Art and Interpretation

picture of man looking at art objectsInterpretation in art refers to the attribution of significant to a work. A point on which people oftentimes disagree is whether the artist'southward or writer'due south intention is relevant to the estimation of the work. In the Anglo-American analytic philosophy of art, views nearly estimation branch into two major camps: intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, with an initial focus on one art, namely literature.

The anti-intentionalist maintains that a piece of work's meaning is entirely determined by linguistic and literary conventions, thereby rejecting the relevance of the author's intention. The underlying supposition of this position is that a work enjoys autonomy with respect to pregnant and other aesthetically relevant backdrop. Extra-textual factors, such as the author'southward intention, are neither necessary nor sufficient for meaning determination. This early position in the analytic tradition is often chosen conventionalism because of its stiff accent on convention. Anti-intentionalism gradually went out of favor at the stop of the 20th century, just 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, according to a different version of the theory, by the relevant contextual factors at the time of the work's production.

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

A second brand of intentionalism, which finds a middle course betwixt actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, is hypothetical intentionalism. Co-ordinate to this position, a work's meaning is the advisable audience'due south best hypothesis about the author's intention based on publicly available information about the writer and her work at the time of the piece'due south production. A variation on this position attributes the intention to a hypothetical author who is postulated by the interpreter and who is constituted past piece of work features. Such authors are sometimes said to be fictional because they, being purely conceptual, differ decisively from flesh-and-blood authors.

This article elaborates on these theories of interpretation and considers their notable objections. The debate near interpretation covers other art forms in add-on to literature. The theories of interpretation are also extended across many of the arts. This broad outlook is assumed throughout the article, although nothing said is affected even 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 Speech 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 Artist
    1. Overview
    2. Notable Objections and Replies
  7. Conclusion
  8. References and Further Reading

1. Primal Concepts: Intention, Significant, and Interpretation

Information technology is common for the states to enquire questions virtually works of fine art due to puzzlement or marvel. Sometimes we practise not sympathise the betoken of the work. What is the indicate of, for example, Metamorphosis by Kafka or Duchamp's Fountain? Sometimes there is ambiguity in a work and nosotros want information technology resolved. For example, is the final sequence of Christopher Nolan's film Inception reality or another dream? Or do ghosts really exist in Henry James's The Turn of the Spiral? Sometimes we make hypotheses well-nigh details in a work. For instance, does the woman in white in Raphael's The School of Athens represent Hypatia? Is the conch in William Golding's Lord of the Flies a symbol for culture and democracy?

What these questions accept in mutual is that all of them seek later on things that become across what the work literally presents or says. They are all concerned with the implicit contents of the piece of work or, for simplicity, with the meanings of a work. A distinction can be drawn between ii kinds of meaning in terms of scope. Pregnant can be global in the sense that it concerns the work'southward theme, thesis, or point. For case, an audience first encountering Duchamp's Fountain would want to know Duchamp'south betoken in producing this readymade or, put otherwise, what the work as a whole is made to convey. The same goes for Kafka'due south Metamorphosis, which contains so bizarre a plot as to make the reader wonder what the story is all well-nigh. Meaning can as well be local insofar as it is most what a part of a piece of work conveys. Inquiries into the meaning of a detail sequence in Christopher Nolan'southward film, the adult female in Raphael's fresco, or the conch in William Golding's Lord of the Flies are directed at only part of the work.

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

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

Certainly, at that place 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 as crucial, for they accept that internal evidence—the work itself—is the best evidence of the artist's intention. Most of the time, close attention to details of the work volition lead us to what the artist intended the piece of work to hateful.

But what is intention exactly? Intention is a kind of mental land usually characterized as a pattern or plan in the artist's listen to be realized in her creative creation. This crude view of intention is sometimes refined into the reductive analysis one will discover in a contemporaneous textbook of philosophy of mind: intention is constituted by belief and desire. Some bodily intentionalists explain 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 by close inspection. This view challenges the supposition that intentions are always private and logically contained of the work they cause, which is frequently interpreted equally a position held by anti-intentionalists.

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

Clarifying each of these basic terms (meaning, interpretation, and intention) requires an essay-length treatment that cannot be washed here. For current purposes, information technology suffices to introduce the aforesaid views and proposals commonly causeless. Bear in heed that for the nigh function the fence over art interpretation proceeds without consensus on how to ascertain these terms, and clarifications appear only when necessary.

