Fine art and Interpretation

picture of man looking at art objectsInterpretation in fine art refers to the attribution of meaning to a work. A point on which people frequently disagree is whether the artist's or author's intention is relevant to the interpretation of the work. In the Anglo-American analytic philosophy of fine art, views nearly interpretation branch into 2 major camps: intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, with an initial focus on 1 art, namely literature.

The anti-intentionalist maintains that a work'due south meaning is entirely adamant past 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 significant and other aesthetically relevant properties. Extra-textual factors, such as the author'southward intention, are neither necessary nor sufficient for meaning conclusion. This early position in the analytic tradition is ofttimes called conventionalism because of its strong emphasis on convention. Anti-intentionalism gradually went out of favor at the stop 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 by convention and, co-ordinate to a different version of the theory, by the relevant contextual factors at the fourth dimension of the work's production.

By contrast, the initial brand of intentionalism—actual intentionalism—holds that interpreters should concern themselves with the author's intention, for a piece of work'southward meaning is affected past such intention. In that location are at least three versions of actual intentionalism. The absolute version identifies a work's meaning fully with the writer's intention, therefore assuasive that an author can intend her work to mean whatever she wants it to hateful. The extreme version acknowledges that the possible meanings a work can sustain take to be constrained past convention. According to this version, the author's intention picks the right pregnant of the piece of work every bit long as it fits i of the possible meanings; otherwise, the work ends upwards being meaningless. The moderate version claims that when the author'due south intention does not match whatsoever of the possible meanings, meaning is stock-still instead by convention and mayhap also context.

A second make of intentionalism, which finds a middle course between actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, is hypothetical intentionalism. Co-ordinate to this position, a work'south meaning is the appropriate audience'due south all-time hypothesis nigh the author's intention based on publicly available information nearly the writer and her work at the time of the slice'southward product. A variation on this position attributes the intention to a hypothetical writer who is postulated by the interpreter and who is constituted by work features. Such authors are sometimes said to be fictional because they, beingness purely conceptual, differ decisively from flesh-and-blood authors.

This article elaborates on these theories of interpretation and considers their notable objections. The debate about interpretation covers other fine art forms in addition to literature. The theories of interpretation are likewise extended across many of the arts. This broad outlook is causeless throughout the article, although nothing said is affected even if a narrow focus on literature is adopted.

Table of Contents

  1. Key Concepts: Intention, Significant, and Interpretation
  2. Anti-Intentionalism
    1. The Intentional Fallacy
    2. Beardsley's Speech Act 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. Decision
  8. References and Further Reading

i. Central Concepts: Intention, Meaning, and Interpretation

It is common for usa to ask questions most works of art due to puzzlement or curiosity. Sometimes we do not understand the point of the work. What is the betoken of, for instance, Metamorphosis past Kafka or Duchamp's Fountain? Sometimes at that place is ambiguity in a work and we desire it resolved. For example, is the final sequence of Christopher Nolan's moving-picture show Inception reality or another dream? Or do ghosts actually be in Henry James'southward The Turn of the Screw? Sometimes we brand hypotheses well-nigh details in a work. For instance, does the woman in white in Raphael's The Schoolhouse of Athens represent Hypatia? Is the conch in William Golding's Lord of the Flies a symbol for civilization and democracy?

What these questions have in common is that all of them seek afterwards things that go 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 piece of work. A distinction tin be drawn between two kinds of pregnant in terms of telescopic. Meaning tin can be global in the sense that it concerns the piece of work's theme, thesis, or point. For example, an audience first encountering Duchamp's Fountain would desire to know Duchamp'southward point in producing this readymade or, put otherwise, what the piece of work as a whole is fabricated to convey. The same goes for Kafka'southward Metamorphosis, which contains so bizarre a plot as to make the reader wonder what the story is all virtually. Meaning can too be local insofar as it is nearly what a office of a work conveys. Inquiries into the meaning of a particular sequence in Christopher Nolan'south film, the woman in Raphael's fresco, or the conch in William Golding's Lord of the Flies are directed at just part of the piece of work.

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

When an interpretative question arises, a frequent way to bargain with information technology is to resort to the creator's intention. We may ask the artist to reveal her intention if such an opportunity is available; nosotros may too cheque what she says about her work in an interview or autobiography. If we accept access to her personal documents such every bit diaries or letters, they also will become our interpretative resource. These are all bear witness of the creative person's intention. When the evidence is compelling, nosotros have proficient reason to believe it reveals the artist's intention.

