt" in my dining room when no 1 except me is in that location, I finish up representing (imitating) the illocutionary human action of requesting because in that location is no uptake from the intended audience. Since the illocutionary act in this case is simply imitated, it qualifies as a fictional human action. This is why Beardsley sees fiction every bit representation.

Consider the uptake condition in the case of fictional works. Such works are not addressed to the audience as a talk is: there is no physical context in which the audition tin be readily identified. The uttered text hence loses its illocutionary strength and ends up being a representation. Aside from this "address without access," another obtaining condition for a fictional illocutionary human activity is the existence of non-referring names and descriptions in a fictional work. If an writer writes a poem in which she greets the not bad detective Sherlock Holmes, this greeting volition never obtain, because the proper name Sherlock Holmes does not refer to any existing person in the world. The greeting will simply end up existence a representation or a fictional illocution. Past parity of reasoning, fictional works finish upward being representations of illocutionary acts in that they always contain names or descriptions involving events that never take place.

Now nosotros must inquire: past what criterion practice we make up one's mind what illocutionary act is represented? It cannot be the speaker or writer's intention, considering fifty-fifty if a speaker intends to stand for a particular illocutionary human action, she might stop up representing another. Since the possibility of failed intention e'er exists, intention would not be an appropriate criterion. Convention is once more invoked to determine the right illocutionary act existence represented. It is true that whatever practice of representing is intentional at the start in the sense that what is represented is determined by the representer'southward intention. Nevertheless, once the connection between a symbol and what it is used to represent is established, intention is said to be discrete from that connection, and deciding the content of a representation becomes a sheer affair of convention.

Since a fictional piece of work is essentially a representation of an insufficiently performed illocutionary deed, determining what it represents does not crave us to become beyond that incomplete performance, just every bit determining what a mime is imitating does non require the audience to consider anything outside her performance, such equally her intention. What the mime is imitating is completely determined by how nosotros conventionally construe the act being performed. In a like fashion, when considering what illocutionary human activity is represented by a fictional work, the interpreter should rely on internal evidence rather than on external prove of authorial intent to construct the illocutionary act existence represented. If, based on internal information, a story reads like a castigation of war, it is suitably seen every bit a representation of that illocutionary act. The conclusion is that the author's intention plays no role in fixing the content of a fictional piece of work.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that Beardsley's attitude toward nonfictional works is ambivalent. Obviously, his speech human activity argument applies to fictional works simply, and he accepts that nonfictional works can exist genuine illocutions. This category of works tends to have a more identifiable audience, who is hence not addressed without access. With illocutions, Beardsley continues to argue for an anti-intentionalist view of meaning according to which the utterer'south intention does not determine meaning. But his accepting nonfictional works as illocutions opens the door to considerations of external or contextual factors that become against his before stance, which is globally anti-intentionalist.

c. Notable Objections and Replies

One immediate concern with anti-intentionalism is whether convention alone can betoken to a single meaning (Hirsch, 1967). The common reason why people argue most interpretation is precisely that the work itself does non offer sufficient show to disambiguate significant. Very oftentimes a piece of work can sustain multiple meanings and the trouble of choice prompts some people to entreatment to the creative person's intention. It does non seem plausible to say that one tin can assign only a single pregnant to works like Ulysses or Picasso's abstract paintings if one concentrates solely on internal evidence. To this objection, Beardsley (1970) insists that, in nigh cases, appeal to the coherence of the work tin can somewhen get out the states with a single right interpretation.

A second serious objection to anti-intentionalism is the case of irony (Hirsch, 1976, pp. 24–5). It seems reasonable to say that whether a piece of work is ironic depends on if its creator intended it to be and so. For example, based on internal evidence, many people took Daniel Defoe's pamphlet The Shortest Style with the Dissenters to be genuinely against the Dissenters upon its publication. Nonetheless, the only ground for maxim that the pamphlet is ironic seems to be Defoe'south intention. If irony is a crucial component of the work, ignoring it would fail to respect the work'southward identity. It follows that irony cannot be grounded in internal prove alone. Beardsley'due south reply (1982, pp. 203–7) is that irony must offer the possibility of understanding. If the artist cannot imagine anyone taking it ironically, there would be no reason to believe the work to exist ironic.