2. Anti-Intentionalism

Anti-intentionalism is considered the first theory of interpretation to emerge in the analytic tradition. It is normally seen as affiliated with the New Criticism movement that was prevalent in the heart of the twentieth century. The position was initially a reaction against biographical criticism, the principal idea of which is that the interpreter, to grasp the meaning of a work, needs to study the life of the author because the work is seen equally reflecting the author'due south mental world. This approach led to people considering the author's biographical information rather than her work. Literary criticism became criticism of biography, not criticism of literary works. Against this trend, 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 fence. Beardsley subsequently extended his anti-intentionalist stance beyond the arts in his monumental volume Aesthetics: Bug in the Philosophy of Criticism ([1958] 1981a).

a. The Intentional Fallacy

The master idea of the intentional fallacy is that appeal to the creative person's intention exterior the work is fallacious, because the piece of work itself is the verdict of what pregnant it bears. This contention is based on the anti-intentionalist'south ontological assumption virtually works of art.

This underlying supposition is that a piece of work of fine art enjoys autonomy with respect to meaning and other aesthetically relevant properties. As Beardsley'southward Principle of Autonomy shows, critical statements will in the end need to exist tested against the work itself, not against factors outside it. To give Beardsley'southward example, whether a statue symbolizes human destiny depends not on what its maker says but 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 image of confinement fits that alleged theme. The anti-intentionalist principle hence follows: the interpreter should focus on what she can observe in the work itself—the internal evidence—rather than on external prove, such equally the artist's biography, to reveal her intentions.

Anti-intentionalism is sometimes called conventionalism because information technology sees convention as necessary and sufficient in determining piece of work-meaning. On this view, the artist'southward intention at best underdetermines meaning even when operating successfully. This can be seen from the famous statement offered by Wimsatt and Beardsley: either the creative person's intention is successfully realized in the work, or it fails; if the intention is successfully realized in the work, entreatment to external prove of the artist's intention is not necessary (we can notice the intention from the piece of work); if it fails, such appeal becomes bereft (the intention turns out to be extraneous to the work). The decision is that an appeal to external evidence of the artist'due south intention is either unnecessary or insufficient. As the 2d premise of the argument shows, the artist's intention is bereft in determining pregnant for the reason that convention alone tin can do the play tricks. Equally a result, the overall argument entails the irrelevance of external prove of the artist'southward intention. To recollect of such evidence as relevant commits the intentional fallacy.

There is a second manner to codify 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 piece of work in question does mean p. Therefore, the term "intentional fallacy" has ii layers of meaning: normatively, it refers to the questionable principle of estimation that external evidence of intent should be appealed to; ontologically, information technology refers to the beguiling inference from probable intention to piece of work-meaning.

b. Beardsley'southward Speech Act Theory of Literature

Beardsley at a later point develops an ontology of literature in favor of anti-intentionalism (1981b, 1982). Reviving Plato's 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 instance, when a detective, convinced that someone is the killer, points his finger at that person and utters the sentence "you did it," the detective is performing the illocutionary human activity of accusing someone. What illocutionary act is being performed is traditionally construed as jointly determined past 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, punitive, asking, and the similar.

Literary works can be seen as utterances; that is, texts used in a detail context to perform unlike illocutionary acts past authors. However, Beardsley claims that in the case of fictional works in particular, the purported illocutionary strength will always be removed so as to make the utterance an faux of that illocutionary act. When an attempted act is insufficiently performed, it ends up being represented or imitated. For example, if I say "delight pass me the salt" in my dining room when no one except me is there, I end up representing (imitating) the illocutionary human activity of requesting because there is no uptake from the intended audition. Since the illocutionary act in this case is only imitated, it qualifies as a fictional act. This is why Beardsley sees fiction as representation.

Consider the uptake condition in the case of fictional works. Such works are not addressed to the audience as a talk is: there is no concrete context in which the audience tin can be readily identified. The uttered text hence loses its illocutionary force and ends up being a representation. Aside from this "accost without access," some other 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 great detective Sherlock Holmes, this greeting will never obtain, considering the name Sherlock Holmes does non refer to any existing person in the world. The greeting will simply end upwards existence a representation or a fictional illocution. By parity of reasoning, fictional works end up being representations of illocutionary acts in that they always contain names or descriptions involving events that never take place.

