Which Group of Artists Reject the Idea That Art Can Be Contained by a Gallery or Museum Context

Fine art and Interpretation

Interpretation in art refers to the attribution of meaning to a work. A betoken on which people oft disagree is whether the artist's or author's intention is relevant to the interpretation of the work. In the Anglo-American analytic philosophy of art, views nigh interpretation branch into 2 major camps: intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, with an initial focus on one art, namely literature.

The anti-intentionalist maintains that a work's significant is entirely adamant by linguistic and literary conventions, thereby rejecting the relevance of the author'due south intention. The underlying assumption of this position is that a piece of work enjoys autonomy with respect to meaning and other aesthetically relevant properties. Extra-textual factors, such as the author'southward intention, are neither necessary nor sufficient for meaning determination. This early position in the analytic tradition is often called conventionalism considering of its strong emphasis on convention. Anti-intentionalism gradually went out of favor at the end of the 20th century, but it has seen a revival in the and then-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 product.

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

A second brand of intentionalism, which finds a center course between actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, is hypothetical intentionalism. According to this position, a piece of work'southward meaning is the appropriate audience's best hypothesis about the author's intention based on publicly available information about the writer and her work at the time of the piece's production. A variation on this position attributes the intention to a hypothetical author who is postulated by the interpreter and who is constituted by work features. Such authors are sometimes said to exist fictional because they, being purely conceptual, differ decisively from mankind-and-claret authors.

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

Tabular array of Contents

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

i. Key Concepts: Intention, Pregnant, and Interpretation

It is common for u.s. to enquire questions almost works of art due to puzzlement or curiosity. Sometimes we practice non understand the point of the work. What is the point of, for case, Metamorphosis by Kafka or Duchamp'south Fountain? Sometimes there is ambiguity in a work and we desire information technology resolved. For example, is the concluding sequence of Christopher Nolan's film Inception reality or some other dream? Or do ghosts really exist in Henry James's The Plow of the Screw? Sometimes nosotros brand hypotheses virtually details in a work. For instance, does the adult female in white in Raphael'south The School of Athens stand for Hypatia? Is the conch in William Golding'due south Lord of the Flies a symbol for culture and democracy?

What these questions take 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 stardom tin be drawn between two kinds of pregnant in terms of telescopic. Meaning tin exist global in the sense that it concerns the work's theme, thesis, or point. For example, an audience first encountering Duchamp's Fountain would want to know Duchamp's point in producing this readymade or, put otherwise, what the work as a whole is made to convey. The same goes for Kafka'southward Metamorphosis, which contains so bizarre a plot as to make the reader wonder what the story is all nearly. Pregnant can also be local insofar as it is well-nigh what a part of a work conveys. Inquiries into the meaning of a detail sequence in Christopher Nolan'southward film, the woman in Raphael'southward fresco, or the conch in William Golding'southward Lord of the Flies are directed at only office of the piece of work.

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

When an interpretative question arises, a frequent fashion to deal with it 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 cheque 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 also will become our interpretative resources. These are all testify of the artist'southward intention. When the evidence is compelling, we have good reason to believe it reveals the creative person'due south intention.

Certainly, at that place are cases in which external testify of the artist's intention is absent, including when the work is anonymous. This poses no difficulty for philosophers who view entreatment to artistic intention as crucial, for they accept that internal evidence—the work itself—is the best prove of the artist's intention. Most of the time, close attention to details of the work volition lead us to what the artist intended the piece of work to hateful.

Merely what is intention exactly? Intention is a kind of mental state normally characterized as a design or plan in the creative person's mind to be realized in her artistic creation. This crude view of intention is sometimes refined into the reductive analysis one volition notice in a contemporaneous textbook of philosophy of listen: intention is constituted by belief and want. Some actual intentionalists explain the nature of intention from a Wittgensteinian perspective: authorial intention is viewed every bit the purposive structure of the work that can exist discerned by close inspection. This view challenges the supposition that intentions are always individual and logically contained of the piece of work they cause, which is frequently interpreted equally a position held by anti-intentionalists.

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

Clarifying each of these basic terms (pregnant, interpretation, and intention) requires an essay-length treatment that cannot be washed hither. For electric current purposes, it suffices to innovate the aforesaid views and proposals commonly causeless. Bear in listen that for the most function the debate over fine art estimation proceeds without consensus on how to define these terms, and clarifications appear only when necessary.