However, the problem of irony is just function of a bigger concern that challenges the irrelevance of external factors to interpretation. Many factors present at the time of the work'due south creation seem to play a key office in shaping a work's identity and content. Missing out on these factors would lead us to misidentifying the piece of work (and hence to misinterpreting it).

For instance, a work will not be seen as revolutionary unless the interpreter knows something about the contemporaneous artistic tradition: ignoring the work's innovation amounts to accepting that the piece of work tin lose its revolutionary graphic symbol while remaining cocky-identical. If we meet this graphic symbol every bit identity-relevant, we should and so take it into consideration in our estimation. The same line of thinking goes for other identity-conferring contextual factors, such every bit the social-historical conditions and the relations the work bears to contemporaneous or prior works. The nowadays view is thus called ontological contextualism to foreground the ontological claim that the identity and content of a work of fine art are in office adamant by the relations information technology bears to its context of production.

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

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

3. Value-Maximizing Theory

a. Overview

The value-maximizing theory can be viewed equally being derived from anti-intentionalism. Its core merits is that the primary aim of art interpretation is to offering interpretations that maximize the value of a piece of work. There 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 exist convention plus context (Davies, 2007); otherwise, the constraint will be convention just, as endorsed past anti-intentionalism (Goldman, 2013).

As indicated, the word "maximize" does non imply monism. That is, the present position does not merits that there can be simply a unmarried way to maximize the value of a work of fine art. On the contrary, it seems reasonable to presume that in most cases the interpreter can envisage several readings to bring out the value of the work. For example, Kafka's Metamorphosis has generated a number of rewarding interpretations, and it is difficult to argue for a single best amid them. As long as an interpretation is revealing or insightful nether the relevant interpretative constraints, we may count it as value-maximizing. Such being the case, the value-maximizing theory may be relabelled the "value-enhancing" or "value-satisfying" theory.

Given this pluralist picture, the maximizer, unlike the anti-intentionalist, will need to have the indeterminacy thesis that convention (and context, if she endorses contextualism) alone does not guarantee the unambiguity of the piece of work. This allows the maximizing position to bypass the challenge posed by said thesis, rendering it a more than 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 chief aim of art interpretation is to heighten appreciative satisfaction past identifying interpretations that bring out the value of a work inside reasonable limits set past convention (and context).

b. Notable Objections and Replies

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

The nigh important objection to the maximizing view has it that the present position is in danger of turning a mediocre work into a masterpiece. Ed Woods'southward flick Plan 9 from Outer Infinite is the virtually discussed example. Many people consider this work to be the worst moving-picture show ever made. Even so, interpreted from a postmodern perspective every bit satire—which is presumably a value-enhancing interpretation—would turn information technology into a archetype.

The maximizer with contextualist leanings can reply that the postmodern reading fails to identify the moving-picture show as authored past Woods (Davies, 2007, p, 187). Postmodern views were not bachelor in Wood's time, then it was impossible for the film to exist created as such. Identifying the film as postmodernist amounts to anachronism that disrespects the work's identity. The moral of this example is that the maximizer does not blindly enhance the value of a work. Rather, the piece of work to exist interpreted needs to exist contextualized first to ensure that subsequent attributions of aesthetic value are done in lite of the truthful and off-white presentation of the work.

4. Actual Intentionalism

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

a. Absolute Version

Absolute actual intentionalism claims that a work means any its creator intends information technology to mean. Put otherwise, it sees the artist'southward intention as the necessary and sufficient status for a work'due south meaning. This position is ofttimes dubbed Humpty-Dumptyism with reference to the character Humpty-Dumpty in Through the Looking-Glass. This character tries to convince Alice that he can brand a word hateful what he chooses it to hateful. This unsettling conclusion is supported by the argument about intentionless significant: a mark (or a sequence of marks) cannot accept meaning unless it is produced by an agent capable of intentional activities; therefore, meaning is identical to intention.

It seems plausible to carelessness the thought that marks on the sand are a poem once nosotros know they were caused by blow. But this at best proves that intention is the necessary condition for something'due south being meaningful; it does non show further that what something means is what the agent intended information technology to mean. In other words, the statement about intentionless meaning does a better job in showing that intention is an indispensable ingredient for meaningfulness than in showing that intention infallibly determines the significant conveyed.

b. Extreme Version

To avert 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 single evident meaning to be found in a work. The extreme intentionalist claims further that the meaning of the work is stock-still by the artist's intention if her intention identifies i of the possible meanings sustained by the work; otherwise, the piece of work ends up being meaningless (Hirsch, 1967). Better put, the extreme intentionalist sees intention every bit the necessary rather than sufficient condition for work-meaning.