At present we must ask: by what criterion do nosotros determine what illocutionary act is represented? It cannot be the speaker or author's intention, because even if a speaker intends to represent a particular illocutionary act, she might end upwardly representing some other. Since the possibility of failed intention always exists, intention would not be an appropriate criterion. Convention is again invoked to make up one's mind the correct illocutionary act being represented. Information technology is true that any practice of representing is intentional at the get-go in the sense that what is represented is determined by the representer'south intention. However, once the connection between a symbol and what it is used to represent is established, intention is said to be detached from that connectedness, 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 deed, determining what information technology represents does not require united states to go beyond that incomplete operation, just as determining what a mime is imitating does non require the audience to consider anything outside her performance, such as her intention. What the mime is imitating is completely adamant by how we conventionally construe the act being performed. In a similar fashion, when considering what illocutionary human action 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 human activity. The conclusion is that the author's intention plays no part in fixing the content of a fictional work.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that Beardsley'due south attitude toward nonfictional works is ambivalent. Obviously, his spoken communication deed argument applies to fictional works only, and he accepts that nonfictional works can be genuine illocutions. This category of works tends to have a more than identifiable audience, who is hence non addressed without access. With illocutions, Beardsley continues to contend for an anti-intentionalist view of pregnant co-ordinate to which the utterer'southward intention does not determine significant. 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 concern with anti-intentionalism is whether convention alone can point to a single significant (Hirsch, 1967). The common reason why people contend nearly interpretation is precisely that the work itself does not offer sufficient evidence to disambiguate meaning. Very often a work can sustain multiple meanings and the problem of choice prompts some people to appeal to the artist'due south intention. Information technology does not seem plausible to say that one can assign simply a unmarried significant to works similar Ulysses or Picasso'southward abstract 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 somewhen get out us with a unmarried correct estimation.

A 2nd serious objection to anti-intentionalism is the instance of irony (Hirsch, 1976, pp. 24–5). Information technology seems reasonable to say that whether a piece of work is ironic depends on if its creator intended it to be so. For instance, based on internal prove, many people took Daniel Defoe's pamphlet The Shortest Fashion with the Dissenters to be genuinely confronting the Dissenters upon its publication. Even so, the just ground for maxim that the pamphlet is ironic seems to be Defoe's intention. If irony is a crucial component of the work, ignoring it would fail to respect the piece of work'south identity. It follows that irony cannot be grounded in internal evidence alone. Beardsley's respond (1982, pp. 203–7) is that irony must offering the possibility of agreement. If the artist cannot imagine anyone taking it ironically, there would be no reason to believe the work to be ironic.

However, the trouble of irony is merely office of a bigger business organisation that challenges the irrelevance of external factors to interpretation. Many factors nowadays at the fourth dimension of the piece of work's cosmos seem to play a key role in shaping a work's identity and content. Missing out on these factors would atomic number 82 us to misidentifying the work (and hence to misinterpreting it).

For example, a work will not be seen as revolutionary unless the interpreter knows something almost the contemporaneous artistic tradition: ignoring the work'due south innovation amounts to accepting that the work can lose its revolutionary character while remaining self-identical. If we see this graphic symbol equally identity-relevant, we should and then accept it into consideration in our estimation. The same line of thinking goes for other identity-conferring contextual factors, such every bit the social-historical atmospheric condition 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 function determined past the relations it bears to its context of production.

Contextualism leads to an important stardom between work and text in the example of literature. In a nutshell: a text is non context-dependent just a 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 stardom goes for other art forms when nosotros describe a comparison between an artistic production considered in its brute form and in its context of cosmos. For convenience, the discussion "work" is used throughout with notes on whether contextualism is taken or not.

Equally 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 not be conclusive.

3. Value-Maximizing Theory

a. Overview

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

As indicated, the word "maximize" does not imply monism. That is, the nowadays position does not merits that there can exist only a single way to maximize the value of a piece of work of art. On the contrary, information technology seems reasonable to assume that in nearly 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 hard to argue for a single best amidst them. As long every bit an interpretation is revealing or insightful under the relevant interpretative constraints, we may count it as value-maximizing. Such existence the case, the value-maximizing theory may exist relabelled the "value-enhancing" or "value-satisfying" theory.