2. Anti-Intentionalism

Anti-intentionalism is considered the beginning theory of interpretation to emerge in the analytic tradition. Information technology is commonly seen as affiliated with the New Criticism move that was prevalent in the eye of the twentieth century. The position was initially a reaction against biographical criticism, the chief idea of which is that the interpreter, to grasp the meaning of a work, needs to study the life of the author because the work is seen as reflecting the author's mental world. This arroyo led to people because the writer's biographical information rather than her work. Literary criticism became criticism of biography, not criticism of literary works. Against this tendency, literary critic William K. Wimsatt and philosopher Monroe C. Beardsley coauthored a seminal newspaper "The Intentional Fallacy" in 1946, marking the starting point of the intention debate. Beardsley subsequently extended his anti-intentionalist stance beyond the arts in his monumental book Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism ([1958] 1981a).

a. The Intentional Fallacy

The master thought of the intentional fallacy is that appeal to the artist'due south intention outside the work is beguiling, because the work itself is the verdict of what meaning it bears. This contention is based on the anti-intentionalist'southward ontological assumption most works of art.

This underlying assumption is that a work of art enjoys autonomy with respect to pregnant and other aesthetically relevant properties. Every bit Beardsley's Principle of Autonomy shows, critical statements will in the end need to exist tested against the work itself, not against factors outside information technology. To requite Beardsley's example, 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 artistic conventions: if the statue shows a human confined to a cage, nosotros may well conclude that the statue indeed symbolizes human destiny, for by convention the paradigm of confinement fits that declared theme. The anti-intentionalist principle hence follows: the interpreter should focus on what she can discover in the work itself—the internal evidence—rather than on external evidence, such as the artist's biography, to reveal her intentions.

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

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

b. Beardsley's Speech Act Theory of Literature

Beardsley at a later point develops an ontology of literature in favor of anti-intentionalism (1981b, 1982). Reviving Plato's false theory of fine art, Beardsley claims that fictional works are essentially imitations of illocutionary acts. Briefly put, illocutionary acts are performed past utterances in particular contexts. For instance, when a detective, convinced that someone is the killer, points his finger at that person and utters the sentence "you did it," the detective is performing the illocutionary act of accusing someone. What illocutionary deed is beingness performed is traditionally construed as jointly adamant by the speaker's intention to perform that act, the words uttered, and the relevant conditions in that item context. Other examples of illocutionary acts include asserting, alert, castigating, asking, and the similar.

Literary works can be seen as utterances; that is, texts used in a detail context to perform dissimilar illocutionary acts by authors. Nevertheless, Beardsley claims that in the case of fictional works in item, the purported illocutionary force will ever be removed then as to make the utterance an imitation of that illocutionary human action. When an attempted human activity is insufficiently performed, it ends up being represented or imitated. For example, if I say "please laissez passer me the salt" in my dining room when no one except me is at that place, I cease up representing (imitating) the illocutionary act of requesting considering there is no uptake from the intended audience. Since the illocutionary deed in this instance is simply imitated, information technology qualifies as a fictional act. This is why Beardsley sees fiction as representation.

Consider the uptake condition in the case of fictional works. Such works are non addressed to the audition equally a talk is: there is no physical context in which the audience tin can be readily identified. The uttered text hence loses its illocutionary forcefulness and ends upward existence a representation. Aside from this "address without access," another obtaining condition for a fictional illocutionary act is the being 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 will never obtain, because the name Sherlock Holmes does non refer to any existing person in the world. The greeting volition but cease up beingness a representation or a fictional illocution. By parity of reasoning, fictional works stop up being representations of illocutionary acts in that they ever contain names or descriptions involving events that never take identify.