Bated from the unsatisfactory result that a work becomes meaningless when the artist's intention fails, the present position faces a dilemma when dealing with the case of figurative language (Nathan, in Iseminger (1992)). Take irony for instance. The first horn of the dilemma is as follows: Constrained by linguistic conventions, the range of possible meanings has to include the negation of the literal significant in gild for the intended irony to be effective. But this results in absolute intentionalism: every expression would exist ironic equally long as the author intends information technology to be. Just—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 appropriate meaning possible for the writer to concretize. It seems that a broader notion of convention is needed to explain figurative language. But if the farthermost intentionalist makes that move, her intentionalist position will be undermined, for the writer's intention would be given a less of import role than convention in such cases. All the same, this problem does not ascend when the actual intentionalist is committed to contextualism, for in that example the contextual factors that make the intended irony possible will be taken into account.

c. Moderate Version

Though there are several dissimilar versions of moderate actual intentionalism, they share the mutual ground that when the artist's intention fails, significant is stock-still instead by convention and context. (Whether all moderate bodily intentionalists accept context into account is controversial and this article will not dig into this controversy for reasons of space.) That is, when the artist's intention is successful, it determines meaning; otherwise, meaning is determined by convention plus context (Carroll, 2001; Stecker, 2003; Livingston, 2005).

As seen, an intention is successful so long every bit it identifies ane of the possible meanings sustained past the work even if the meaning identified is less plausible than other candidates. But what exactly is the interpreter doing when she identifies that meaning? It is reasonable to say that the interpreter does not need to define all the possible meanings and see if there is a fit. Rather, all she needs to practice is to see whether the intended pregnant can be read in accordance with the work. This is why the moderate intentionalist puts the success condition in terms of compatibility: an intention is successful and then long as the intended meaning is compatible with the piece of work. The fact that a certain pregnant is compatible with the piece of work means that the work tin sustain information technology as one of its possible meanings.

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

The moderate intentionalist and so analyses compatibility in terms of the meshing status, which refers to a sufficient degree of coherence between the content of the intention and the piece of work's rhetorical patterns. An intention is uniform with the work in the sense that it meshes well with the work. The Martian case will hence exist ruled out by the meshing condition because information technology does not engage sufficiently with the narrative even if it is not explicitly rejected past textual bear witness. The meshing condition is a minimal or weak success condition in that it does not require the intention to mesh with every textual characteristic. A sufficient amount will do, though the moderate intentionalist admits that the line is non ever easy to draw. With this weak standard for success, it tin happen that the interpreter is not able to discern the intended meaning in the work earlier she learns of the artist'southward intention.

There is a 2nd 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, among the possible meanings sustained past the work, is the 1 most likely to secure uptake from a well-backgrounded audience (with contextual knowledge and all). For example, if a work of art, inside the limits set past convention and context, affords interpretations ten, y, and z, and x is more than readily discerned than the other two by the appropriate audience, then x is the pregnant 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 do we know whether an intention is successfully realized? Presumably, we figure out piece of work-meaning and the creative person'due south intention respectively and independently of each other. And then we compare the two to see if in that location is a fit. Yet, this movement is redundant: if we tin can figure out work-significant independently of actual intention, why practice we need the latter? And if piece of work-meaning cannot be independently obtained, how can we know it is a case where intentions are successfully realized and not a case where intentions failed? Information technology follows that appeal to successful intention results in redundancy or indeterminacy.

The first horn of the dilemma assumes that work-pregnant tin can be obtained independently of noesis of successful intention, only this is false for moderate intentionalists, for they acknowledge that in many cases the piece of work presents ambiguity that cannot be resolved solely in virtue of internal evidence. The moderate intentionalist rejects the 2nd horn by claiming that they practise non decide the success of an intention by comparison independently obtained work-significant with the artist'due south intention (Stecker, 2010, pp. 154–5). As already discussed, moderate intentionalists advise different success conditions that practice not appeal to the identity between the creative person'due south intention and work-significant. Moderate intentionalists adopting the weak standard hold that success is defined past the degree of meshing; those who adopt the strong standard maintain that success is divers past the audience's ability to grasp the intention. Neither requires the interpreter to identify a piece of work'south meaning independently of the artist's intention.

d. Objections to Bodily 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. Bodily intentionalists tend to dismiss this worry as insignificant and maintain that in many contexts (daily conversation or historical investigations) we have no difficulty in discerning another person's intention (Carroll, 2009, pp. 71–v). In that case, why would things suddenly stand differently when it comes to art estimation? This is not to say that we succeed on every occasion of estimation, but that nosotros practice so in an amazingly large number of cases. That being said, nosotros should non pass up the appeal to intention solely because of the occasional failure.

