Fine art and Estimation

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

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

By dissimilarity, the initial brand of intentionalism—bodily intentionalism—holds that interpreters should concern themselves with the author's intention, for a work's meaning is affected past such intention. There are at least three versions of actual intentionalism. The absolute version identifies a work's pregnant fully with the author's intention, therefore assuasive that an author can intend her work to mean any she wants it to mean. The farthermost version acknowledges that the possible meanings a piece of work can sustain accept to be constrained by convention. According to this version, the author's intention picks the correct meaning of the work as long every bit it fits ane of the possible meanings; otherwise, the piece of work ends upwardly being meaningless. The moderate version claims that when the author's intention does not match any of the possible meanings, meaning is fixed instead by convention and perchance also context.

A second brand of intentionalism, which finds a middle course between actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, is hypothetical intentionalism. According to this position, a piece of work'due south meaning is the advisable audience's best hypothesis virtually the author'southward intention based on publicly bachelor information about the author and her work at the time of the piece'southward product. A variation on this position attributes the intention to a hypothetical author who is postulated by the interpreter and who is constituted past work features. Such authors are sometimes said to exist 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 too extended beyond many of the arts. This broad outlook is assumed throughout the article, although zippo said is affected fifty-fifty if a narrow focus on literature is adopted.

Table of Contents

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

1. Key Concepts: Intention, Pregnant, and Interpretation

It is mutual for us to ask questions about works of art due to puzzlement or curiosity. Sometimes we do non understand the point of the work. What is the point of, for example, Metamorphosis by Kafka or Duchamp's Fountain? Sometimes at that place is ambivalence in a work and we want it resolved. For example, is the final sequence of Christopher Nolan's motion-picture show Inception reality or another dream? Or do ghosts actually exist in Henry James'due south The Plow of the Screw? Sometimes we make hypotheses almost details in a piece of work. For example, 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 civilization and commonwealth?

What these questions have in common is that all of them seek after things that become beyond what the work literally presents or says. They are all concerned with the implicit contents of the work or, for simplicity, with the meanings of a work. A distinction can be drawn between two kinds of significant in terms of telescopic. Pregnant can exist global in the sense that it concerns the work's theme, thesis, or betoken. For instance, an audience beginning encountering Duchamp's Fountain would want to know Duchamp'southward indicate in producing this readymade or, put otherwise, what the work as a whole is made to convey. The same goes for Kafka's Metamorphosis, which contains so baroque a plot as to brand the reader wonder what the story is all most. Meaning can too exist local insofar equally it is well-nigh what a role of a work conveys. Inquiries into the meaning of a particular sequence in Christopher Nolan's film, the woman in Raphael'south fresco, or the conch in William Golding'south Lord of the Flies are directed at only part of the work.

Nosotros are said to exist interpreting when trying to observe out answers to questions about the meaning of a piece of work. In other words, interpretation is the attempt to aspect work-significant. Hither "aspect" can mean "recover," which is retrieving something already existing in a work; or information technology 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 fashion to bargain with it is to resort to the creator's intention. We may ask the creative person to reveal her intention if such an opportunity is available; nosotros may too bank check what she says well-nigh 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 resource. These are all testify of the artist's intention. When the show 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 creative person's intention is absent, including when the work is anonymous. This poses no difficulty for philosophers who view appeal to artistic intention equally crucial, for they accept that internal evidence—the work itself—is the best evidence of the artist's intention. Most of the fourth dimension, shut attention to details of the work will atomic number 82 united states of america to what the creative person intended the work to mean.

But what is intention exactly? Intention is a kind of mental state usually characterized equally a pattern or programme in the artist's mind to be realized in her artistic creation. This crude view of intention is sometimes refined into the reductive assay i will discover in a contemporaneous textbook of philosophy of heed: intention is constituted by conventionalities and desire. Some actual intentionalists explicate the nature of intention from a Wittgensteinian perspective: authorial intention is viewed as the purposive structure of the work that can be discerned by shut inspection. This view challenges the supposition that intentions are always individual and logically independent of the piece of work they cause, which is often interpreted as a position held by anti-intentionalists.