Certainly, in that location are cases in which external evidence of the artist's intention is absent, including when the work is anonymous. This poses no difficulty for philosophers who view entreatment to artistic intention equally crucial, for they accept that internal evidence—the work itself—is the best bear witness of the artist'southward intention. Well-nigh of the time, close attending to details of the work will lead us to what the artist intended the work to mean.

Simply what is intention exactly? Intention is a kind of mental land usually characterized as a pattern or plan in the creative person's heed to exist realized in her creative cosmos. This crude view of intention is sometimes refined into the reductive assay one will observe in a contemporaneous textbook of philosophy of mind: intention is constituted by belief and want. Some actual intentionalists explicate the nature of intention from a Wittgensteinian perspective: authorial intention is viewed equally the purposive structure of the piece of work that can be discerned past close inspection. This view challenges the assumption that intentions are e'er individual and logically independent of the work they cause, which is often interpreted every bit a position held past anti-intentionalists.

A 2005 proposal holds that intentions are executive attitudes toward plans (Livingston). These attitudes are firm just 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 (pregnant, interpretation, and intention) requires an essay-length handling that cannot exist done here. For electric current purposes, it suffices to introduce the aforesaid views and proposals commonly causeless. Bear in heed that for the about part the contend over art interpretation proceeds without consensus on how to define these terms, and clarifications appear just when necessary.

2. Anti-Intentionalism

Anti-intentionalism is considered the first theory of estimation to emerge in the analytic tradition. Information technology is normally seen as affiliated with the New Criticism move that was prevalent in the centre of the twentieth century. The position was initially a reaction against biographical criticism, the main thought of which is that the interpreter, to grasp the meaning of a work, needs to written report the life of the author because the work is seen every bit reflecting the author's mental world. This approach led to people considering the writer's biographical data rather than her work. Literary criticism became criticism of biography, not criticism of literary works. Against this tendency, literary critic William K. Wimsatt and philosopher Monroe C. Beardsley coauthored a seminal paper "The Intentional Fallacy" in 1946, marker the starting point of the intention debate. Beardsley subsequently extended his anti-intentionalist opinion beyond the arts in his awe-inspiring volume 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 exterior the work is beguiling, considering the piece of work itself is the verdict of what significant it bears. This contention is based on the anti-intentionalist's ontological supposition about works of art.

This underlying assumption is that a work of art enjoys autonomy with respect to significant and other aesthetically relevant properties. Equally Beardsley'southward Principle of Autonomy shows, critical statements will in the end demand to be tested against the work itself, non against factors exterior information technology. To give Beardsley's example, whether a statue symbolizes human destiny depends not on what its maker says just on our being able to make out that theme from the statue on the basis of our knowledge of creative conventions: if the statue shows a man bars to a cage, nosotros may well conclude that the statue indeed symbolizes human destiny, for by convention the epitome of confinement fits that alleged theme. The anti-intentionalist principle hence follows: the interpreter should focus on what she tin can observe in the work itself—the internal evidence—rather than on external show, such as the creative person'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 creative person'southward intention at best underdetermines pregnant 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 piece of work, appeal to external testify of the artist'south intention is not necessary (we tin observe the intention from the work); if it fails, such entreatment becomes bereft (the intention turns out to be inapplicable to the work). The conclusion is that an appeal to external testify of the artist's intention is either unnecessary or insufficient. Equally the second 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 event, the overall argument entails the irrelevance of external evidence of the artist'south intention. To recollect of such evidence every bit 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 artist intended her work to mean p to the determination that the work in question does mean p. Therefore, the term "intentional fallacy" has two layers of meaning: normatively, it refers to the questionable principle of interpretation that external bear witness of intent should be appealed to; ontologically, it refers to the fallacious inference from likely 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'southward imitation theory of art, Beardsley claims that fictional works are substantially 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 act of accusing someone. What illocutionary deed is being performed is traditionally construed as jointly adamant by the speaker'southward intention to perform that act, the words uttered, and the relevant conditions in that particular context. Other examples of illocutionary acts include asserting, alert, castigating, asking, and the like.

