Art and Estimation

picture of man looking at art objectsEstimation in art refers to the attribution of pregnant to a work. A point on which people ofttimes disagree is whether the artist'south or writer's intention is relevant to the estimation of the piece of work. In the Anglo-American analytic philosophy of art, views about interpretation branch into two major camps: intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, with an initial focus on 1 fine art, namely literature.

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

By dissimilarity, the initial brand of intentionalism—actual intentionalism—holds that interpreters should concern themselves with the author'south intention, for a work'south significant is affected past such intention. There are at to the lowest degree three versions of actual intentionalism. The absolute version identifies a work's meaning fully with the author's intention, therefore allowing that an author can intend her work to mean whatsoever she wants it to mean. The farthermost version acknowledges that the possible meanings a piece of work tin can sustain take to be constrained past convention. According to this version, the author's intention picks the correct pregnant of the work equally 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's intention does not lucifer whatsoever of the possible meanings, meaning is fixed instead past convention and perhaps also context.

A second brand of intentionalism, which finds a middle grade between actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, is hypothetical intentionalism. According to this position, a work'due south meaning is the appropriate audition's best hypothesis about the writer'southward intention based on publicly available information about the author and her piece of work at the fourth dimension of the slice'southward 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-claret authors.

This commodity elaborates on these theories of interpretation and considers their notable objections. The fence nearly interpretation covers other art forms in addition to literature. The theories of interpretation are besides extended across many of the arts. This wide 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, Meaning, and Interpretation
  2. Anti-Intentionalism
    1. The Intentional Fallacy
    2. Beardsley's Speech communication Human activity Theory of Literature
    3. Notable Objections and Replies
  3. Value-Maximizing Theory
    1. Overview
    2. Notable Objections and Replies
  4. Actual Intentionalism
    1. Absolute Version
    2. 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 Farther Reading

i. Fundamental Concepts: Intention, Meaning, and Interpretation

Information technology is common for united states of america to ask questions well-nigh works of art due to puzzlement or curiosity. Sometimes nosotros do non understand the point of the work. What is the point of, for example, Metamorphosis by Kafka or Duchamp's Fountain? Sometimes in that location is ambiguity in a work and nosotros desire it resolved. For case, is the final sequence of Christopher Nolan'due south film Inception reality or some other dream? Or exercise ghosts actually exist in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw? Sometimes we make hypotheses well-nigh details in a piece of work. For instance, does the woman in white in Raphael's The School of Athens stand for Hypatia? Is the conch in William Golding's Lord of the Flies a symbol for civilization and democracy?

What these questions have in common is that all of them seek after things that go 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 stardom can be fatigued between two kinds of meaning in terms of scope. Significant tin be global in the sense that it concerns the piece of work's theme, thesis, or point. For instance, an audition offset encountering Duchamp's Fountain would want to know Duchamp's betoken in producing this readymade or, put otherwise, what the work every bit a whole is made to convey. The same goes for Kafka's Metamorphosis, which contains so baroque a plot equally to make the reader wonder what the story is all about. Meaning can also exist local insofar as it is about what a function of a work conveys. Inquiries into the meaning of a detail sequence in Christopher Nolan's film, the woman in Raphael's fresco, or the conch in William Golding's Lord of the Flies are directed at only part of the work.

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

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

Certainly, in that location are cases in which external show of the artist's intention is absent, including when the piece of work is anonymous. This poses no difficulty for philosophers who view appeal to creative intention as crucial, for they accept that internal evidence—the work itself—is the best evidence of the artist's intention. Most of the fourth dimension, close attending to details of the work will atomic number 82 u.s. to what the artist intended the work to mean.

But what is intention exactly? Intention is a kind of mental state commonly characterized equally a blueprint or plan in the artist's mind to be realized in her artistic creation. This rough view of intention is sometimes refined into the reductive assay one volition find in a contemporaneous textbook of philosophy of mind: intention is constituted by conventionalities and want. 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 ever private and logically independent of the work they crusade, which is often interpreted as a position held past anti-intentionalists.