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

Clarifying each of these basic terms (meaning, interpretation, and intention) requires an essay-length treatment that cannot be done here. For current purposes, it suffices to introduce the aforesaid views and proposals commonly causeless. Bear in listen that for the almost office the debate over art interpretation proceeds without consensus on how to define these terms, and clarifications appear only when necessary.

ii. 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 motion that was prevalent in the middle of the twentieth century. The position was initially a reaction against biographical criticism, the master idea of which is that the interpreter, to grasp the meaning of a work, needs to study the life of the author considering the work is seen as reflecting the writer's mental earth. This approach led to people because the author'south biographical information rather than her work. Literary criticism became criticism of biography, not criticism of literary works. Against this tendency, literary critic William M. Wimsatt and philosopher Monroe C. Beardsley coauthored a seminal paper "The Intentional Fallacy" in 1946, marking the starting point of the intention debate. Beardsley after extended his anti-intentionalist opinion beyond the arts in his monumental book Aesthetics: Issues in the Philosophy of Criticism ([1958] 1981a).

a. The Intentional Fallacy

The principal thought of the intentional fallacy is that appeal to the artist's intention outside the work is beguiling, considering the work itself is the verdict of what meaning it bears. This contention is based on the anti-intentionalist's ontological supposition about works of fine art.

This underlying assumption is that a piece of work of art enjoys autonomy with respect to meaning and other aesthetically relevant properties. As Beardsley'southward Principle of Autonomy shows, critical statements volition in the stop need to be tested confronting the work itself, not confronting factors outside information technology. To give Beardsley'southward example, whether a statue symbolizes homo 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 noesis of creative conventions: if the statue shows a homo bars to a cage, we may well conclude that the statue indeed symbolizes human destiny, for past convention the paradigm of confinement fits that declared theme. The anti-intentionalist principle hence follows: the interpreter should focus on what she can notice in the work itself—the internal bear witness—rather than on external bear witness, such as the artist's biography, to reveal her intentions.

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

There is a second way to formulate the intentional fallacy. Since the artist does non always successfully realize her intention, the inference is invalid from the premise that the artist intended her piece of 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 evidence of intent should exist appealed to; ontologically, it refers to the fallacious inference from probable intention to work-meaning.

b. Beardsley's Spoken communication Act Theory of Literature

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

Literary works tin can be seen as utterances; that is, texts used in a item context to perform different illocutionary acts past authors. However, Beardsley claims that in the case of fictional works in item, the purported illocutionary force volition e'er be removed then as to brand the utterance an imitation of that illocutionary deed. When an attempted act is insufficiently performed, it ends up being represented or imitated. For example, if I say "please laissez passer me the common salt" in my dining room when no one except me is at that place, 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, information technology qualifies as a fictional act. This is why Beardsley sees fiction equally representation.

Consider the uptake status in the example of fictional works. Such works are non addressed to the audience as a talk is: in that location is no concrete context in which the audience can be readily identified. The uttered text hence loses its illocutionary force and ends up being a representation. Bated from this "address without admission," another obtaining condition for a fictional illocutionary human action is the beingness 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 volition never obtain, considering the proper noun Sherlock Holmes does non refer to any existing person in the world. The greeting will only end up being a representation or a fictional illocution. By parity of reasoning, fictional works stop up being representations of illocutionary acts in that they e'er incorporate names or descriptions involving events that never have place.