Given this pluralist movie, the maximizer, different the anti-intentionalist, volition demand to have the indeterminacy thesis that convention (and context, if she endorses contextualism) lone does not guarantee the unambiguity of the work. This allows the maximizing position to bypass the claiming posed by said thesis, rendering information technology a more flexible position than anti-intentionalism in regard to the number of legitimate interpretations.

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

b. Notable Objections and Replies

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

The most important objection to the maximizing view has information technology that the present position is in danger of turning a mediocre piece of work into a masterpiece. Ed Wood's film Plan 9 from Outer Infinite is the nigh discussed example. Many people consider this work to be the worst motion-picture show always made. Nevertheless, interpreted from a postmodern perspective as satire—which is presumably a value-enhancing interpretation—would turn it into a classic.

The maximizer with contextualist leanings can reply that the postmodern reading fails to place the film as authored by Wood (Davies, 2007, p, 187). Postmodern views were not bachelor in Forest's time, so it was incommunicable for the flick to exist created as such. Identifying the film as postmodernist amounts to anachronism that disrespects the piece of work'due south identity. The moral of this example is that the maximizer does non blindly enhance the value of a piece of work. Rather, the work to be interpreted needs to exist contextualized first to ensure that subsequent attributions of aesthetic value are done in calorie-free of the true and off-white presentation of the piece of work.

4. Bodily 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 different weights to intention. The accented version claims that work-meaning is fully adamant by the artist's intention; the extreme version claims that the work ends upward beingness meaningless when the artist'southward 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 determined instead by convention (and context, if contextualism is endorsed).

a. Absolute Version

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

It seems plausible to abandon the idea that marks on the sand are a verse form once we know they were caused by accident. Only this at all-time proves that intention is the necessary condition for something's existence meaningful; it does non prove further that what something means is what the agent intended information technology to mean. In other words, the statement well-nigh intentionless significant does a amend job in showing that intention is an indispensable ingredient for meaningfulness than in showing that intention infallibly determines the pregnant conveyed.

b. Farthermost Version

To avoid Humpty-Dumptyism, the farthermost bodily intentionalist rejects the view that the artist'due south 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 piece of work. The farthermost intentionalist claims further that the meaning of the piece of work is fixed by the artist's intention if her intention identifies i of the possible meanings sustained by the work; otherwise, the work ends up being meaningless (Hirsch, 1967). Better put, the extreme intentionalist sees intention as the necessary rather than sufficient status for work-meaning.

Aside from the unsatisfactory upshot that a piece of work becomes meaningless when the artist's intention fails, the present position faces a dilemma when dealing with the example of figurative language (Nathan, in Iseminger (1992)). Have irony for example. The showtime horn of the dilemma is as follows: Constrained by linguistic conventions, the range of possible meanings has to include the negation of the literal meaning in society for the intended irony to exist effective. But this results in absolute intentionalism: every expression would be ironic as long every bit the writer intends it to be. Just—this is the second horn—if the range of possible meanings does non include the negation of literal meaning, the expression only becomes meaningless in that there is no appropriate significant possible for the author to actualize. It seems that a broader notion of convention is needed to explicate figurative language. Just if the farthermost intentionalist makes that move, her intentionalist position will exist undermined, for the writer's intention would be given a less important office than convention in such cases. However, this trouble does not arise when the actual intentionalist is committed to contextualism, for in that case the contextual factors that brand the intended irony possible will be taken into business relationship.

c. Moderate Version

Though in that location are several unlike versions of moderate actual intentionalism, they share the common ground that when the artist's intention fails, meaning is fixed instead past convention and context. (Whether all moderate actual intentionalists take context into business relationship 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, pregnant is determined by convention plus context (Carroll, 2001; Stecker, 2003; Livingston, 2005).

Equally seen, an intention is successful so long as it identifies i of the possible meanings sustained by the work even if the pregnant 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 non need to ascertain all the possible meanings and see if at that place is a fit. Rather, all she needs to do is to run into whether the intended significant 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 so long every bit the intended meaning is compatible with the piece of work. The fact that a certain meaning is uniform with the work means that the work tin sustain it as one of its possible meanings.