Literary works can exist seen as utterances; that is, texts used in a item context to perform dissimilar illocutionary acts by authors. However, Beardsley claims that in the case of fictional works in particular, the purported illocutionary force will ever be removed and then as to make the utterance an imitation of that illocutionary act. When an attempted act is insufficiently performed, it ends up being represented or imitated. For case, if I say "delight pass me the salt" in my dining room when no ane except me is at that place, I end up representing (imitating) the illocutionary act of requesting because there is no uptake from the intended audience. Since the illocutionary human activity in this example is only imitated, it qualifies equally a fictional act. This is why Beardsley sees fiction as representation.

Consider the uptake condition in the instance 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 can be readily identified. The uttered text hence loses its illocutionary force and ends up existence 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 peachy detective Sherlock Holmes, this greeting volition never obtain, because the name Sherlock Holmes does non refer to any existing person in the globe. The greeting will simply terminate up being a representation or a fictional illocution. By parity of reasoning, fictional works end up being representations of illocutionary acts in that they always incorporate names or descriptions involving events that never take identify.

Now nosotros must enquire: by what criterion practice nosotros determine what illocutionary human action is represented? It cannot be the speaker or author's intention, because even if a speaker intends to represent a detail illocutionary human activity, she might cease up representing another. Since the possibility of failed intention always exists, intention would non exist an appropriate criterion. Convention is over again invoked to determine the correct illocutionary act being represented. It is true that whatsoever do of representing is intentional at the start in the sense that what is represented is determined by the representer'southward intention. Nevertheless, once the connectedness betwixt a symbol and what it 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 matter of convention.

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

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that Beardsley'south mental attitude toward nonfictional works is ambivalent. Obviously, his speech act argument applies to fictional works only, and he accepts that nonfictional works can be genuine illocutions. This category of works tends to take a more identifiable audition, 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's intention does not determine pregnant. 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

One immediate business with anti-intentionalism is whether convention solitary can betoken to a single meaning (Hirsch, 1967). The mutual reason why people debate about estimation is precisely that the piece of work itself does not offering sufficient evidence to disambiguate pregnant. Very often a work can sustain multiple meanings and the problem of choice prompts some people to appeal to the artist's intention. It does not seem plausible to say that one can assign merely a single meaning to works like Ulysses or Picasso'south abstruse paintings if one concentrates solely on internal evidence. To this objection, Beardsley (1970) insists that, in near cases, appeal to the coherence of the work can eventually leave u.s. with a unmarried 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 piece of work is ironic depends on if its creator intended information technology to be so. For case, based on internal evidence, many people took Daniel Defoe'southward pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters to be genuinely against the Dissenters upon its publication. However, the only footing for saying that the pamphlet is ironic seems to be Defoe'southward intention. If irony is a crucial component of the piece of work, ignoring it would fail to respect the work's identity. It follows that irony cannot exist grounded in internal evidence lone. Beardsley's reply (1982, pp. 203–7) is that irony must offer the possibility of understanding. If the creative person 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 but part of a bigger concern that challenges the irrelevance of external factors to interpretation. Many factors present at the time of the work's creation seem to play a key role in shaping a work'south identity and content. Missing out on these factors would lead us to misidentifying the work (and hence to misinterpreting it).

For instance, a work will non be seen every bit revolutionary unless the interpreter knows something virtually the contemporaneous creative tradition: ignoring the work'southward innovation amounts to accepting that the piece of work can lose its revolutionary grapheme while remaining self-identical. If we see this character equally identity-relevant, we should then take it into consideration in our interpretation. The same line of thinking goes for other identity-conferring contextual factors, such every bit the social-historical weather condition and the relations the work bears to contemporaneous or prior works. The nowadays view is thus chosen ontological contextualism to foreground the ontological claim that the identity and content of a work of art are in role determined 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 but a work is. The anti-intentionalist opinion 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 art forms when we depict a comparison between an artistic production considered in its creature course and in its context of cosmos. For convenience, the discussion "piece of work" is used throughout with notes on whether contextualism is taken or not.

Every bit a reply to the contextualist objection, it has been argued (Davies, 2005) that Beardsley's position allows for contextualism. If this is convincing, the contextualist criticism of anti-intentionalism would non be conclusive.