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

Clarifying each of these basic terms (pregnant, interpretation, and intention) requires an essay-length handling that cannot be done here. For current purposes, it suffices to innovate the aforesaid views and proposals commonly assumed. Bear in mind that for the virtually part the debate over art interpretation proceeds without consensus on how to define these terms, and clarifications announced only when necessary.

2. Anti-Intentionalism

Anti-intentionalism is considered the first theory of estimation to emerge in the analytic tradition. It is usually seen as affiliated with the New Criticism move that was prevalent in the middle of the twentieth century. The position was initially a reaction against biographical criticism, the main idea of which is that the interpreter, to grasp the meaning of a piece of work, needs to study the life of the author considering the work is seen as reflecting the author'south mental world. This arroyo led to people considering the writer'due south biographical data rather than her work. Literary criticism became criticism of biography, not criticism of literary works. Against this trend, literary critic William Yard. Wimsatt and philosopher Monroe C. Beardsley coauthored a seminal paper "The Intentional Fallacy" in 1946, marker the starting indicate of the intention debate. Beardsley subsequently extended his anti-intentionalist stance beyond the arts in his awe-inspiring volume Aesthetics: Problems 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 fallacious, because the work itself is the verdict of what meaning it bears. This contention is based on the anti-intentionalist's ontological assumption about works of art.

This underlying assumption is that a work of art enjoys autonomy with respect to meaning and other aesthetically relevant properties. As Beardsley'southward Principle of Autonomy shows, disquisitional statements will in the end need to be tested against the work itself, not confronting factors exterior information technology. To give Beardsley's case, whether a statue symbolizes human destiny depends not on what its maker says simply on our being able to brand out that theme from the statue on the basis of our knowledge of creative conventions: if the statue shows a man confined to a cage, we may well conclude that the statue indeed symbolizes man destiny, for by convention the image of confinement fits that declared theme. The anti-intentionalist principle hence follows: the interpreter should focus on what she tin observe in the work itself—the internal evidence—rather than on external testify, such as the creative person's biography, to reveal her intentions.

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

There is a second manner to formulate the intentional fallacy. Since the creative person does non always successfully realize her intention, the inference is invalid from the premise that the artist intended her work to mean p to the conclusion that the work in question does mean p. Therefore, the term "intentional fallacy" has two layers of meaning: normatively, information technology refers to the questionable principle of interpretation that external evidence of intent should exist appealed to; ontologically, it refers to the beguiling inference from probable intention to work-meaning.

b. Beardsley'southward Speech Deed 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 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 "yous did it," the detective is performing the illocutionary act of accusing someone. What illocutionary act is being performed is traditionally construed as jointly determined by the speaker'southward intention to perform that human activity, the words uttered, and the relevant weather in that particular context. Other examples of illocutionary acts include asserting, alert, castigating, asking, and the like.

Literary works can be seen as utterances; that is, texts used in a particular context to perform unlike illocutionary acts by authors. Notwithstanding, Beardsley claims that in the instance of fictional works in detail, the purported illocutionary force will always be removed so as to make the utterance an imitation of that illocutionary act. When an attempted human action is comparatively performed, information technology ends upwardly being represented or imitated. For example, if I say "please pass me the table salt" in my dining room when no i except me is at that place, I end up representing (imitating) the illocutionary human action of requesting considering there is no uptake from the intended audience. Since the illocutionary act in this case is only imitated, it qualifies as a fictional act. This is why Beardsley sees fiction every bit representation.

Consider the uptake condition in the example of fictional works. Such works are not addressed to the audience equally 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 access," another obtaining condition for a fictional illocutionary human activity is the existence of not-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, because the proper name Sherlock Holmes does non refer to any existing person in the world. The greeting will only terminate upwardly being a representation or a fictional illocution. By parity of reasoning, fictional works terminate upwardly being representations of illocutionary acts in that they always contain names or descriptions involving events that never accept place.

Now nosotros must ask: past what criterion exercise we determine what illocutionary deed is represented? It cannot be the speaker or author'south intention, considering even if a speaker intends to stand for a particular illocutionary human action, she might end upwardly representing some other. Since the possibility of failed intention always exists, intention would non be an appropriate criterion. Convention is again invoked to determine the correct illocutionary deed being represented. Information technology is truthful that any practice of representing is intentional at the start in the sense that what is represented is adamant by the representer's intention. Nonetheless, one time the connection between a symbol and what information technology is used to represent is established, intention is said to be detached from that connection, and deciding the content of a representation becomes a sheer matter of convention.