Now we must ask: past what criterion do nosotros determine what illocutionary human activity is represented? It cannot be the speaker or author's intention, because fifty-fifty if a speaker intends to represent a particular illocutionary deed, she might end up representing another. Since the possibility of failed intention e'er exists, intention would not be an appropriate criterion. Convention is again invoked to determine the correct illocutionary act beingness 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. Nevertheless, in one case the connection between a symbol and what it is used to correspond is established, intention is said to be discrete 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 deed, determining what it represents does not require us to get beyond that incomplete functioning, just equally determining what a mime is imitating does non crave the audience to consider anything exterior her performance, such as her intention. What the mime is imitating is completely determined past how nosotros conventionally construe the act being performed. In a similar fashion, when because what illocutionary human action 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 act being represented. If, based on internal data, a story reads like a castigation of war, it is suitably seen as a representation of that illocutionary act. The conclusion is that the author's intention plays no role in fixing the content of a fictional work.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that Beardsley'due south attitude toward nonfictional works is ambivalent. Patently, his speech act statement applies to fictional works merely, and he accepts that nonfictional works can be genuine illocutions. This category of works tends to take a more identifiable audience, who is hence not addressed without access. With illocutions, Beardsley continues to argue for an anti-intentionalist view of meaning according to which the utterer's intention does not determine meaning. But his accepting nonfictional works every bit illocutions opens the door to considerations of external or contextual factors that go confronting his before stance, which is globally anti-intentionalist.

c. Notable Objections and Replies

One immediate business organisation with anti-intentionalism is whether convention solitary can point to a single meaning (Hirsch, 1967). The common reason why people debate almost interpretation is precisely that the work itself does not offer sufficient prove to disambiguate meaning. Very often a work can sustain multiple meanings and the problem of pick prompts some people to appeal to the artist's intention. Information technology does not seem plausible to say that 1 can assign only a single meaning to works similar Ulysses or Picasso'south abstract paintings if i concentrates solely on internal bear witness. To this objection, Beardsley (1970) insists that, in virtually cases, entreatment to the coherence of the work tin can eventually leave us with a single correct interpretation.

A 2d serious objection to anti-intentionalism is the case of irony (Hirsch, 1976, pp. 24–5). It seems reasonable to say that whether a piece of work is ironic depends on if its creator intended it to exist then. For example, based on internal evidence, many people took Daniel Defoe's pamphlet The Shortest Style with the Dissenters to be genuinely against the Dissenters upon its publication. Nevertheless, the simply ground for saying that the pamphlet is ironic seems to be Defoe'south intention. If irony is a crucial component of the work, ignoring it would neglect to respect the piece of work's identity. It follows that irony cannot be grounded in internal evidence lone. Beardsley's answer (1982, pp. 203–7) is that irony must offering the possibility of understanding. If the artist cannot imagine anyone taking it ironically, there would be no reason to believe the work to be ironic.

However, the trouble of irony is only part of a bigger business organisation that challenges the irrelevance of external factors to estimation. Many factors present at the time of the work's cosmos seem to play a central role in shaping a work's identity and content. Missing out on these factors would lead us to misidentifying the work (and hence to misinterpreting it).

For instance, a work will not be seen as revolutionary unless the interpreter knows something well-nigh the contemporaneous artistic tradition: ignoring the work'south innovation amounts to accepting that the work can lose its revolutionary character while remaining self-identical. If we see this character as identity-relevant, we should and so take information technology into consideration in our estimation. The same line of thinking goes for other identity-conferring contextual factors, such as the social-historical weather condition 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 art are in part adamant by the relations it bears to its context of product.

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 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 depict a comparison between an artistic production considered in its brute course and in its context of cosmos. For convenience, the give-and-take "piece of work" is used throughout with notes on whether contextualism is taken or not.

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 exist conclusive.

three. Value-Maximizing Theory

a. Overview

The value-maximizing theory can be viewed every bit existence 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 be convention only, as endorsed by anti-intentionalism (Goldman, 2013).

As indicated, the word "maximize" does non imply monism. That is, the nowadays position does non claim that there can be only a single fashion to maximize the value of a work of art. On the contrary, it seems reasonable to presume that in most cases the interpreter can envisage several readings to bring out the value of the piece of work. For case, Kafka'due south Metamorphosis has generated a number of rewarding interpretations, and it is difficult to contend for a unmarried best among them. Every bit long as an interpretation is revealing or insightful under the relevant interpretative constraints, we may count it as value-maximizing. Such being the instance, the value-maximizing theory may be relabelled the "value-enhancing" or "value-satisfying" theory.