Now we must ask: by what criterion practise we make up one's mind what illocutionary act is represented? It cannot be the speaker or author'due south intention, because even if a speaker intends to represent a particular illocutionary act, she might terminate up representing some other. Since the possibility of failed intention always exists, intention would non be an appropriate criterion. Convention is once more invoked to determine the right illocutionary act beingness represented. It is truthful that any do of representing is intentional at the kickoff in the sense that what is represented is determined by the representer's intention. All the same, once the connection between a symbol and what it is used to correspond 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 substantially a representation of an comparatively performed illocutionary act, determining what it represents does not require us to get across that incomplete performance, but as determining what a mime is imitating does not crave the audition to consider annihilation exterior her performance, such as her intention. What the mime is imitating is completely determined by how nosotros conventionally construe the human action being performed. In a similar fashion, when because what illocutionary deed 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 beingness represented. If, based on internal information, a story reads like a castigation of state of war, information technology is suitably seen as a representation of that illocutionary act. The conclusion is that the writer's intention plays no role in fixing the content of a fictional work.

Lastly, information technology is worth mentioning that Beardsley's attitude toward nonfictional works is ambivalent. Obviously, his speech act statement applies to fictional works only, and he accepts that nonfictional works can be genuine illocutions. This category of works tends to have a more than identifiable audience, who is hence non addressed without access. With illocutions, Beardsley continues to contend for an anti-intentionalist view of meaning according to which the utterer'south intention does non determine meaning. Simply his accepting nonfictional works every bit illocutions opens the door to considerations of external or contextual factors that become against his earlier stance, which is globally anti-intentionalist.

c. Notable Objections and Replies

One immediate business organisation with anti-intentionalism is whether convention lone can point to a single significant (Hirsch, 1967). The mutual reason why people fence about interpretation is precisely that the work itself does not offer sufficient evidence to disambiguate meaning. Very often a piece of work can sustain multiple meanings and the problem of choice prompts some people to appeal to the artist's intention. Information technology does not seem plausible to say that one tin can assign simply a unmarried meaning to works like Ulysses or Picasso'south abstruse paintings if 1 concentrates solely on internal evidence. To this objection, Beardsley (1970) insists that, in most cases, entreatment to the coherence of the piece of work can eventually exit usa with a single right estimation.

A 2d serious objection to anti-intentionalism is the case of irony (Hirsch, 1976, pp. 24–v). It seems reasonable to say that whether a work is ironic depends on if its creator intended it to be then. For instance, based on internal evidence, many people took Daniel Defoe's pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters to be genuinely against the Dissenters upon its publication. However, the just ground for proverb that the pamphlet is ironic seems to be Defoe'due south intention. If irony is a crucial component of the work, ignoring it would neglect to respect the work's identity. It follows that irony cannot exist grounded in internal bear witness alone. Beardsley'southward reply (1982, pp. 203–7) is that irony must offering the possibility of understanding. If the artist cannot imagine anyone taking information technology ironically, there would be no reason to believe the piece of work to be ironic.

Nevertheless, the problem of irony is only part of a bigger business organization that challenges the irrelevance of external factors to interpretation. Many factors present at the time of the piece of work's creation seem to play a key role in shaping a piece of work's identity and content. Missing out on these factors would lead u.s.a. to misidentifying the work (and hence to misinterpreting it).

For instance, a work volition not exist seen as revolutionary unless the interpreter knows something nigh the contemporaneous creative tradition: ignoring the piece of work'southward innovation amounts to accepting that the piece of work tin lose its revolutionary character while remaining cocky-identical. If nosotros see this grapheme every bit identity-relevant, nosotros should and then take it into consideration in our estimation. The same line of thinking goes for other identity-conferring contextual factors, such as the social-historical conditions 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 part determined by the relations it bears to its context of product.

Contextualism leads to an important distinction between work and text in the case of literature. In a nutshell: a text is not context-dependent merely a 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 we draw a comparing between an artistic production considered in its brute form and in its context of creation. For convenience, the word "work" is used throughout with notes on whether contextualism is taken or not.