Since a fictional work is substantially a representation of an insufficiently performed illocutionary act, determining what it represents does not require us to become beyond that incomplete performance, just as determining what a mime is imitating does not require the audition to consider anything outside her performance, such as her intention. What the mime is imitating is completely determined by how nosotros conventionally construe the deed being performed. In a similar fashion, when considering what illocutionary act is represented by a fictional work, the interpreter should rely on internal evidence rather than on external evidence of authorial intent to construct the illocutionary deed being represented. If, based on internal data, a story reads similar a castigation of war, it is suitably seen as a representation of that illocutionary act. The determination is that the author's intention plays no role in fixing the content of a fictional work.

Lastly, information technology is worth mentioning that Beardsley's attitude toward nonfictional works is ambivalent. Obviously, his speech human action argument applies to fictional works only, and he accepts that nonfictional works can be 18-carat illocutions. This category of works tends to have a more than identifiable audition, who is hence not addressed without admission. With illocutions, Beardsley continues to contend for an anti-intentionalist view of significant according to which the utterer's intention does not determine meaning. But his accepting nonfictional works equally illocutions opens the door to considerations of external or contextual factors that get against his before stance, which is globally anti-intentionalist.

c. Notable Objections and Replies

1 immediate concern with anti-intentionalism is whether convention solitary can signal to a single pregnant (Hirsch, 1967). The common reason why people debate virtually estimation is precisely that the work itself does not offer sufficient evidence to disambiguate significant. Very oft a piece of work tin can sustain multiple meanings and the problem of choice prompts some people to appeal to the creative person'due south intention. It does not seem plausible to say that one tin can assign only a single meaning to works like Ulysses or Picasso'southward abstract paintings if 1 concentrates solely on internal prove. To this objection, Beardsley (1970) insists that, in almost cases, appeal to the coherence of the work can somewhen leave united states with a single right interpretation.

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

However, the trouble of irony is just part of a bigger business organization that challenges the irrelevance of external factors to interpretation. Many factors present at the fourth dimension of the piece of work's creation seem to play a key role in shaping a piece of work'south identity and content. Missing out on these factors would lead us to misidentifying the piece of work (and hence to misinterpreting it).

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

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

As 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 beingness derived from anti-intentionalism. Its core claim is that the primary aim of art interpretation is to offer interpretations that maximize the value of a work. In that location are at least two versions of the maximizing position distinguished by the commitment to contextualism. When the maximizing position is committed to contextualism, the constraint on interpretation will be convention plus context (Davies, 2007); otherwise, the constraint will exist convention only, as endorsed by anti-intentionalism (Goldman, 2013).

As indicated, the discussion "maximize" does non imply monism. That is, the present position does not claim that there tin be only a unmarried style to maximize the value of a piece of work of art. On the contrary, it seems reasonable to presume that in nearly cases the interpreter can envisage several readings to bring out the value of the piece of work. For example, Kafka'due south Metamorphosis has generated a number of rewarding interpretations, and it is difficult to argue for a single best among them. As long as an interpretation is revealing or insightful under the relevant interpretative constraints, nosotros may count it as value-maximizing. Such existence the instance, the value-maximizing theory may be relabelled the "value-enhancing" or "value-satisfying" theory.

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

Encapsulating the maximizing position in a few words: it holds that the main aim of art interpretation is to enhance appreciative 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 will maintain that figurative features such every bit irony and allusion must be analysed intentionalistically. The maximizer with contextualist commitment can counter this objection past dealing with intentions more sophisticatedly. If the relevant features are identity conferring, they volition be respected and accepted in estimation. In this case, whatsoever estimation that ignores the intended feature ends up misidentifying the piece of work. But if the relevant features are non identity conferring, more room volition be left for the interpreter to consider them. The intended characteristic can exist ignored if it does not add to the value of the work. By contrast, where such a characteristic is not intended only can be put in the piece of work, the interpreter can still build it into the interpretation if it is value enhancing.