3. Value-Maximizing Theory

a. Overview

The value-maximizing theory tin can be viewed equally being derived from anti-intentionalism. Its core merits is that the main aim of fine art estimation is to offering interpretations that maximize the value of a piece of work. There are at to the lowest degree ii versions of the maximizing position distinguished by the commitment to contextualism. When the maximizing position is committed to contextualism, the constraint on estimation will be convention plus context (Davies, 2007); otherwise, the constraint will be convention only, as endorsed by anti-intentionalism (Goldman, 2013).

As indicated, the word "maximize" does non imply monism. That is, the present position does not claim that there can be but a unmarried way to maximize the value of a piece of work of art. On the contrary, it seems reasonable to assume that in most cases the interpreter can envisage several readings to bring out the value of the work. For example, Kafka'southward Metamorphosis has generated a number of rewarding interpretations, and information technology is hard to debate for a single best among them. Every bit long every bit an estimation is revealing or insightful under the relevant interpretative constraints, we may count information technology every bit value-maximizing. Such being the case, the value-maximizing theory may be relabelled the "value-enhancing" or "value-satisfying" theory.

Given this pluralist pic, the maximizer, unlike the anti-intentionalist, will 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 principal aim of art interpretation is to raise beholden satisfaction by identifying interpretations that bring out the value of a work inside reasonable limits set by convention (and context).

b. Notable Objections and Replies

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

The most important objection to the maximizing view has information technology that the nowadays position is in danger of turning a mediocre piece of work into a masterpiece. Ed Woods'due south film Program 9 from Outer Infinite is the most discussed example. Many people consider this work to be the worst movie ever made. However, interpreted from a postmodern perspective as satire—which is presumably a value-enhancing interpretation—would turn it into a archetype.

The maximizer with contextualist leanings can reply that the postmodern reading fails to identify the film as authored by Wood (Davies, 2007, p, 187). Postmodern views were not available in Wood'south time, and then it was impossible for the film to be 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 work to exist interpreted needs to exist contextualized outset to ensure that subsequent attributions of artful value are done in light of the true and fair presentation of the work.

4. Bodily Intentionalism

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

a. Absolute Version

Absolute actual intentionalism claims that a work means whatever its creator intends it to mean. Put otherwise, information technology sees the artist's intention as the necessary and sufficient status for a work'south meaning. This position is often dubbed Humpty-Dumptyism with reference to the character Humpty-Dumpty in Through the Looking-Glass. This character tries to convince Alice that he can make a give-and-take mean what he chooses information technology to mean. This unsettling decision is supported past the argument most intentionless meaning: a mark (or a sequence of marks) cannot accept meaning unless information technology is produced by an amanuensis capable of intentional activities; therefore, meaning is identical to intention.

It seems plausible to abandon the idea that marks on the sand are a poem once nosotros know they were caused past accident. But this at best proves that intention is the necessary condition for something's being meaningful; it does not bear witness further that what something means is what the agent intended it to mean. In other words, the argument 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 avoid Humpty-Dumptyism, the extreme actual intentionalist rejects the view that the artist's intention infallibly determines work-significant and accepts the indeterminacy thesis that convention alone does non guarantee a single evident meaning to be found in a work. The extreme intentionalist claims further that the pregnant of the work is fixed by the artist'south intention if her intention identifies one of the possible meanings sustained by the piece of work; otherwise, the work ends up beingness meaningless (Hirsch, 1967). Amend put, the extreme intentionalist sees intention as the necessary rather than sufficient status for work-meaning.

Aside 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 example of figurative language (Nathan, in Iseminger (1992)). Take irony for example. 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 meaning in club for the intended irony to be effective. Just this results in accented intentionalism: every expression would be ironic every bit long as the author intends it to be. Simply—this is the second horn—if the range of possible meanings does not include the negation of literal pregnant, the expression merely becomes meaningless in that there is no appropriate pregnant possible for the author to actualize. It seems that a broader notion of convention is needed to explicate figurative language. Only if the extreme intentionalist makes that move, her intentionalist position will be undermined, for the author'due south intention would be given a less important role than convention in such cases. All the same, this trouble does non arise when the actual intentionalist is committed to contextualism, for in that example the contextual factors that make the intended irony possible will exist taken into account.

c. Moderate Version

Though there are several unlike versions of moderate actual intentionalism, they share the mutual ground that when the artist's intention fails, meaning is stock-still instead by convention and context. (Whether all moderate actual intentionalists accept context into account is controversial and this commodity volition 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).