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

3. Value-Maximizing Theory

a. Overview

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

As indicated, the give-and-take "maximize" does non imply monism. That is, the present position does non claim that there can be just a unmarried style to maximize the value of a work of art. On the contrary, it seems reasonable to assume that in virtually cases the interpreter can envisage several readings to bring out the value of the work. For example, Kafka's Metamorphosis has generated a number of rewarding interpretations, and it is difficult to argue for a single best among them. Equally long equally an interpretation 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 motion-picture show, the maximizer, unlike the anti-intentionalist, will need to have the indeterminacy thesis that convention (and context, if she endorses contextualism) alone does not guarantee the unambiguity of the piece of work. This allows the maximizing position to bypass the claiming 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: information technology holds that the primary aim of art interpretation is to enhance appreciative satisfaction by identifying interpretations that bring out the value of a work within reasonable limits prepare by convention (and context).

b. Notable Objections and Replies

The actual intentionalist will maintain that figurative features such as irony and allusion must be 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 volition be respected and accepted in interpretation. In this example, whatever interpretation that ignores the intended characteristic ends upwardly misidentifying the work. But if the relevant features are not identity conferring, more room volition be left for the interpreter to consider them. The intended feature can be ignored if it does not add together to the value of the work. By contrast, where such a feature is not intended simply can be put in the work, the interpreter can still build it into the interpretation if information technology is value enhancing.

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

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

4. Actual Intentionalism

Contra anti-intentionalism, actual intentionalism maintains that the creative person's intention is relevant to interpretation. The position comes in at least 3 forms, giving different weights to intention. The absolute version claims that piece of work-pregnant is fully adamant by the artist's intention; the extreme version claims that the work ends up being meaningless when the artist's intention is incompatible with it; and the moderate version claims that either the artist's intention determines meaning or—if this fails—pregnant is determined instead past convention (and context, if contextualism is endorsed).

a. Absolute Version

Absolute actual intentionalism claims that a work means whatsoever its creator intends it to mean. Put otherwise, information technology sees the artist's intention as the necessary and sufficient condition for a work'due south meaning. This position is oftentimes 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 word mean what he chooses it to mean. This unsettling conclusion is supported by the argument most intentionless meaning: a mark (or a sequence of marks) cannot take pregnant unless it is produced past an agent capable of intentional activities; therefore, pregnant is identical to intention.

It seems plausible to abandon the thought that marks on the sand are a poem once we know they were caused by accident. But this at best 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 argument nearly intentionless meaning does a better job in showing that intention is an indispensable ingredient for meaningfulness than in showing that intention infallibly determines the meaning conveyed.

b. Extreme Version

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

Bated 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 case of figurative language (Nathan, in Iseminger (1992)). Have irony for example. The get-go horn of the dilemma is equally follows: Constrained by linguistic conventions, the range of possible meanings has to include the negation of the literal pregnant in society for the intended irony to be effective. But this results in absolute intentionalism: every expression would be ironic as long as the writer intends information technology to exist. But—this is the 2nd horn—if the range of possible meanings does not include the negation of literal meaning, the expression simply becomes meaningless in that there is no advisable meaning possible for the author to actualize. Information technology seems that a broader notion of convention is needed to explain figurative language. Simply if the extreme intentionalist makes that move, her intentionalist position will be undermined, for the author's intention would exist given a less of import role than convention in such cases. Notwithstanding, this problem 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 account.

c. Moderate Version

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

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

Unfortunately, the notion of compatibility seems to allow strange cases in which an insignificant intention tin can decide work-meaning every bit long as 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 accept it because this announcement of intention can still be said to be uniform with the text in the sense that it is non rejected past textual evidence. To avoid this bad result, compatibility needs to be qualified.

The moderate intentionalist and so analyses compatibility in terms of the meshing condition, which refers to a sufficient degree of coherence between the content of the intention and the work'southward rhetorical patterns. An intention is compatible with the work in the sense that information technology meshes well with the work. The Martian case volition 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 it does non require the intention to mesh with every textual feature. A sufficient corporeality volition do, though the moderate intentionalist admits that the line is not always piece of cake to describe. With this weak standard for success, it can happen that the interpreter is not able to discern the intended meaning in the work before she learns of the artist's intention.