The most important objection to the maximizing view has it that the present position is in danger of turning a mediocre piece of work into a masterpiece. Ed Woods'south film Plan 9 from Outer Space is the about discussed example. Many people consider this work to exist the worst film ever made. Nonetheless, interpreted from a postmodern perspective every bit satire—which is presumably a value-enhancing interpretation—would plough information technology into a classic.

The maximizer with contextualist leanings tin can reply that the postmodern reading fails to identify the film as authored by Forest (Davies, 2007, p, 187). Postmodern views were not available in Forest's fourth dimension, so it was impossible for the pic to be created every bit such. Identifying the film as postmodernist amounts to anachronism that disrespects the work'southward identity. The moral of this example is that the maximizer does not blindly enhance the value of a piece of work. Rather, the work to be interpreted needs to be contextualized get-go to ensure that subsequent attributions of aesthetic value are done in light of the true and fair presentation of the work.

4. Actual Intentionalism

Contra anti-intentionalism, actual intentionalism maintains that the artist'southward intention is relevant to estimation. The position comes in at to the lowest degree three forms, giving unlike weights to intention. The absolute version claims that work-significant is fully determined 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—meaning is determined instead by convention (and context, if contextualism is endorsed).

a. Accented Version

Accented actual intentionalism claims that a work means whatever its creator intends it to mean. Put otherwise, it sees the artist'due south intention as the necessary and sufficient condition for a work'southward meaning. This position is often dubbed Humpty-Dumptyism with reference to the character Humpty-Dumpty in Through the Looking-Drinking glass. This character tries to convince Alice that he tin make a give-and-take mean what he chooses information technology to hateful. This unsettling conclusion is supported past the argument well-nigh intentionless meaning: a marker (or a sequence of marks) cannot have meaning unless it is produced past an amanuensis capable of intentional activities; therefore, significant is identical to intention.

It seems plausible to abandon the thought that marks on the sand are a poem in one case nosotros know they were acquired past blow. But this at best proves that intention is the necessary condition for something's existence meaningful; it does not prove farther that what something means is what the amanuensis intended information technology to mean. In other words, the statement virtually intentionless meaning does a ameliorate job in showing that intention is an indispensable ingredient for meaningfulness than in showing that intention infallibly determines the pregnant conveyed.

b. Extreme Version

To avoid Humpty-Dumptyism, the extreme actual intentionalist rejects the view that the creative person's intention infallibly determines work-meaning and accepts the indeterminacy thesis that convention lonely does not guarantee a single evident meaning to exist establish in a work. The extreme intentionalist claims further that the meaning of the piece of work is fixed past the creative person's intention if her intention identifies one of the possible meanings sustained by the work; otherwise, the work ends upwards being meaningless (Hirsch, 1967). Amend put, the extreme intentionalist sees intention equally the necessary rather than sufficient condition for work-meaning.

Aside from the unsatisfactory outcome that a work becomes meaningless when the artist'due south intention fails, the present position faces a dilemma when dealing with the instance of figurative language (Nathan, in Iseminger (1992)). Take irony for example. The outset 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 order for the intended irony to be effective. But this results in absolute intentionalism: every expression would be ironic as long as the author intends it to be. Just—this is the second horn—if the range of possible meanings does not include the negation of literal pregnant, the expression simply becomes meaningless in that there is no appropriate meaning possible for the author to concretize. It seems that a broader notion of convention is needed to explicate figurative linguistic communication. But if the extreme intentionalist makes that move, her intentionalist position volition exist undermined, for the author's intention would be given a less important office than convention in such cases. All the same, this trouble does not ascend when the bodily intentionalist is committed to contextualism, for in that case the contextual factors that make the intended irony possible will exist taken into account.

c. Moderate Version

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

As seen, an intention is successful so long as it identifies i of the possible meanings sustained by the work even if the meaning identified is less plausible than other candidates. Simply what exactly is the interpreter doing when she identifies that meaning? It is reasonable to say that the interpreter does not demand to ascertain all the possible meanings and see if there is a fit. Rather, all she needs to exercise is to run across whether the intended meaning 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 as the intended meaning is uniform with the work. The fact that a certain meaning is uniform with the work ways that the work can sustain information technology as one of its possible meanings.