Unfortunately, the notion of compatibility seems to permit strange cases in which an insignificant intention can determine work-pregnant as long as it is not explicitly rejected past the relevant interpretative constraint. For example, if Agatha Christie reveals that Hercule Poirot is actually a smart Martian in disguise, the moderate intentionalist would demand to accept it because this announcement of intention can withal be said to exist compatible with the text in the sense that it is non rejected by textual evidence. To avoid this bad consequence, compatibility needs to be qualified.

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

There is a second 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, amid the possible meanings sustained by the work, is the one nigh 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 by convention and context, affords interpretations 10, y, and z, and x is more than readily discerned than the other two by the advisable audience, then ten is the meaning 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 nosotros know whether an intention is successfully realized? Presumably, we figure out work-meaning and the creative person's intention respectively and independently of each other. And then we compare the two to run into if in that location is a fit. Nevertheless, this move is redundant: if we can figure out work-meaning independently of actual intention, why do we need the latter? And if work-pregnant cannot be independently obtained, how can we know it is a case where intentions are successfully realized and not a case where intentions failed? It follows that appeal to successful intention results in redundancy or indeterminacy.

The first horn of the dilemma assumes that work-meaning can be obtained independently of knowledge of successful intention, merely this is false for moderate intentionalists, for they acknowledge that in many cases the piece of work presents ambivalence that cannot be resolved solely in virtue of internal evidence. The moderate intentionalist rejects the 2d horn by challenge that they do not determine the success of an intention by comparison independently obtained piece of work-meaning with the artist's intention (Stecker, 2010, pp. 154–v). Equally already discussed, moderate intentionalists propose different success atmospheric condition that do non appeal to the identity between the artist'due south intention and work-meaning. Moderate intentionalists adopting the weak standard agree that success is defined by the degree of meshing; those who prefer the potent standard maintain that success is divers past the audience's ability to grasp the intention. Neither requires the interpreter to identify a work'due south meaning independently of the creative person'southward intention.

d. Objections to Actual Intentionalism

The most unremarkably raised objection is the epistemic worry, which asks: is intention knowable? It seems incommunicable for one to really know others' mental states, and the epistemic gap in this respect is thus unbridgeable. Actual intentionalists tend to dismiss this worry every bit insignificant and maintain that in many contexts (daily chat or historical investigations) we have no difficulty in discerning some other person'south intention (Carroll, 2009, pp. 71–5). In that case, why would things all of a sudden stand differently when it comes to art interpretation? This is non to say that nosotros succeed on every occasion of interpretation, but that we practice so in an amazingly large number of cases. That being said, we should not pass up the entreatment to intention solely considering of the occasional failure.

Another objection is the publicity paradox (Nathan, 2006). The main idea is this: when someone S conveys something p by a production of an object O for public consumption, at that place is a 2d-order intention that the audience need non go beyond O to achieve p; that is, there is no demand to consult Southward's offset-order intentions to sympathise O. Therefore, when an creative person creates a piece of work for public consumption, there is a second-order intention that her get-go-order intentions non exist consulted, otherwise it would indicate the failure of the creative person. Actual intentionalism hence leads to the paradoxical claim that we should and should non consult the artist'southward intentions.

The actual intentionalist'south response (Stecker, 2010, pp. 153–iv) is this: non all artists have the 2nd-club intention in question. If this premise is faux, then the publicity argument becomes unsound. Even if it were truthful, the argument would notwithstanding exist invalid, because it confuses the intention that the artist intends to create something continuing alone with the intention that her start-order intention demand not exist consulted. The paradox will not hold if this stardom is made.