Every bit seen, an intention is successful then long as information technology identifies one 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 significant? It is reasonable to say that the interpreter does not need to define all the possible meanings and meet if there is a fit. Rather, all she needs to practice is to meet whether the intended significant can be read in accord with the piece of work. This is why the moderate intentionalist puts the success condition in terms of compatibility: an intention is successful so long as the intended pregnant is compatible with the work. The fact that a certain pregnant is compatible with the work ways that the work can sustain it equally 1 of its possible meanings.

Unfortunately, the notion of compatibility seems to allow foreign cases in which an insignificant intention tin can determine work-meaning every bit long every bit it 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 have it because this announcement of intention can still be said to be compatible with the text in the sense that it is not rejected by textual bear witness. To avoid this bad effect, compatibility needs to be qualified.

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

In that location is a 2nd kind of success condition which adopts a stronger standard (Stecker, 2003; Davies, 2007, pp. 170–1). This standard for success states that an intention is successful only in instance the intended meaning, among the possible meanings sustained past the work, is the one most likely to secure uptake from a well-backgrounded audition (with contextual noesis and all). For instance, if a work of art, within the limits set by convention and context, affords interpretations ten, y, and z, and ten is more readily discerned than the other ii past the appropriate audience, then 10 is the pregnant of the work.

These accounts of the success condition reply 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 effigy out work-significant and the artist's intention respectively and independently of each other. And so nosotros compare the two to see if there is a fit. Nevertheless, this move is redundant: if we can figure out work-pregnant independently of actual intention, why do nosotros demand the latter? And if work-meaning cannot be independently obtained, how can we know information technology is a case where intentions are successfully realized and not a case where intentions failed? It follows that appeal to successful intention results in back-up or indeterminacy.

The commencement horn of the dilemma assumes that piece of work-meaning tin be obtained independently of noesis of successful intention, simply this is false for moderate intentionalists, for they admit 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 non determine the success of an intention by comparing independently obtained piece of work-significant with the artist's intention (Stecker, 2010, pp. 154–v). Equally already discussed, moderate intentionalists propose different success atmospheric condition that practise non appeal to the identity betwixt the artist's intention and work-meaning. Moderate intentionalists adopting the weak standard hold that success is defined past the degree of meshing; those who prefer the stiff standard maintain that success is divers by the audience's ability to grasp the intention. Neither requires the interpreter to place a work's meaning independently of the creative person's intention.

d. Objections to Bodily Intentionalism

The most commonly raised objection is the epistemic worry, which asks: is intention knowable? It 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 as insignificant and maintain that in many contexts (daily conversation or historical investigations) we take no difficulty in discerning another person's intention (Carroll, 2009, pp. 71–5). In that instance, why would things suddenly stand up differently when it comes to fine art interpretation? This is not to say that we succeed on every occasion of estimation, but that we do so in an amazingly large number of cases. That being said, nosotros should not reject the appeal to intention solely considering of the occasional failure.

Another objection is the publicity paradox (Nathan, 2006). The principal thought is this: when someone Southward conveys something p by a production of an object O for public consumption, there is a second-club intention that the audition demand not go across O to attain p; that is, there is no demand to consult S's first-order intentions to understand O. Therefore, when an creative person creates a work for public consumption, there is a second-order intention that her first-order intentions not exist consulted, otherwise it would indicate the failure of the artist. Bodily intentionalism hence leads to the paradoxical claim that we should and should not consult the artist'southward intentions.

The actual intentionalist'due south 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. Fifty-fifty if it were true, the argument would still be invalid, because information technology confuses the intention that the artist intends to create something continuing lone with the intention that her first-order intention demand not exist consulted. The paradox volition not hold if this distinction is made.

Lastly, many criticisms are directed at a popular argument amongst actual intentionalists: the conversation argument (Carroll, 2001; Jannotta, 2014). An illustration between conversation and art interpretation is drawn, and actual intentionalists claim that if we accept that fine art interpretation is a form of chat, we need to take actual intentionalism as the right prescriptive business relationship 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, but they plain reject the further merits that art estimation is conversational. See Beardsley, 1970, ch.one.) This analogy has been severely criticized (Dickie, 2006; Nathan, 2006; Huddleston, 2012). The greatest disanalogy between chat and art is that the latter is more like a monologue delivered by the creative person rather than an interchange of ideas.