Unfortunately, the notion of compatibility seems to permit strange cases in which an insignificant intention tin can determine work-significant every bit long as it is not explicitly rejected past the relevant interpretative constraint. For example, if Agatha Christie reveals that Hercule Poirot is really a smart Martian in disguise, the moderate intentionalist would demand to take information technology considering this proclamation of intention can all the same be said to be uniform with the text in the sense that it is not rejected by textual bear witness. To avoid this bad outcome, compatibility needs to exist qualified.

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

There is a 2d 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 case the intended meaning, among the possible meanings sustained by the work, is the one most probable to secure uptake from a well-backgrounded audition (with contextual knowledge and all). For example, if a work of art, inside the limits set up by convention and context, affords interpretations x, y, and z, and x is more readily discerned than the other two by the advisable audience, then x is the pregnant of the work.

These accounts of the success condition answer a notable objection to moderate intentionalism. This objection claims that moderate intentionalism faces an epistemic dilemma (Trivedi, 2001). Consider an epistemic question: how practise we know whether an intention is successfully realized? Presumably, we figure out work-meaning and the artist'due south intention respectively and independently of each other. So we compare the ii to see if there is a fit. Yet, this motility is redundant: if we can effigy out work-meaning independently of actual intention, why do we need the latter? And if work-meaning cannot be independently obtained, how tin can we know it is a case where intentions are successfully realized and non a instance 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 exist obtained independently of knowledge of successful intention, but this is false for moderate intentionalists, for they acknowledge that in many cases the piece of work presents ambiguity that cannot exist resolved solely in virtue of internal evidence. The moderate intentionalist rejects the second horn by challenge that they do not decide the success of an intention past comparison independently obtained work-significant with the creative person's intention (Stecker, 2010, pp. 154–5). As already discussed, moderate intentionalists propose different success conditions that exercise not appeal to the identity betwixt the artist'south intention and work-pregnant. Moderate intentionalists adopting the weak standard hold that success is defined by the degree of meshing; those who adopt the stiff standard maintain that success is divers by the audience's power to grasp the intention. Neither requires the interpreter to place a piece of work's meaning independently of the creative person'due south intention.

d. Objections to Actual Intentionalism

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

Another objection is the publicity paradox (Nathan, 2006). The main thought is this: when someone S conveys something p by a product of an object O for public consumption, at that place is a second-order intention that the audience need not go across O to accomplish p; that is, there is no need to consult South'due south get-go-society intentions to understand O. Therefore, when an artist creates a work for public consumption, there is a second-order intention that her first-gild intentions not be consulted, otherwise it 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's intentions.

The bodily intentionalist'southward response (Stecker, 2010, pp. 153–iv) is this: not all artists have the second-order intention in question. If this premise is fake, then the publicity argument becomes unsound. Even if information technology were true, the statement would withal be invalid, because it confuses the intention that the artist intends to create something standing alone with the intention that her first-gild intention need non be consulted. The paradox will non agree if this distinction is made.

Lastly, many criticisms are directed at a popular argument among bodily intentionalists: the conversation argument (Carroll, 2001; Jannotta, 2014). An illustration betwixt conversation and art estimation is fatigued, and bodily intentionalists claim that if we accept that fine art interpretation is a grade of conversation, we need to accept actual intentionalism as the right prescriptive business relationship of interpretation, because the standard goal of an interlocutor in a conversation is to grasp what the speaker intends to say. (This is a premise even anti-intentionalists accept, but they apparently pass up the farther 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 chat and art is that the latter is more than like a monologue delivered by the artist rather than an interchange of ideas.