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

One style to meet the monologue objection is to specify more than conspicuously the role of the conversational involvement. In fact, the actual intentionalist claims that the conversational involvement should constrain other interests such as the artful interest. In other words, other interests can be reconciled or work with the conversational interest. Have the example of the hermeneutics of suspicion for case. Hermeneutics of suspicion is a skeptical attitude—oft heavily politicized—adopted toward the explicit stance of a work. Interpretations based on the hermeneutics of suspicion accept to be constrained past the artist'southward non-ironic intention in order for them to count as legitimate interpretations. For instance, in attributing racist tendencies to Jules Verne'south Mysterious Island, in which the black slave Neb is portrayed as docile and superstitious, we need to suppose that the tendencies are not ironic; otherwise, the suspicious reading becomes inappropriate. In this example, the creative conversation does not terminate upwards beingness a monologue, for the suspicious hermeneut listens and understands Verne before responding with the suspicious reading, which is constrained by the conversational involvement. A conversational interchange is hence completed.

5. Hypothetical Intentionalism

a. Overview

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

Two points phone call for attending. Starting time, it is hypothesis—not truth—that matters. This means that a hypothesis of the actual intention will never be trumped by knowledge of that very intention. 2nd, 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 past the artist'south intention, that is, the audience intended to be addressed by the artist. Work-meaning is thus determined by the intended audience'due south best hypothesis about the artist's intention. This ways that the interpreter will need to equip herself with the relevant beliefs and background knowledge of the intended audience in social club to make the all-time hypothesis. Put another way, hypothetical intentionalism focuses on the audience's uptake of an utterance addressed to them. This beingness so, what the audience relies on in comprehending the utterance will be based on what she knows almost the utterer on that particular occasion. Following this contextualist line of thinking, the meaning of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal volition non exist the suggestion that the poor in Ireland might ease their economic pressure by selling their children equally nutrient to the rich; rather, given the background noesis of Swift's intended audience, the best hypothesis about the author'south intention is that he intended the work to exist a satire that criticizes the heartless attitude toward the poor and Irish gaelic policy in general.

However, in that location is a serious problem with the notion of an intended audition. If the intended audience is an extremely pocket-size group possessing esoteric knowledge of the artist, significant becomes a private affair, for the work can only exist properly understood in terms of private information shared betwixt artist and audience, and this results in something shut to Humpty-Dumptyism, which is characteristic of absolute intentionalism.

To cope with this trouble, the hypothetical intentionalist replaces the concept of an intended audience with that of an ideal or advisable 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 about the artist and her piece of work. In other words, the platonic audience seeks to anchor the piece of work in its context of creation based on public show. This avoids the danger of interpreting the work on the basis of private show.

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

Another notable distinction introduced by hypothetical intentionalism is that between semantic and categorial intention (Levinson, 1996, pp. 188–nine). The kind of intention we take been discussing is semantic: information technology is the intention by which an artist conveys her message in the piece of work. By dissimilarity, categorial intention is the artist's intention to categorize her production, either every bit a work of art, a sure artform (such as Romantic literature), or a detail genre (such as lyric poetry). Categorial intention indirectly affects a piece of work'southward semantic content because it determines how the interpreter conceptualizes the work at the fundamental level. For instance, if a text is taken as a grocery listing rather than an experimental story, nosotros volition translate it as proverb nothing across the named grocery items. For this reason, the creative person'due south categorial intention should be treated as among the contextual factors relevant to her work's 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 oftentimes 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 near 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 saying that warranted assertibility does not constitute the truth for the utterer's meaning, simply it does plant the truth for utterance meaning. The platonic audition's best hypothesis constitutes utterance pregnant fifty-fifty if information technology is designed to infer the utterer'due south meaning.

Some other 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 work tin sustain (Davies, 2007, pp. 183–84). That is, the epistemic benchmark for determining the all-time hypothesis is inseparable from the aesthetic criterion.

In reply, information technology is claimed that this objection may stem from the impression that an artist commonly aims for the best; however, this does not imply that she would conceptualize and intend the artistically all-time reading of the work. It follows that information technology is not necessary that the best reading be what the creative person most likely intended even if she could have intended it. The objector replies that, nonetheless, the situation in which we take two epistemically plausible readings while one is inferior cannot ascend, considering we would prefer the inferior reading only when the superior reading is falsified by show.

The third objection is that the distinction betwixt public and individual evidence is blurry (Carroll, 2001, p. 212). Is public evidence published evidence? Does published information from individual sources count as public? The respond from the hypothetical intentionalist emphasizes that this is not a distinction between published and unpublished data (Levinson, 2006, p. 310). The relevant public context should be reconstrued as what the creative person appears to accept wanted the audience to know well-nigh the circumstances of the piece of work'south creation. This ways that if it appears that the artist did not want to make certain proclamations of intent known to the audience, so this evidence, even if published at a afterwards signal, does non constitute the public context to exist considered for interpretation.