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

Encapsulating the maximizing position in a few words: it holds that the chief aim of art interpretation is to enhance beholden satisfaction by identifying interpretations that bring out the value of a work within reasonable limits set up 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 by dealing with intentions more than sophisticatedly. If the relevant features are identity conferring, they will be respected and accepted in interpretation. In this instance, any estimation that ignores the intended feature ends up misidentifying the work. Only if the relevant features are not identity conferring, more than room will be left for the interpreter to consider them. The intended characteristic can be ignored if it does not add to the value of the work. Past dissimilarity, where such a feature is not intended but can be put in the work, the interpreter can still build it into the estimation if it is value enhancing.

The virtually important objection to the maximizing view has it that the present position is in danger of turning a mediocre work into a masterpiece. Ed Wood'southward film Programme 9 from Outer Space is the most discussed example. Many people consider this work to exist the worst picture show e'er made. However, interpreted from a postmodern perspective as satire—which is presumably a value-enhancing interpretation—would turn it into a classic.

The maximizer with contextualist leanings can reply that the postmodern reading fails to identify the film as authored by Wood (Davies, 2007, p, 187). Postmodern views were not available in Wood's time, and so it was impossible for the film to be created as such. Identifying the pic as postmodernist amounts to anachronism that disrespects the piece of work's identity. The moral of this case is that the maximizer does not blindly heighten 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 done in light of the true and off-white 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 three forms, giving different weights to intention. The accented version claims that work-meaning is fully determined by the artist's intention; the farthermost version claims that the piece of work ends upwards being meaningless when the creative person'south 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 past convention (and context, if contextualism is endorsed).

a. Absolute Version

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

It seems plausible to abandon the thought that marks on the sand are a poem once nosotros know they were acquired by accident. But this at best proves that intention is the necessary condition for something's existence meaningful; it does not prove further that what something means is what the amanuensis intended it to hateful. In other words, the argument most intentionless significant 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 bodily intentionalist rejects the view that the artist'southward intention infallibly determines piece of work-meaning and accepts the indeterminacy thesis that convention alone does not guarantee a single evident pregnant to be institute in a work. The extreme intentionalist claims further that the meaning of the work is fixed by the artist'southward intention if her intention identifies one of the possible meanings sustained by the work; otherwise, the work ends up beingness meaningless (Hirsch, 1967). Improve put, the farthermost intentionalist sees intention every bit the necessary rather than sufficient condition for work-meaning.

Aside from the unsatisfactory upshot that a piece of work becomes meaningless when the artist's intention fails, the nowadays position faces a dilemma when dealing with the example of figurative language (Nathan, in Iseminger (1992)). Take irony for example. The first horn of the dilemma is every bit follows: Constrained past 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 equally long as the author intends it to be. Just—this is the 2nd horn—if the range of possible meanings does not include the negation of literal significant, the expression simply becomes meaningless in that there is no appropriate meaning possible for the author to actualize. It seems that a broader notion of convention is needed to explain figurative language. Just if the farthermost intentionalist makes that move, her intentionalist position will exist undermined, for the author's intention would be given a less important role than convention in such cases. Notwithstanding, this problem does non arise when the actual intentionalist is committed to contextualism, for in that case the contextual factors that make the intended irony possible volition be taken into business relationship.

c. Moderate Version

Though there are several unlike versions of moderate actual intentionalism, they share the common footing that when the artist's intention fails, meaning is fixed instead past 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 creative person's intention is successful, it determines pregnant; otherwise, significant is determined by convention plus context (Carroll, 2001; Stecker, 2003; Livingston, 2005).

As seen, an intention is successful so long as it identifies one of the possible meanings sustained by the work fifty-fifty if the meaning identified is less plausible than other candidates. But what exactly is the interpreter doing when she identifies that meaning? It is reasonable to say that the interpreter does non need to define all the possible meanings and run into if there is a fit. Rather, all she needs to do is to run across whether the intended meaning can be read in accord with the piece of work. This is why the moderate intentionalist puts the success condition in terms of compatibility: an intention is successful so long as the intended meaning is compatible with the work. The fact that a certain meaning is uniform with the work means that the work tin can sustain it equally one of its possible meanings.