There is a second 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 just in instance the intended significant, amidst the possible meanings sustained by the work, is the one well-nigh likely to secure uptake from a well-backgrounded audition (with contextual knowledge and all). For example, if a work of art, within the limits set up by convention and context, affords interpretations x, y, and z, and x is more readily discerned than the other two past the advisable audience, then x is the significant of the piece of 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 exercise nosotros know whether an intention is successfully realized? Presumably, nosotros figure out piece of work-meaning and the creative person's intention respectively and independently of each other. And so we compare the two to see if at that place is a fit. Nevertheless, this move is redundant: if we can figure out piece of work-significant independently of bodily intention, why practise we need the latter? And if work-meaning cannot be independently obtained, how can we know it is a case where intentions are successfully realized and not a example where intentions failed? Information technology follows that entreatment to successful intention results in redundancy or indeterminacy.

The kickoff horn of the dilemma assumes that work-meaning can be obtained independently of knowledge of successful intention, only this is fake for moderate intentionalists, for they acknowledge that in many cases the piece of work presents ambiguity that cannot be resolved solely in virtue of internal evidence. The moderate intentionalist rejects the 2nd horn by claiming that they do not determine the success of an intention past comparing independently obtained work-significant with the creative person'due south intention (Stecker, 2010, pp. 154–five). As already discussed, moderate intentionalists suggest different success conditions that do not appeal to the identity betwixt the artist's intention and work-meaning. Moderate intentionalists adopting the weak standard hold that success is defined by the caste of meshing; those who adopt the potent standard maintain that success is defined by the audience'south ability to grasp the intention. Neither requires the interpreter to identify a work'southward meaning independently of the artist's intention.

d. Objections to Actual Intentionalism

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

Some other objection is the publicity paradox (Nathan, 2006). The master idea is this: when someone S conveys something p past a production of an object O for public consumption, there is a second-social club intention that the audition need not go beyond O to reach p; that is, there is no demand to consult S'due south first-order intentions to understand O. Therefore, when an artist creates a piece of work for public consumption, at that place is a second-order intention that her outset-order intentions non be consulted, otherwise information technology would indicate the failure of the artist. Actual intentionalism hence leads to the paradoxical claim that we should and should not consult the creative person'southward intentions.

The actual intentionalist'due south response (Stecker, 2010, pp. 153–4) is this: non all artists have the second-order intention in question. If this premise is false, and so the publicity statement becomes unsound. Even if information technology were truthful, the argument would yet exist invalid, because it confuses the intention that the creative person intends to create something continuing solitary with the intention that her showtime-lodge intention need not exist consulted. The paradox will not hold if this distinction is fabricated.

Lastly, many criticisms are directed at a popular argument among bodily intentionalists: the conversation statement (Carroll, 2001; Jannotta, 2014). An analogy betwixt chat and art interpretation is fatigued, and actual intentionalists claim that if we take that art estimation is a form of conversation, we need to accept bodily intentionalism as the right prescriptive account of estimation, because the standard goal of an interlocutor in a conversation is to grasp what the speaker intends to say. (This is a premise fifty-fifty anti-intentionalists accept, merely they obviously refuse the further claim that art estimation is conversational. See Beardsley, 1970, ch.1.) This analogy has been severely criticized (Dickie, 2006; Nathan, 2006; Huddleston, 2012). The greatest disanalogy between conversation and art is that the latter is more similar a monologue delivered by the artist rather than an interchange of ideas.