One mode to see the monologue objection is to specify more than conspicuously the role of the conversational interest. In fact, the actual intentionalist claims that the conversational interest should constrain other interests such as the aesthetic involvement. In other words, other interests can be reconciled or piece of work with the conversational involvement. Take the instance of the hermeneutics of suspicion for case. Hermeneutics of suspicion is a skeptical attitude—oft heavily politicized—adopted toward the explicit stance of a piece of work. Interpretations based on the hermeneutics of suspicion have to be constrained by the artist'south non-ironic intention in order for them to count as legitimate interpretations. For example, in attributing racist tendencies to Jules Verne'south Mysterious Island, in which the black slave Neb is portrayed as docile and superstitious, nosotros need to suppose that the tendencies are non ironic; otherwise, the suspicious reading becomes inappropriate. In this case, the artistic conversation does not end upwardly beingness a monologue, for the suspicious hermeneut listens and understands Verne before responding with the suspicious reading, which is constrained past 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 core claim of which is that the correct meaning of a work is determined by the all-time hypothesis nearly the artist's intention fabricated past a selected audition. The aim of estimation is then to hypothesize what the creative person intended when creating the piece of work from the perspective of the qualified audience (Tolhurst, 1979; Levinson, 1996).

Ii points call for attention. First, it is hypothesis—not truth—that matters. This means that a hypothesis of the actual intention volition 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 apply.

A 1979 proposal (Tolhurst) suggests that the relevant audience be singled out by the artist'southward intention, that is, the audition intended to be addressed by the artist. Work-meaning is thus adamant by the intended audition's best hypothesis nigh the artist's intention. This means that the interpreter volition need to equip herself with the relevant beliefs and background knowledge of the intended audience in order to make the best hypothesis. Put another way, hypothetical intentionalism focuses on the audition's uptake of an utterance addressed to them. This being and so, what the audition relies on in comprehending the utterance will exist based on what she knows about the utterer on that particular occasion. Following this contextualist line of thinking, the meaning of Jonathan Swift'southward A Small Proposal will non be the suggestion that the poor in Ireland might ease their economic pressure past selling their children equally food to the rich; rather, given the background knowledge of Swift'southward intended audience, the best hypothesis most the author'due south intention is that he intended the work to exist a satire that criticizes the heartless mental attitude toward the poor and Irish policy in full general.

However, at that place is a serious trouble with the notion of an intended audience. If the intended audience is an extremely pocket-sized group possessing esoteric knowledge of the creative person, pregnant becomes a private matter, for the work tin only be properly understood in terms of private 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 audience with that of an platonic or appropriate audience. Such an audience is not necessarily targeted by the creative person's intention and is ideal in the sense that its members are familiar with the public facts about the artist and her work. In other words, the ideal audience seeks to anchor the work in its context of creation based on public evidence. This avoids the danger of interpreting the piece of work on the footing of private bear witness.

The hypothetical intentionalist is aware that in some cases there will exist competing interpretations which are equally good. An artful criterion is and then introduced to adjudicate between these hypotheses. The artful consideration comes as a tie breaker: when nosotros reach 2 or more than epistemically all-time hypotheses, the one that makes the work artistically amend should win.

Another notable distinction introduced by hypothetical intentionalism is that betwixt semantic and categorial intention (Levinson, 1996, pp. 188–9). The kind of intention nosotros have been discussing is semantic: it is the intention by which an artist conveys her message in the piece of work. By contrast, categorial intention is the artist's intention to categorize her product, either every bit a work of art, a certain artform (such as Romantic literature), or a item genre (such as lyric poetry). Categorial intention indirectly affects a piece of work's semantic content because it determines how the interpreter conceptualizes the piece of work at the fundamental level. For example, if a text is taken as a grocery list rather than an experimental story, we will interpret it as saying nothing across the named grocery items. For this reason, the artist'south categorial intention should be treated as amidst 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 information technology seems odd to stick to a hypothesis when newly found prove proves it to exist false (Carroll, 2001, pp. 208–nine). If an artist's individual diary is located and reveals that our best hypothesis nearly her intention regarding her work is false, why should nosotros cling to that hypothesis if the newly revealed intention meshes well with the piece of work? Hypothetical intentionalism implausibly implies that warranted assertibility constitutes truth.

The hypothetical intentionalist clarifies her position (Levinson, 2006, p. 308) by maxim that warranted assertibility does not plant the truth for the utterer's meaning, but information technology does plant the truth for utterance significant. The ideal audition'southward best hypothesis constitutes utterance pregnant fifty-fifty if information technology is designed to infer the utterer'due south meaning.