Some other objection is the publicity paradox (Nathan, 2006). The primary idea is this: when someone S conveys something p by a production of an object O for public consumption, there is a second-order intention that the audition need not go beyond O to achieve p; that is, there is no need to consult S'due south first-gild intentions to empathise O. Therefore, when an artist creates a work for public consumption, there is a second-order intention that her kickoff-guild intentions not exist consulted, otherwise it would indicate the failure of the creative person. Actual intentionalism hence leads to the paradoxical claim that nosotros should and should non consult the artist's intentions.

The actual intentionalist's response (Stecker, 2010, pp. 153–4) is this: not all artists have the second-order intention in question. If this premise is false, then the publicity argument becomes unsound. Even if it were truthful, the argument would still be invalid, considering it confuses the intention that the artist intends to create something standing alone with the intention that her start-social club intention need non exist consulted. The paradox will non concord if this distinction is made.

Lastly, many criticisms are directed at a popular argument amid bodily intentionalists: the conversation argument (Carroll, 2001; Jannotta, 2014). An analogy between conversation and art estimation is drawn, and bodily intentionalists merits that if nosotros accept that fine art interpretation is a form of conversation, nosotros need to accept actual intentionalism equally the right prescriptive account of interpretation, because the standard goal of an interlocutor in a chat is to grasp what the speaker intends to say. (This is a premise even anti-intentionalists take, merely they apparently pass up the further merits that art interpretation is conversational. Run into Beardsley, 1970, ch.1.) This illustration has been severely criticized (Dickie, 2006; Nathan, 2006; Huddleston, 2012). The greatest disanalogy between chat and fine art is that the latter is more than like a monologue delivered by the artist rather than an interchange of ideas.

1 way to meet the monologue objection is to specify more conspicuously the role of the conversational interest. In fact, the actual intentionalist claims that the conversational involvement should constrain other interests such as the artful involvement. In other words, other interests can be reconciled or work with the conversational interest. Have the case of the hermeneutics of suspicion for example. Hermeneutics of suspicion is a skeptical attitude—ofttimes heavily politicized—adopted toward the explicit stance of a piece of work. Interpretations based on the hermeneutics of suspicion have to be constrained by the creative person's not-ironic intention in order for them to count every bit legitimate interpretations. For instance, in attributing racist tendencies to Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, in which the black slave Neb is portrayed as docile and superstitious, we demand to suppose that the tendencies are not ironic; otherwise, the suspicious reading becomes inappropriate. In this example, the creative chat does not end up beingness 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.

five. Hypothetical Intentionalism

a. Overview

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

Two points call for attention. Start, it is hypothesis—not truth—that matters. This ways that a hypothesis of the actual intention will never be trumped by cognition of that very intention. Second, the membership of the audience is crucial because it determines the kind of evidence legitimate for the interpreter to use.

A 1979 proposal (Tolhurst) suggests that the relevant audience be singled out by the artist's intention, that is, the audience intended to be addressed past the artist. Work-meaning is thus determined by the intended audition'southward best hypothesis nearly the artist'southward intention. This means that the interpreter will need to equip herself with the relevant beliefs and background knowledge of the intended audition in order to make the best hypothesis. Put another way, hypothetical intentionalism focuses on the audition's uptake of an utterance addressed to them. This beingness and so, what the audience relies on in comprehending the utterance volition exist based on what she knows about the utterer on that detail occasion. Post-obit this contextualist line of thinking, the significant of Jonathan Swift'south A Small-scale Proposal will non be the proposition that the poor in Ireland might ease their economic force per unit area by selling their children equally food to the rich; rather, given the background cognition of Swift'southward intended audience, the best hypothesis about the author'due south 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.