Unfortunately, the notion of compatibility seems to allow strange cases in which an insignificant intention can determine work-meaning as long every bit it is not explicitly rejected by the relevant interpretative constraint. For case, if Agatha Christie reveals that Hercule Poirot is really a smart Martian in disguise, the moderate intentionalist would need to have it because this proclamation of intention can still be said to be uniform with the text in the sense that it is not rejected by textual bear witness. To avoid this bad result, compatibility needs to exist qualified.

The moderate intentionalist and so analyses compatibility in terms of the meshing condition, which refers to a sufficient caste of coherence betwixt the content of the intention and the work's rhetorical patterns. An intention is compatible with the piece of work in the sense that it meshes well with the work. The Martian example volition hence be ruled out by the meshing condition because it does not engage sufficiently with the narrative even if information technology is not explicitly rejected by textual evidence. The meshing condition is a minimal or weak success condition in that it does not require the intention to mesh with every textual feature. A sufficient amount will exercise, though the moderate intentionalist admits that the line is not always easy to draw. 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.

In that location is a second kind of success condition which adopts a stronger standard (Stecker, 2003; Davies, 2007, pp. 170–i). This standard for success states that an intention is successful just in case the intended pregnant, among the possible meanings sustained past the work, is the one well-nigh likely to secure uptake from a well-backgrounded audience (with contextual knowledge and all). For example, if a piece of work of art, within the limits set by convention and context, affords interpretations x, y, and z, and x is more than readily discerned than the other two by the appropriate audition, and so x is the meaning of the work.

These accounts of the success condition answer a notable objection to moderate intentionalism. This objection claims that moderate intentionalism faces an epistemic dilemma (Trivedi, 2001). Consider an epistemic question: how do we know whether an intention is successfully realized? Presumably, nosotros figure out work-pregnant and the artist'south intention respectively and independently of each other. And so nosotros compare the ii to see if there is a fit. Nevertheless, this motility is redundant: if we tin figure out piece of work-meaning independently of bodily intention, why do we need the latter? And if work-meaning cannot be independently obtained, how tin nosotros know information technology is a instance where intentions are successfully realized and not a case where intentions failed? It follows that appeal to successful intention results in redundancy or indeterminacy.

The offset horn of the dilemma assumes that work-meaning can be obtained independently of knowledge of successful intention, but this is false for moderate intentionalists, for they acknowledge that in many cases the work presents ambiguity that cannot be resolved solely in virtue of internal evidence. The moderate intentionalist rejects the second horn by claiming that they do not make up one's mind the success of an intention past comparing independently obtained piece of work-meaning with the creative person's intention (Stecker, 2010, pp. 154–v). As already discussed, moderate intentionalists suggest different success weather that do not appeal to the identity between the artist's intention and work-meaning. Moderate intentionalists adopting the weak standard concord that success is defined by the caste of meshing; those who adopt the strong standard maintain that success is divers by the audience's ability to grasp the intention. Neither requires the interpreter to identify a work's pregnant independently of the creative person's intention.

d. Objections to Actual Intentionalism

The most usually 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. 71–5). In that instance, why would things suddenly stand differently when it comes to fine art interpretation? This is not to say that nosotros succeed on every occasion of interpretation, merely that we practice then in an amazingly large number of cases. That being said, we should not turn down the appeal to intention solely because of the occasional failure.

Another objection is the publicity paradox (Nathan, 2006). The main idea is this: when someone S conveys something p by a production of an object O for public consumption, at that place is a second-order intention that the audition need not go beyond O to reach p; that is, there is no need to consult S's first-order intentions to understand O. Therefore, when an artist creates a work for public consumption, at that place is a second-order intention that her first-social club 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 artist's intentions.

The actual intentionalist's response (Stecker, 2010, pp. 153–4) is this: non all artists have the second-order intention in question. If this premise is false, so the publicity statement becomes unsound. Even if it were truthful, the statement would however be invalid, because information technology confuses the intention that the creative person intends to create something standing lonely with the intention that her commencement-club intention need not be consulted. The paradox will non concur if this stardom is fabricated.