Ane way to meet the monologue objection is to specify more clearly the role of the conversational interest. In fact, the actual intentionalist claims that the conversational involvement should constrain other interests such equally the aesthetic interest. In other words, other interests can be reconciled or piece of work with the conversational interest. Have the case of the hermeneutics of suspicion for case. 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 be constrained past the artist's non-ironic intention in lodge for them to count as legitimate interpretations. For instance, in attributing racist tendencies to Jules Verne'due south Mysterious Island, in which the blackness slave Neb is portrayed as docile and superstitious, we need to suppose that the tendencies are non ironic; otherwise, the suspicious reading becomes inappropriate. In this instance, the artistic chat does not finish up beingness a monologue, for the suspicious hermeneut listens and understands Verne earlier 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 betwixt actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism is hypothetical intentionalism, the core claim of which is that the correct significant of a piece of work is determined by the best hypothesis about the artist's intention fabricated past a selected audience. The aim of interpretation is and so 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 telephone call for attention. First, 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. Second, the membership of the audience is crucial considering information technology determines the kind of evidence legitimate for the interpreter to utilize.

A 1979 proposal (Tolhurst) suggests that the relevant audience be singled out by the artist'southward intention, that is, the audience intended to exist addressed by the artist. Work-meaning is thus adamant by the intended audience's best hypothesis about the artist's intention. This means that the interpreter will need to equip herself with the relevant behavior and groundwork knowledge of the intended audience in order to make the best hypothesis. Put another way, hypothetical intentionalism focuses on the audience's uptake of an utterance addressed to them. This being so, what the audience relies on in comprehending the utterance will be based on what she knows about the utterer on that particular occasion. Following this contextualist line of thinking, the meaning of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal will not be the suggestion that the poor in Ireland might ease their economical pressure level by selling their children as food to the rich; rather, given the groundwork knowledge of Swift'due south intended audience, the best hypothesis almost 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 full general.

Withal, there is a serious problem with the notion of an intended audience. If the intended audience is an extremely small group possessing esoteric cognition of the artist, pregnant becomes a individual matter, for the piece of work can only be properly understood in terms of individual data shared between artist and audience, and this results in something close to Humpty-Dumptyism, which is characteristic of accented intentionalism.

To cope with this problem, the hypothetical intentionalist replaces the concept of an intended audition with that of an platonic or advisable audience. Such an audience is non necessarily targeted by the creative person's intention and is platonic in the sense that its members are familiar with the public facts nearly the artist and her work. In other words, the ideal audience seeks to ballast the piece of work in its context of creation based on public show. This avoids the danger of interpreting the work on the ground of private testify.

The hypothetical intentionalist is aware that in some cases there volition exist competing interpretations which are equally good. An artful benchmark is so introduced to adjudicate between these hypotheses. The aesthetic consideration comes every bit a tie breaker: when nosotros achieve 2 or more epistemically all-time hypotheses, the ane that makes the work artistically improve should win.

Another notable stardom introduced by hypothetical intentionalism is that betwixt semantic and categorial intention (Levinson, 1996, pp. 188–nine). The kind of intention we accept been discussing is semantic: it is the intention past which an creative person conveys her message in the work. By dissimilarity, categorial intention is the artist's intention to categorize her production, either as a work of art, a certain artform (such as Romantic literature), or a particular genre (such as lyric verse). Categorial intention indirectly affects a work's semantic content because it determines how the interpreter conceptualizes the work at the cardinal level. For instance, if a text is taken as a grocery list rather than an experimental story, nosotros will interpret information technology as saying zip beyond the named grocery items. For this reason, the artist's categorial intention should be treated equally among the contextual factors relevant to her work'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 frequently expressed worry is that it seems odd to stick to a hypothesis when newly found prove proves information technology to be false (Carroll, 2001, pp. 208–9). If an artist's private diary is located and reveals that our all-time hypothesis about her intention regarding her piece of work is faux, why should we cling to that hypothesis if the newly revealed intention meshes well with the work? Hypothetical intentionalism implausibly implies that warranted assertibility constitutes truth.

The hypothetical intentionalist clarifies her position (Levinson, 2006, p. 308) past saying that warranted assertibility does not constitute the truth for the utterer'southward meaning, but information technology does constitute the truth for utterance meaning. The platonic audience'south best hypothesis constitutes utterance pregnant even if it is designed to infer the utterer's pregnant.