One manner to meet the monologue objection is to specify more clearly the role of the conversational involvement. In fact, the actual intentionalist claims that the conversational interest should constrain other interests such as the aesthetic interest. In other words, other interests tin be reconciled or work with the conversational interest. Take the instance of the hermeneutics of suspicion for instance. 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 have to exist constrained past the artist's not-ironic intention in order for them to count every bit legitimate interpretations. For instance, in attributing racist tendencies to Jules Verne'south Mysterious Island, in which the black slave Bill 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 conversation does not end up being a monologue, for the suspicious hermeneut listens and understands Verne before responding with the suspicious reading, which is constrained past the conversational interest. A conversational interchange is hence completed.

5. Hypothetical Intentionalism

a. Overview

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

Two points call for attention. Starting time, it is hypothesis—not truth—that matters. This ways that a hypothesis of the actual intention volition never be trumped by 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 audition be singled out by the artist'south intention, that is, the audience intended to be addressed past the creative person. Work-meaning is thus determined by the intended audience'due south best hypothesis near the creative person's intention. This means that the interpreter will need to equip herself with the relevant beliefs and background knowledge of the intended audience in order to brand the best hypothesis. Put another way, hypothetical intentionalism focuses on the audience'southward uptake of an utterance addressed to them. This existence and then, what the audience relies on in comprehending the utterance will be based on what she knows about the utterer on that detail occasion. Post-obit this contextualist line of thinking, the pregnant of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal will not be the proposition that the poor in Ireland might ease their economic pressure level by selling their children equally food to the rich; rather, given the background cognition of Swift'southward intended audience, the all-time hypothesis about the writer's intention is that he intended the work to be a satire that criticizes the heartless attitude toward the poor and Irish policy in general.

Even so, in that location is a serious problem with the notion of an intended audition. If the intended audience is an extremely small group possessing esoteric noesis of the artist, meaning becomes a private matter, for the work can only be properly understood in terms of individual data shared between artist and audition, and this results in something close to Humpty-Dumptyism, which is characteristic of absolute intentionalism.

To cope with this problem, the hypothetical intentionalist replaces the concept of an intended audience with that of an ideal or appropriate audition. Such an audience is not necessarily targeted by the artist's 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 audience seeks to ballast the work in its context of creation based on public evidence. This avoids the danger of interpreting the piece of work on the ground of private evidence.

The hypothetical intentionalist is aware that in some cases there volition be competing interpretations which are equally good. An aesthetic benchmark is then introduced to adjudicate betwixt these hypotheses. The aesthetic consideration comes as a tie breaker: when we reach two or more epistemically best hypotheses, the 1 that makes the work artistically better should win.

Another notable distinction introduced by hypothetical intentionalism is that between semantic and categorial intention (Levinson, 1996, pp. 188–9). The kind of intention we have been discussing is semantic: it is the intention past which an artist conveys her bulletin in the piece of work. By dissimilarity, categorial intention is the artist'due south intention to categorize her production, either as a work of art, a certain artform (such as Romantic literature), or a particular genre (such every bit lyric poesy). Categorial intention indirectly affects a piece of work's semantic content because it determines how the interpreter conceptualizes the work at the key level. For instance, if a text is taken equally a grocery listing rather than an experimental story, we will interpret it as saying zippo beyond the named grocery items. For this reason, the creative person's categorial intention should be treated as among the contextual factors relevant to her work'south identity. This motility is oft adopted past theorists endorsing contextualism, such every bit maximizers or moderate intentionalists.

b. Notable Objections and Replies

Hypothetical intentionalism has received many criticisms and challenges that merit mention. A frequently expressed worry is that information technology seems odd to stick to a hypothesis when newly constitute testify proves it to be imitation (Carroll, 2001, pp. 208–9). If an artist's private diary is located and reveals that our best hypothesis about her intention regarding her work is false, why should nosotros 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) by proverb that warranted assertibility does not constitute the truth for the utterer's meaning, but it does plant the truth for utterance meaning. The platonic audience's best hypothesis constitutes utterance meaning even if information technology is designed to infer the utterer'southward meaning.