Yet, at that place is a serious problem with the notion of an intended audience. If the intended audience is an extremely minor group possessing esoteric cognition of the artist, meaning becomes a private matter, for the work tin can only be properly understood in terms of individual data shared between creative person and audience, and this results in something close to Humpty-Dumptyism, which is feature of accented intentionalism.

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

The hypothetical intentionalist is aware that in some cases in that location will be competing interpretations which are equally skillful. An artful benchmark is and then introduced to adjudicate between these hypotheses. The aesthetic consideration comes as a tie breaker: when we accomplish two or more than epistemically best hypotheses, the one that makes the work artistically better should win.

Some other notable distinction introduced past hypothetical intentionalism is that between semantic and categorial intention (Levinson, 1996, pp. 188–9). The kind of intention nosotros have been discussing is semantic: it is the intention by which an artist conveys her message in the work. Past dissimilarity, categorial intention is the artist's intention to categorize her production, either as a piece of work of art, a certain artform (such as Romantic literature), or a item genre (such every bit lyric poesy). Categorial intention indirectly affects a work's semantic content because information technology determines how the interpreter conceptualizes the work at the key level. For example, if a text is taken as a grocery list rather than an experimental story, we will interpret it as saying cipher beyond the named grocery items. For this reason, the artist's categorial intention should be treated equally among the contextual factors relevant to her work'due south identity. This move 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 often expressed worry is that it seems odd to stick to a hypothesis when newly found evidence proves it to be fake (Carroll, 2001, pp. 208–9). If an creative person's private diary is located and reveals that our best hypothesis nigh her intention regarding her work is false, why should we cling to that hypothesis if the newly revealed intention meshes well with the piece of work? Hypothetical intentionalism implausibly implies that warranted assertibility constitutes truth.

The hypothetical intentionalist clarifies her position (Levinson, 2006, p. 308) by saying that warranted assertibility does non constitute the truth for the utterer'southward significant, but it does institute the truth for utterance meaning. The ideal audience's best hypothesis constitutes utterance meaning even if it is designed to infer the utterer's meaning.

Some other 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 creative person the intention to produce a piece with the highest degree of artful value that the work can sustain (Davies, 2007, pp. 183–84). That is, the epistemic criterion for determining the best hypothesis is inseparable from the artful criterion.

In reply, information technology is claimed that this objection may stalk from the impression that an creative person usually aims for the best; however, this does non imply that she would anticipate and intend the artistically best reading of the work. Information technology follows that it is not necessary that the best reading be what the artist most probable intended even if she could have intended information technology. The objector replies that, still, the situation in which we have two epistemically plausible readings while ane is inferior cannot arise, because we would adopt the inferior reading only when the superior reading is falsified past evidence.

The third objection is that the distinction between public and private evidence is blurry (Carroll, 2001, p. 212). Is public evidence published evidence? Does published data from private sources count equally public? The answer 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 exist reconstrued as what the creative person appears to have wanted the audition to know near the circumstances of the work's creation. This means that if information technology appears that the artist did not desire to make certain proclamations of intent known to the audience, then this evidence, fifty-fifty if published at a after indicate, does not found the public context to be considered for interpretation.

Finally, ii notable counterexamples to hypothetical intentionalism accept been proposed (Stecker, 2010, pp. 159–60). The start counterexample is that W means p only p is non intended past the artist and the audition is justified in believing that p is not intended. In this case hypothetical intentionalism falsely implies that W does not mean p. For instance, it is famously known amidst readers of Sherlock Holmes adventures that Dr. Watson's war wound appears in two dissimilar locations. On i occasion the wound is said to be on his arm, while on another it is on his thigh. In other words the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson'due south wound. But given the realistic mode of the Holmes adventures, the best hypothesis of authorial intent in this example would deny that the impossibility is office of the meaning of the story, which is apparently fake.

However, the hypothetical intentionalist would not maintain that Due west ways p, considering p is not the best hypothesis. She would not merits that the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson's wound, for the best hypothesis fabricated past the ideal reader would be that Watson has the wound somewhere on his torso—his arm or thigh, but exactly where we do not know. It is a mistake to presuppose that W means p without post-obit the strictures imposed past hypothetical intentionalism to properly attain p.