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

In respond, information technology is claimed that this objection may stem from the impression that an artist normally aims for the best; however, this does not imply that she would anticipate and intend the artistically best reading of the piece of work. Information technology follows that it is not necessary that the best reading be what the creative person about likely intended fifty-fifty if she could have intended it. The objector replies that, all the same, the state of affairs in which we have two epistemically plausible readings while ane is inferior cannot arise, because we would adopt the inferior reading just when the superior reading is falsified by evidence.

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

Finally, 2 notable counterexamples to hypothetical intentionalism take been proposed (Stecker, 2010, pp. 159–threescore). The first counterexample is that W means p only p is non intended past the artist and the audience is justified in believing that p is not intended. In this instance hypothetical intentionalism falsely implies that W does not hateful p. For instance, it is famously known among readers of Sherlock Holmes adventures that Dr. Watson's war wound appears in two different locations. On one occasion the wound is said to be on his arm, while on some other it is on his thigh. In other words the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson's wound. Simply given the realistic style of the Holmes adventures, the best hypothesis of authorial intent in this instance would deny that the impossibility is office of the pregnant of the story, which is apparently false.

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

The second counterexample to hypothetical intentionalism is the case where the audition is justified in believing that p is intended by the artist merely in fact Due west means q; the audience would and then falsely conclude that W means p. Again, what Due west means is determined past the platonic audition's all-time hypothesis based on convention and context, non by what the piece of work literally asserts. The meaning of the work is the production of a prudent assessment of the total evidence available.

6. Hypothetical Intentionalism and the Hypothetical Artist

a. Overview

There is a 2d variety of hypothetical intentionalism that is based on the concept of a hypothetical artist. More often than not speaking, information technology 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 can exist traced back to Wayne Booth'due south account of the "unsaid author," in which he suggests that the critic should focus on the author we tin make out from the piece of work instead of on the historical author, considering at that place is frequently a gap between the ii.

Though proponents of the nowadays brand of intentionalism disagree on the number of acceptable interpretations and on what kind of evidence is legitimate, they agree that the interpreter ought to concentrate on the advent of the work. If information technology appears, based on internal evidence (and possibly 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 artist in question is not the historical artist; rather, information technology is an artist postulated by the audition to be responsible for the intention made out from, or implied by, the work. For example, if there is an anti-state of war mental attitude detected in the work, the intention to castigate war should be attributed to the postulated artist, not to the historical creative person. The motivation backside this move is to maintain work-centered interpretation but avert the fallacious reasoning that whatsoever we notice in the piece of work is intended past the real artist.

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

b. Notable Objections and Replies

The first concern with fictionalist intentionalism is that constructing a historical variant of the actual creative person sounds suspiciously like hypothesizing about her (Stecker, 1987). Simply in that location is notwithstanding a difference. "Hypothesizing about the actual creative person," or more accurately, "hypothesizing the bodily creative person's intention," would be a label of hypothetical intentionalism rather than fictionalist intentionalism. The latter does non track the bodily artist'due south intention only constructs a virtual ane. Equally shown, fictionalist intentionalism, dissimilar hypothetical intentionalism, is allowed to any criticisms resulting from ignoring the actual artist's announcement of her intention.

A second objection criticizes fictionalist intentionalism for not being able to distinguish betwixt 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 upshot from that kind of scheme; suppose farther that a second piece of work that appears the same actually emerged from an uncontrolled process. Then, if nosotros follow the strictures of fictionalist intentionalism, the interpretations we produce for these two works would plow out to exist the aforementioned, for based on the same appearance the hypothetical artists nosotros construct in both cases would exist identical. But these two works have different creative histories and the difference in question seems also 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 beside a painting tells us it was created when the painter got heavily boozer. Any well-organized feature in the work that appears to issue from careful manipulation by the painter might now either look disordered or structured in an eerie way depending on the feature'due south bodily presentation. Compare this scenario to another where a (almost) visually indistinguishable counterpart is exhibited in the museum with the exhibit note revealing that the painter spent a long flow crafting the work. In this second instance the audience'due south perception of the piece of work is non very likely to be the aforementioned equally that in the first case. This shows how the apparent creative person business relationship can withal discriminate betwixt (appearances of) different creative histories of the aforementioned creative presentation.