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

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

The third objection is that the stardom between public and private evidence is blurry (Carroll, 2001, p. 212). Is public evidence published evidence? Does published information from private sources count as public? The reply from the hypothetical intentionalist emphasizes that this is not a distinction between published and unpublished information (Levinson, 2006, p. 310). The relevant public context should be reconstrued equally what the artist appears to have wanted the audition to know nigh the circumstances of the work'southward creation. This ways that if it appears that the artist did not want to make sure proclamations of intent known to the audition, then this testify, even if published at a later bespeak, does not constitute the public context to exist considered for estimation.

Finally, two notable counterexamples to hypothetical intentionalism accept been proposed (Stecker, 2010, pp. 159–threescore). The showtime counterexample is that W means p but p is not intended by the creative person and the audition is justified in believing that p is not intended. In this instance hypothetical intentionalism falsely implies that Due west does non hateful p. For example, it is famously known among readers of Sherlock Holmes adventures that Dr. Watson'southward war wound appears in two different locations. On one occasion the wound is said to exist on his arm, while on another it is on his thigh. In other words the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson'south wound. Just given the realistic manner of the Holmes adventures, the all-time hypothesis of authorial intent in this case would deny that the impossibility is part of the meaning of the story, which is apparently simulated.

However, the hypothetical intentionalist would not maintain that W ways p, because p is not the best hypothesis. She would non 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, simply exactly where we do non know. It is a mistake to presuppose that West means p without following the strictures imposed by hypothetical intentionalism to properly achieve p.

The second counterexample to hypothetical intentionalism is the case where the audience is justified in believing that p is intended by the creative person but in fact Due west means q; the audience would so falsely conclude that W means p. Again, what Due west means is determined past the ideal audience'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 assessment of the full evidence available.

6. Hypothetical Intentionalism and the Hypothetical Artist

a. Overview

There is a second variety of hypothetical intentionalism that is based on the concept of a hypothetical artist. Mostly speaking, it maintains that interpretation is grounded on the intention suitably attributed past 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 creative person tin be traced back to Wayne Booth'southward account of the "unsaid author," in which he suggests that the critic should focus on the author we tin brand out from the work instead of on the historical writer, because there is frequently a gap between the two.

Though proponents of the present make of intentionalism disagree on the number of adequate interpretations and on what kind of evidence is legitimate, they agree that the interpreter ought to concentrate on the appearance of the work. If it appears, based on internal evidence (and perhaps 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 non the historical artist; rather, it is an creative person postulated by the audience to be responsible for the intention made out from, or implied by, the work. For example, if at that place is an anti-war attitude detected in the work, the intention to castigate state of war should exist attributed to the postulated creative person, non to the historical creative person. The motivation behind this movement is to maintain work-centered interpretation but avert the beguiling reasoning that any nosotros find in the work is intended by the real artist.

Inheriting the spirit of hypothetical intentionalism, fictionalist intentionalism aims to make interpretation work-based but author-related at the same fourth dimension. The biggest departure between the 2 stances is that, every bit said, fictionalist intentionalism does not appeal to the actual or real artist, thereby fugitive any criticisms arising from hypothesizing almost the real creative person such as that the best hypothesis nigh the real creative person'southward intention should exist abandoned when compelling bear witness against information technology is obtained.

b. Notable Objections and Replies

The get-go business organization with fictionalist intentionalism is that constructing a historical variant of the actual creative person sounds suspiciously similar hypothesizing nigh her (Stecker, 1987). But at that place is still a difference. "Hypothesizing about the actual creative person," or more than accurately, "hypothesizing the actual artist's intention," would exist a characterization of hypothetical intentionalism rather than fictionalist intentionalism. The latter does non track the actual artist's intention but constructs a virtual ane. As shown, fictionalist intentionalism, unlike hypothetical intentionalism, is immune to any criticisms resulting from ignoring the actual creative person's annunciation of her intention.

A 2d objection criticizes fictionalist intentionalism for not existence able to distinguish betwixt different histories of creative processes for the aforementioned textual appearance (Livingston, 2005, pp. 165–69). For example, suppose a work that appears to be produced with a well-conceived scheme did result from that kind of scheme; suppose further that a 2d 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 exist the same, for based on the same appearance the hypothetical artists we construct in both cases would be identical. But these 2 works take dissimilar creative histories and the departure in question seems too crucial to be ignored.