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

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

The third objection is that the distinction between public and private evidence is blurry (Carroll, 2001, p. 212). Is public prove published evidence? Does published data 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 have wanted the audition to know about the circumstances of the work's creation. This means that if information technology appears that the creative person did not want to make certain proclamations of intent known to the audience, and then this evidence, even if published at a later point, does not 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 commencement counterexample is that W ways p but p is non 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 non mean p. For example, it is famously known among readers of Sherlock Holmes adventures that Dr. Watson'due south state of war wound appears in ii different locations. On 1 occasion the wound is said to exist on his arm, while on another it 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 significant of the story, which is apparently false.

Nevertheless, the hypothetical intentionalist would not maintain that Due west means p, considering p is not the best hypothesis. She would not merits that the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson'due south wound, for the best hypothesis made by the ideal reader would be that Watson has the wound somewhere on his body—his arm or thigh, only exactly where nosotros do not know. It is a mistake to presuppose that W ways p without following the strictures imposed by hypothetical intentionalism to properly achieve p.

The second counterexample to hypothetical intentionalism is the instance where the audience is justified in believing that p is intended by the artist but in fact W means q; the audition would so falsely conclude that W ways p. Again, what West means is determined by the ideal audience'due south best hypothesis based on convention and context, not by what the work literally asserts. The meaning of the work is the product of a prudent assessment of the total evidence available.

6. Hypothetical Intentionalism and the Hypothetical Artist

a. Overview

In that location is a 2nd variety of hypothetical intentionalism that is based on the concept of a hypothetical artist. By and large speaking, it maintains that interpretation is grounded on the intention suitably attributed by the interpreter to a hypothetical or imagined artist. This version of hypothetical intentionalism is sometimes called fictionalist intentionalism or postulated authorism. The theoretical apparatus of a hypothetical artist tin be traced dorsum to Wayne Booth's account of the "unsaid author," in which he suggests that the critic should focus on the author we can make out from the piece of work instead of on the historical author, considering 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 show is legitimate, they concord that the interpreter ought to concentrate on the advent of the piece of work. If it appears, based on internal evidence (and mayhap contextual information if contextualism is endorsed), that the artist intends the work to mean p, then p is the right interpretation of the work. The creative person in question is not the historical artist; rather, it is an artist postulated by the audience to exist responsible for the intention made out from, or unsaid by, the work. For case, if there is an anti-state of war mental attitude detected in the work, the intention to castigate state of war should be attributed to the postulated artist, not to the historical artist. The motivation backside this move is to maintain work-centered interpretation only avoid the beguiling reasoning that whatever nosotros find in the work is intended by the real artist.

Inheriting the spirit of hypothetical intentionalism, fictionalist intentionalism aims to make interpretation work-based but author-related at the aforementioned time. The biggest difference between the two stances is that, as said, fictionalist intentionalism does not appeal to the actual or real creative person, thereby fugitive whatsoever criticisms arising from hypothesizing about the real artist such equally that the best hypothesis almost the real artist's intention should be abandoned when compelling evidence against it is obtained.

b. Notable Objections and Replies

The starting time concern with fictionalist intentionalism is that constructing a historical variant of the bodily artist sounds suspiciously like hypothesizing about her (Stecker, 1987). Just there is still a divergence. "Hypothesizing about the actual artist," or more accurately, "hypothesizing the actual creative person's intention," would be a characterization of hypothetical intentionalism rather than fictionalist intentionalism. The latter does not rails the actual creative person's intention simply constructs a virtual i. As shown, fictionalist intentionalism, different hypothetical intentionalism, is immune to whatsoever criticisms resulting from ignoring the actual artist'due south proclamation 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 case, 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 aforementioned actually emerged from an uncontrolled process. So, if nosotros follow the strictures of fictionalist intentionalism, the interpretations we produce for these 2 works would turn out to be the same, for based on the same appearance the hypothetical artists we construct in both cases would be identical. Simply these two works have unlike 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 showroom note abreast a painting tells the states information technology was created when the painter got heavily drunk. Whatsoever well-organized feature in the piece of work that appears to result from careful manipulation past the painter might now either look disordered or structured in an eerie way depending on the feature's actual presentation. Compare this scenario to another where a (about) visually indistinguishable counterpart is exhibited in the museum with the exhibit annotation revealing that the painter spent a long catamenia crafting the work. In this second case the audience's perception of the work is not very likely to be the same as that in the first instance. This shows how the apparent creative person account can even so discriminate between (appearances of) different creative histories of the same artistic presentation.