Finally, ii notable counterexamples to hypothetical intentionalism have been proposed (Stecker, 2010, pp. 159–threescore). The beginning counterexample is that West means p merely p is non intended past the creative person and the audience is justified in believing that p is not intended. In this case hypothetical intentionalism falsely implies that West does non mean p. For example, information technology is famously known among readers of Sherlock Holmes adventures that Dr. Watson's war wound appears in ii different locations. On one occasion the wound is said to be on his arm, while on some other information technology is on his thigh. In other words the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson's wound. But given the realistic style of the Holmes adventures, the best hypothesis of authorial intent in this case would deny that the impossibility is office of the pregnant of the story, which is apparently fake.

However, the hypothetical intentionalist would not maintain that Due west means p, because p is not the best hypothesis. She would non claim that the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson'south wound, for the best hypothesis made by the ideal reader would be that Watson has the wound somewhere on his torso—his arm or thigh, only exactly where we exercise not know. Information technology is a mistake to presuppose that Westward means p without following the strictures imposed by hypothetical intentionalism to properly reach p.

The 2nd counterexample to hypothetical intentionalism is the case where the audition is justified in assertive that p is intended by the creative person only in fact W means q; the audience would then falsely conclude that Due west means p. Once again, what Due west means is determined by the ideal audition's best hypothesis based on convention and context, not by what the work literally asserts. The meaning of the work is the production of a prudent cess of the total prove bachelor.

6. Hypothetical Intentionalism and the Hypothetical Artist

a. Overview

There is a 2d multifariousness of hypothetical intentionalism that is based on the concept of a hypothetical creative person. Generally speaking, it maintains that interpretation is grounded on the intention suitably attributed by the interpreter to a hypothetical or imagined creative person. This version of hypothetical intentionalism is sometimes called fictionalist intentionalism or postulated authorism. The theoretical apparatus of a hypothetical artist tin be traced back to Wayne Berth's account of the "unsaid author," in which he suggests that the critic should focus on the author nosotros can make out from the work instead of on the historical author, because there is frequently a gap between the ii.

Though proponents of the present brand of intentionalism disagree on the number of acceptable interpretations and on what kind of show is legitimate, they agree that the interpreter ought to concentrate on the advent of the work. If it appears, based on internal evidence (and mayhap contextual data if contextualism is endorsed), that the artist intends the work to mean p, then p is the right interpretation of the piece of work. The creative person in question is not the historical creative person; rather, it is an creative person postulated past the audience to be responsible for the intention made out from, or implied by, the work. For example, if there is an anti-war attitude detected in the work, the intention to castigate war should be attributed to the postulated artist, non to the historical artist. The motivation behind this movement is to maintain work-centered interpretation but avert the fallacious reasoning that whatever we find in the piece of work is intended by the real artist.

Inheriting the spirit of hypothetical intentionalism, fictionalist intentionalism aims to brand interpretation work-based only author-related at the same time. The biggest deviation between the 2 stances is that, as said, fictionalist intentionalism does not appeal to the actual or real artist, thereby avoiding whatsoever criticisms arising from hypothesizing about the existent artist such as that the all-time hypothesis about the existent creative person'south intention should be abandoned when compelling bear witness against it is obtained.

b. Notable Objections and Replies

The first concern with fictionalist intentionalism is that constructing a historical variant of the bodily artist sounds suspiciously like hypothesizing about her (Stecker, 1987). But there is nonetheless a divergence. "Hypothesizing about the bodily artist," or more accurately, "hypothesizing the actual artist's intention," would be a label of hypothetical intentionalism rather than fictionalist intentionalism. The latter does not track the actual artist's intention but constructs a virtual 1. As shown, fictionalist intentionalism, unlike hypothetical intentionalism, is allowed to any criticisms resulting from ignoring the actual artist'southward announcement of her intention.