The objection here fails to consider the subtlety of reality-dependent appearances (Walton, 2008, ch. 12). For example, suppose the exhibit note abreast a painting tells us it was created when the painter got heavily boozer. Any well-organized feature in the work that appears to upshot from careful manipulation past the painter might now either look matted or structured in an eerie style depending on the feature's actual presentation. Compare this scenario to some other where a (almost) visually indistinguishable analogue is exhibited in the museum with the exhibit note revealing that the painter spent a long flow crafting the work. In this 2d instance the audience's perception of the work is not very probable to be the same as that in the first example. This shows how the apparent artist account can yet discriminate between (appearances of) different creative histories of the same creative presentation.

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

7. Determination

From the above discussion we tin can find two major trends in the argue. First, most late twentythursday century and 21st century participants are committed to the contextualist ontology of art. The relevance of art's historical context, since its first philosophical appearance in Arthur Danto's 1964 essay "The Artworld," continues to influence analytic theories of art interpretation. At that place is no sign of this trend diminishing. In Noël Carroll's 2016 survey commodity on interpretation, the contextualist basis is still assumed.

2nd, actual intentionalism remains the nearly popular position amidst 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'southward work on the philosophy of language. And once again, this tendency, like the contextualist faddy, is withal ongoing. And if we come across intentionalism every bit an umbrella term that encompasses not only bodily intentionalism merely also hypothetical intentionalism and probably fictionalist intentionalism, the influence of intentionalism and its related emphasis on the concept of an artist or author will be fifty-fifty stronger. This presents an interesting dissimilarity with the trend in post-structuralism that tends to downplay authorial presence in theories of interpretation, as embodied in the writer-is-dead thesis championed by Barthes and Foucoult (Lamarque, 2009, pp. 104–15).

8. References and Further Reading

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

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

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

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

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

  • Presents the speech act theory of literature.

  • Beardsley, M. C. (1982). The artful point of view: Selected essays. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Printing.

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

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

  • Contains the original account of the implied author.

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

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

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

  • An engaging volume on creative evaluation and interpretation.

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

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

  • Currie, One thousand. (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, 325–40.

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

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

  • Outset newspaper to depict attention to the relevance of a work'southward context of production.

  • Davies, S. (2005). Beardsley and the autonomy of the work of fine art. Journal 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' defence force of the maximizing position and criticisms of other positions.

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

  • Criticizes Carroll's conversation argument and actual intentionalism.

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

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

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

  • The most representative presentation of extreme intentionalism.

  • Hirsch, East. D. (1976). The aims of estimation. Chicago, IL: Academy of Chicago Press.

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

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

  • A bright criticism of Carroll'due south chat argument.

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

  • A valuable collection of essays featuring Beardsley's account of the work's autonomy, Knapp and Michaels' absolute intentionalism, Iseminger's extreme intentionalism, Nathan's account of the postulated creative person, Levinson'due south hypothetical intentionalism, and 8 other contributions.

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

  • A defence force of the chat argument.

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

  • Another valuable album on the intention debate, containing in particular Carroll's defence force of moderate intentionalism, Lamarque'southward criticism of viewing piece of work-meaning as utterance meaning.

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

  • The third and the fourth chapters discuss analytic theories of estimation along with a critical cess of the author-is-dead claim.

  • 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 stardom between semantic and categorial intention.

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

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

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

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

  • Livingston, P. (2005). Fine art and intention: A philosophical study. Oxford, England: Oxford University 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's intentions. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 22, 245–56.

  • Criticizes the notion of an intended audition.

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

  • Presents an account of fictionalist intentionalism, a critique of the 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, Unsaid, 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 fine art, incompatible interpretations and the application of theories of art interpretation to police. 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 conception of moderate intentionalism and the 2 counterexamples to hypothetical intentionalism.

  • Stecker, R., & Davies, South. (2010). The hypothetical intentionalist's dilemma: A reply to Levinson. British Journal of Aesthetics, l, 307–12.

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

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

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

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

  • The founding document of hypothetical intentionalism.

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

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

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

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

  • Wimsatt, W. K., & Beardsley, Thou. 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 debate.

Writer Information

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