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

vii. Conclusion

From the in a higher place give-and-take we can notice two major trends in the argue. First, about late xxth century and 21st century participants are committed to the contextualist ontology of art. The relevance of art's historical context, since its starting time philosophical advent in Arthur Danto's 1964 essay "The Artworld," continues to influence analytic theories of art interpretation. In that location is no sign of this tendency diminishing. In Noël Carroll's 2016 survey commodity on interpretation, the contextualist basis is still assumed.

2nd, actual intentionalism remains the most pop position amid 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 nevertheless ongoing. And if we see intentionalism equally an umbrella term that encompasses not only actual intentionalism but also hypothetical intentionalism and probably fictionalist intentionalism, the influence of intentionalism and its related emphasis on the concept of an artist or author will exist even stronger. This presents an interesting dissimilarity with the trend in post-structuralism that tends to downplay authorial presence in theories of interpretation, equally embodied in the writer-is-expressionless thesis championed by Barthes and Foucoult (Lamarque, 2009, pp. 104–xv).

8. References and Further Reading

  • Beardsley, Thousand. C. (1970). The possibility of criticism. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Printing.

  • Contains four philosophical essays on literary criticism. The offset two are amongst Beardsley's most important contributions to the philsoophy of interpretation.

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

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

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

  • Presents the oral communication human activity theory of literature.

  • Beardsley, Chiliad. C. (1982). The artful point of view: Selected essays. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Academy Press.

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

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

  • Contains the original business relationship of the implied author.

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

  • Contains in particular Carroll's conversation statement, discussion on the hermenutics of suspicion, defence of moderate intentionalism, and criticism of hypothetical intentionalism.

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

  • An engaging book on artistic evaluation and interpretation.

  • Carroll, North., & 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, G. (1990). The nature of fiction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

  • Contains a defense of fictionalist intentionalism.

  • Currie, Chiliad. (1991). Piece of work and text. Listen, 100, 325–40.

  • Presents how a delivery to contextualism leads to an important stardom between piece of work and text in the example of literature.

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

  • Offset paper to describe attending to the relevance of a work's context of production.

  • Davies, S. (2005). Beardsley and the autonomy of the piece of 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 Academy Press.

  • Function II 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 actual intentionalism.

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

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

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

  • The almost representative presentation of extreme intentionalism.

  • Hirsch, Due east. D. (1976). The aims of interpretation. Chicago, IL: Academy of Chicago Press.

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

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

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

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

  • A defense force of the chat argument.

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

  • Some other valuable anthology on the intention fence, containing in particular Carroll'south defense of moderate intentionalism, Lamarque's criticism of viewing work-meaning equally utterance meaning.

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

  • The tertiary and the quaternary capacity discuss analytic theories of interpretation along with a critical cess of the writer-is-dead merits.

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

  • The tenth chapter is Levinson'due south 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 art. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

  • Contains Levinson's updated defense of hypothetical intentionalism and criticism of Livingston's moderate intentionalism.

  • Livingston, P. (2005). Fine art and intention: A philosophical study. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

  • A thorough discussion on intention, literary ontology, and the trouble of estimation, with emphases on defending the meshing status 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 audience.

  • Nathan, D. O. (2006). Art, meaning, 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 business relationship of fictionalist intentionalism, a critique of the chat argument, and a brief recapitulation of the publicity paradox.

  • Nehamas, A. (1981). The postulated author: Critical monism as a regulative ideal. Critical 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 different versions of fictionalist intentionalism

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

  • A valuable monograph devoted to the intention debate and its related problems such equally the ontology of art, incompatible interpretations and the awarding of theories of fine art estimation to law. The volume defends moderate intentionalism in particular.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Tolhurst, W. E. (1979). On what a text is and how it means. British Periodical of Aesthetics, nineteen, 3–14.

  • The founding document of hypothetical intentionalism.

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

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

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

  • A collection of essays, including "Categories of Art," which might have inspired Levinson'southward conception of categorial intention; and "Way and the Products and Processes of Art," which is a defense of fictionalist intentionalism in terms of the notion "apparent artist."

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

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

Author Information

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