A second objection criticizes fictionalist intentionalism for non 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 farther that a second work that appears the same actually emerged from an uncontrolled process. Then, if we follow the strictures of fictionalist intentionalism, the interpretations we produce for these ii works would turn out to be the aforementioned, for based on the same advent the hypothetical artists nosotros construct in both cases would exist identical. But these ii works have unlike creative histories and the divergence in question seems as well 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 beside a painting tells us it was created when the painter got heavily drunk. Whatever well-organized characteristic in the 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'due south bodily presentation. Compare this scenario to another where a (nigh) visually indistinguishable counterpart is exhibited in the museum with the exhibit annotation revealing that the painter spent a long period crafting the work. In this second case the audience'southward perception of the work is non very likely to exist the same as that in the outset case. This shows how the apparent artist account can still discriminate between (appearances of) unlike creative histories of the same artistic presentation.

Finally, in that location 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 only of appearances instead of quantifying over hypothetical artists or their actions.

vii. Determination

From the above discussion we can notice ii major trends in the fence. First, near late 20th century and 21st century participants are committed to the contextualist ontology of fine art. The relevance of art's historical context, since its first philosophical appearance in Arthur Danto'due south 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 interpretation, the contextualist basis is still assumed.

2d, bodily intentionalism remains the most popular position among all. Many substantial monographs take 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 piece of work on the philosophy of linguistic communication. And once again, this trend, like the contextualist vogue, is nevertheless ongoing. And if we see intentionalism every bit an umbrella term that encompasses not only actual intentionalism but besides hypothetical intentionalism and probably fictionalist intentionalism, the influence of intentionalism and its related accent on the concept of an artist or author will be even stronger. This presents an interesting contrast with the trend in mail service-structuralism that tends to downplay authorial presence in theories of estimation, every bit embodied in the author-is-expressionless 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 State Academy Printing.

  • Contains four philosophical essays on literary criticism. The first two are amid Beardsley's nearly important contributions to the philsoophy of interpretation.

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

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

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

  • Presents the speech deed theory of literature.

  • Beardsley, 1000. C. (1982). The artful signal of view: Selected essays. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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

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

  • Contains the original account of the implied writer.

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

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

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

  • An engaging book on artistic evaluation and interpretation.

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

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

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

  • Contains a defense force of fictionalist intentionalism.

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

  • Presents how a commitment to contextualism leads to an of import distinction between work and text in the example of literature.

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

  • First paper to depict attending to the relevance of a work'south context of product.

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

  • Argues that Beardsley is actually a contextualist.

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

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

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

  • Criticizes Carroll's conversation argument and bodily intentionalism.

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

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

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

  • The most 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'due south views on estimation.

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

  • A brilliant criticism of Carroll's conversation argument.

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

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

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

  • A defense of the chat argument.

  • Krausz, M. (Ed.). (2002). Is there a single right interpretation? University Park: Pennsylvania Land University Press.

  • Another valuable anthology on the intention argue, containing in particular Carroll's defense of moderate intentionalism, Lamarque'southward criticism of viewing work-significant as utterance pregnant.

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

  • The tertiary and the fourth capacity hash out analytic theories of interpretation along with a critical cess of the writer-is-expressionless claim.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • A thorough give-and-take on intention, literary ontology, and the problem of interpretation, with emphases on defending the meshing condition and on the criticisms of the ii versions of hypothetical intentionalism.

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

  • Criticizes the notion of an intended audience.

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

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

  • Nehamas, A. (1981). The postulated 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). Interpretation and construction: Art, speech, and the law. Oxford, England: Blackwell.

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

  • Stecker, R. (2010). Aesthetics and the philosophy of art: An introduction. Lanham, Doc: 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'southward dilemma: A reply to Levinson. British Journal of Aesthetics, 50, 307–12.

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

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

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

  • Tolhurst, W. Eastward. (1979). On what a text is and how it means. British Journal of Aesthetics, xix, 3–fourteen.

  • The founding document of hypothetical intentionalism.

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

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

  • Walton, One thousand. Fifty. (2008). Marvelous images: On values and the arts. Oxford, England: Oxford Academy Press.

  • A drove of essays, including "Categories of Fine art," which might have inspired Levinson's conception of categorial intention; and "Mode and the Products and Processes of Art," which is a defense force of fictionalist intentionalism in terms of the notion "apparent artist."

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

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

Author Information

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