The 2d counterexample to hypothetical intentionalism is the example where the audition is justified in believing that p is intended by the creative person but in fact W means q; the audience would then falsely conclude that West ways p. Once more, what W ways is determined past the platonic audience's best hypothesis based on convention and context, not by what the work literally asserts. The meaning of the piece of work is the product of a prudent assessment of the total show available.

half dozen. Hypothetical Intentionalism and the Hypothetical Artist

a. Overview

There is a 2nd diverseness of hypothetical intentionalism that is based on the concept of a hypothetical artist. More often than not speaking, it maintains that estimation is grounded on the intention suitably attributed by the interpreter to a hypothetical or imagined artist. This version of hypothetical intentionalism is sometimes chosen fictionalist intentionalism or postulated authorism. The theoretical apparatus of a hypothetical artist tin be traced back to Wayne Berth's account of the "unsaid writer," in which he suggests that the critic should focus on the author 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 make of intentionalism disagree on the number of acceptable interpretations and on what kind of testify is legitimate, they concur that the interpreter ought to concentrate on the appearance of the work. If it appears, based on internal evidence (and perhaps contextual information if contextualism is endorsed), that the artist intends the piece of work to mean p, then p is the right interpretation of the work. The artist in question is not the historical artist; rather, it is an creative person postulated by the audition to be responsible for the intention made out from, or implied past, the piece of work. For example, if there is an anti-war attitude detected in the work, the intention to castigate state of war should exist attributed to the postulated artist, non to the historical artist. The motivation behind this move is to maintain work-centered interpretation but avoid the beguiling reasoning that whatsoever nosotros find in the work is intended past the real artist.

Inheriting the spirit of hypothetical intentionalism, fictionalist intentionalism aims to make estimation work-based but author-related at the same time. The biggest departure between the two stances is that, equally said, fictionalist intentionalism does not appeal to the actual or real artist, thereby fugitive whatsoever criticisms arising from hypothesizing about the existent artist such equally that the all-time hypothesis about the existent artist's intention should be abandoned when compelling evidence confronting it is obtained.

b. Notable Objections and Replies

The beginning concern with fictionalist intentionalism is that constructing a historical variant of the actual creative person sounds suspiciously similar hypothesizing well-nigh her (Stecker, 1987). But in that location is still a divergence. "Hypothesizing about the actual artist," or more accurately, "hypothesizing the actual artist'due south intention," would be a characterization of hypothetical intentionalism rather than fictionalist intentionalism. The latter does non rail the actual artist's intention simply constructs a virtual one. Equally shown, fictionalist intentionalism, unlike hypothetical intentionalism, is allowed to any criticisms resulting from ignoring the actual artist's declaration of her intention.

A second objection criticizes fictionalist intentionalism for not being able to distinguish between different histories of creative processes for the same textual appearance (Livingston, 2005, pp. 165–69). For example, suppose a work that appears to be produced with a well-conceived scheme did outcome from that kind of scheme; suppose further that a 2d work that appears the same actually emerged from an uncontrolled process. And then, if we follow the strictures of fictionalist intentionalism, the interpretations we produce for these two works would plow out to be the same, for based on the aforementioned appearance the hypothetical artists we construct in both cases would exist identical. But these two works have different creative histories and the difference in question seems too crucial to be ignored.

The objection here fails to consider the subtlety of reality-dependent appearances (Walton, 2008, ch. 12). For example, suppose the exhibit note abreast a painting tells us it was created when the painter got heavily drunk. Any well-organized characteristic in the piece of work that appears to result from careful manipulation by the painter might now either look disordered or structured in an eerie mode depending on the feature's actual presentation. Compare this scenario to some other where a (almost) visually duplicate analogue is exhibited in the museum with the exhibit note revealing that the painter spent a long flow crafting the work. In this second case the audience's perception of the work is non very probable 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 creative presentation.

Finally, there is ofttimes 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 but of appearances instead of quantifying over hypothetical artists or their actions.

7. Decision

From the in a higher place discussion we tin can notice two major trends in the contend. Outset, virtually late 20thursday century and 21st century participants are committed to the contextualist ontology of art. The relevance of art's historical context, since its first philosophical appearance in Arthur Danto's 1964 essay "The Artworld," continues to influence analytic theories of art interpretation. There is no sign of this trend diminishing. In Noël Carroll's 2016 survey article on estimation, the contextualist footing is still assumed.