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

7. Decision

From the to a higher place discussion we can notice two major trends in the debate. Commencement, most belatedly 20thursday century and 21st century participants are committed to the contextualist ontology of art. The relevance of fine art'due south historical context, since its outset philosophical appearance in Arthur Danto'southward 1964 essay "The Artworld," continues to influence analytic theories of fine 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.

Second, actual intentionalism remains the most popular position amongst all. Many substantial monographs have been written in this century to defend the position (Stecker, 2003; Livingston, 2005; Carroll, 2009; Stock 2017). This intentionalist prevalence probably results from the influence of H. P. Grice's work on the philosophy of language. And once more, this trend, like the contextualist vogue, is yet ongoing. And if we see intentionalism as 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 volition exist fifty-fifty stronger. This presents an interesting contrast with the trend in mail-structuralism that tends to downplay authorial presence in theories of interpretation, as embodied in the author-is-expressionless thesis championed past Barthes and Foucoult (Lamarque, 2009, pp. 104–15).

eight. References and Further Reading

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

  • Contains four philosophical essays on literary criticism. The first two are amongst Beardsley's near of import contributions to the philsoophy of interpretation.

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

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

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

  • Presents the speech act theory of literature.

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

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

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

  • Contains the original account of the implied author.

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

  • Contains in detail Carroll'due south conversation statement, discussion on the hermenutics of suspicion, defense force of moderate intentionalism, and criticism of hypothetical intentionalism.

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

  • An engaging book on 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 article on the intention debate.

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

  • Contains a defence force of fictionalist intentionalism.

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

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

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

  • First paper to draw attention to the relevance of a work's context of product.

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

  • Argues that Beardsley is actually a contextualist.

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

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

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

  • Criticizes Carroll'due south conversation argument and bodily intentionalism.

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

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

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

  • The nearly representative presentation of extreme intentionalism.

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

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

  • Huddleston, A. (2012). The conversation statement for actual intentionalism. British Journal 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 account of the work's autonomy, Knapp and Michaels' absolute intentionalism, Iseminger's farthermost intentionalism, Nathan'southward account 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, 371–80.

  • A defense of the conversation statement.

  • Krausz, M. (Ed.). (2002). Is at that place a single right estimation? University Park: Pennsylvania Country University Press.

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

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

  • The 3rd and the fourth capacity discuss analytic theories of interpretation forth with a critical cess of the author-is-expressionless merits.

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

  • 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 Printing.

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

  • Levinson, J. (2016). Artful 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). Art and intention: A philosophical written report. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

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

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

  • Criticizes the notion of an intended audience.

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

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

  • Nehamas, A. (1981). The postulated author: Critical monism equally a regulative ideal. Disquisitional Enquiry, eight, 133–49.

  • Presents another version of fictionalist intentionalism.

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

  • Criticizes dissimilar versions of fictionalist intentionalism

  • Stecker, R. (2003). Interpretation and construction: Art, spoken communication, and the law. Oxford, England: Blackwell.

  • A valuable monograph devoted to the intention argue and its related bug such every bit the ontology of fine art, incompatible interpretations and the awarding of theories of art estimation to police force. The book defends moderate intentionalism in detail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Tolhurst, W. E. (1979). On what a text is and how it means. British Journal of Aesthetics, xix, three–14.

  • The founding document of hypothetical intentionalism.

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

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

  • Walton, K. 50. (2008). Marvelous images: On values and the arts. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

  • A collection of essays, including "Categories of Art," which might take inspired Levinson's conception of categorial intention; and "Style and the Products and Processes of Art," which is a defence force of fictionalist intentionalism in terms of the notion "credible artist."

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

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

Author Information

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