Second, actual intentionalism remains the most popular 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 again, this trend, like the contextualist vogue, is still ongoing. And if we run across intentionalism as an umbrella term that encompasses not only bodily intentionalism but also hypothetical intentionalism and probably fictionalist intentionalism, the influence of intentionalism and its related accent on the concept of an artist or author volition be even stronger. This presents an interesting dissimilarity with the trend in post-structuralism that tends to downplay authorial presence in theories of interpretation, as 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 4 philosophical essays on literary criticism. The starting time ii are among Beardsley'southward well-nigh important contributions to the philsoophy of interpretation.

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

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

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

  • Presents the spoken language act theory of literature.

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

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

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

  • Contains the original account of the unsaid author.

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

  • Contains in particular Carroll's conversation argument, give-and-take on the hermenutics of suspicion, defense force of moderate intentionalism, and criticism of hypothetical intentionalism.

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

  • An engaging book on creative evaluation and interpretation.

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

  • Anthologizes Carroll'due south survey commodity on the intention debate.

  • Currie, Thousand. (1990). The nature of fiction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Academy Press.

  • Contains a defense of fictionalist intentionalism.

  • Currie, 1000. (1991). Work and text. Mind, 100, 325–40.

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

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

  • First paper to describe attention to the relevance of a piece of work'southward context of product.

  • Davies, S. (2005). Beardsley and the autonomy of the work of fine art. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 63, 179–83.

  • Argues that Beardsley is actually a contextualist.

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

  • Part 2 contains Davies' defense of the maximizing position and criticisms of other positions.

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

  • Criticizes Carroll'due south conversation argument and bodily 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, East. D. (1967). Validity in interpretation. New Oasis, CT: Yale Academy Printing.

  • The nearly representative presentation of extreme intentionalism.

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

  • Contains a collection of essays expanding Hirsh's views on estimation.

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

  • A bright criticism of Carroll's conversation argument.

  • Iseminger, G. (Ed.). (1992). Intention & estimation. 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's extreme intentionalism, Nathan's account of the postulated artist, Levinson'south hypothetical intentionalism, and eight other contributions.

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

  • A defence of the conversation argument.

  • Krausz, M. (Ed.). (2002). Is there a unmarried correct estimation? Academy Park: Pennsylvania State Academy Printing.

  • Another valuable anthology on the intention debate, containing in particular Carroll's defence of moderate intentionalism, Lamarque'due south criticism of viewing piece of work-meaning every bit utterance meaning.

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

  • The third and the quaternary chapters hash out analytic theories of interpretation along with a critical assessment of the author-is-dead merits.

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

  • The 10th affiliate is Levinson's revised presentation of hypothetical intentionalism and the distinction between semantic and categorial intention.

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

  • Contains Levinson'due south 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's updated defence force of hypothetical intentionalism and criticism of Livingston's moderate intentionalism.

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

  • A thorough discussion 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'south intentions. Journal of Aesthetics and Fine art Criticism, 22, 245–56.

  • Criticizes the notion of an intended audition.

  • Nathan, D. O. (2006). Art, meaning, and artist's meaning. In 1000. Kieran (Ed.), Gimmicky debates in aesthetics and the philosophy of art (pp. 282–93). Oxford, England: Blackwell.

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

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

  • Presents another version of fictionalist intentionalism.

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

  • Criticizes unlike versions of fictionalist intentionalism

  • Stecker, R. (2003). Interpretation and structure: Fine art, speech, and the law. Oxford, England: Blackwell.

  • A valuable monograph devoted to the intention debate and its related bug such as the ontology of art, incompatible interpretations and the application of theories of fine art interpretation to police. The volume defends moderate intentionalism in detail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Tolhurst, Westward. East. (1979). On what a text is and how it means. British Journal of Aesthetics, 19, 3–14.

  • The founding certificate of hypothetical intentionalism.

  • Trivedi, Southward. (2001). An epistemic dilemma for bodily intentionalism. British Journal 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 collection of essays, including "Categories of Art," which might have inspired Levinson's conception of categorial intention; and "Style and the Products and Processes of Fine art," which is a defence force of fictionalist intentionalism in terms of the notion "apparent artist."

  • Wimsatt, West. K., & Beardsley, M. C. (1946). The intentional fallacy. The Sewanee Review, 54, 468–88.

  • The first thorough presentation of anti-intentionalism, commonly regarded as starting point of the intention fence.

Author Information

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