Lastly, many criticisms are directed at a popular argument amidst actual intentionalists: the chat argument (Carroll, 2001; Jannotta, 2014). An analogy between conversation and art interpretation is drawn, and actual intentionalists claim that if we take that art interpretation is a course of conversation, we need to take actual intentionalism as the right prescriptive business relationship of estimation, considering the standard goal of an interlocutor in a conversation is to grasp what the speaker intends to say. (This is a premise even anti-intentionalists take, just they apparently decline the further claim that art interpretation is conversational. Encounter Beardsley, 1970, ch.one.) This illustration has been severely criticized (Dickie, 2006; Nathan, 2006; Huddleston, 2012). The greatest disanalogy betwixt chat and art is that the latter is more than similar a monologue delivered by the artist rather than an interchange of ideas.

One way to meet the monologue objection is to specify more clearly the function of the conversational interest. In fact, the actual intentionalist claims that the conversational involvement should constrain other interests such every bit the artful involvement. In other words, other interests can be reconciled or piece of work with the conversational interest. Take the case of the hermeneutics of suspicion for example. 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 order for them to count as legitimate interpretations. For instance, in attributing racist tendencies to Jules Verne'southward Mysterious Island, in which the blackness slave Neb is portrayed every bit docile and superstitious, we need to suppose that the tendencies are not ironic; otherwise, the suspicious reading becomes inappropriate. In this example, the artistic conversation does non end up beingness a monologue, for the suspicious hermeneut listens and understands Verne before responding with the suspicious reading, which is constrained by the conversational interest. A conversational interchange is hence completed.

five. Hypothetical Intentionalism

a. Overview

A compromise between actual intentionalism and anti-intentionalism is hypothetical intentionalism, the cadre claim of which is that the correct pregnant of a piece of work is adamant past the all-time hypothesis nigh the creative person's intention fabricated by a selected audience. The aim of interpretation is so to hypothesize what the artist intended when creating the work from the perspective of the qualified audience (Tolhurst, 1979; Levinson, 1996).

Two points call for attending. First, information technology is hypothesis—not truth—that matters. This means that a hypothesis of the actual intention will never be trumped past knowledge of that very intention. Second, the membership of the audience is crucial because it determines the kind of testify legitimate for the interpreter to utilise.

A 1979 proposal (Tolhurst) suggests that the relevant audience be singled out past the artist's intention, that is, the audience intended to be addressed by the artist. Work-meaning is thus determined past the intended audience's all-time hypothesis about the artist's intention. This means that the interpreter will need to equip herself with the relevant beliefs and groundwork cognition 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 item occasion. Following this contextualist line of thinking, the meaning of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal volition not be the proffer that the poor in Ireland might ease their economical force per unit area by selling their children as food to the rich; rather, given the background cognition of Swift'south intended audition, the best hypothesis about the author'due south intention is that he intended the piece of work to be a satire that criticizes the heartless attitude toward the poor and Irish policy in full general.

However, in that location is a serious problem with the notion of an intended audition. If the intended audition is an extremely small group possessing esoteric knowledge of the artist, pregnant becomes a private matter, for the work can only be properly understood in terms of private information shared between creative person and audience, and this results in something shut to Humpty-Dumptyism, which is characteristic of absolute intentionalism.

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

The hypothetical intentionalist is aware that in some cases there will be competing interpretations which are equally good. An aesthetic benchmark is and then introduced to adjudicate between these hypotheses. The artful consideration comes as a tie breaker: when we reach two or more epistemically best hypotheses, the 1 that makes the work artistically improve 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 we have been discussing is semantic: it is the intention past which an artist conveys her message in the work. By contrast, categorial intention is the artist's intention to categorize her production, either as a work of fine art, a certain artform (such as Romantic literature), or a particular genre (such equally lyric verse). Categorial intention indirectly affects a piece of work'southward 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 information technology as maxim nothing beyond the named grocery items. For this reason, the artist's categorial intention should be treated as among the contextual factors relevant to her work'due south identity. This movement is often adopted by theorists endorsing contextualism, such equally maximizers or moderate intentionalists.

b. Notable Objections and Replies

Hypothetical intentionalism has received many criticisms and challenges that merit mention. A oftentimes expressed worry is that it seems odd to stick to a hypothesis when newly constitute prove proves it to exist false (Carroll, 2001, pp. 208–9). If an artist's individual diary is located and reveals that our all-time hypothesis about her intention regarding her work is false, 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 institute the truth for the utterer's pregnant, merely it does institute the truth for utterance meaning. The ideal audience's best hypothesis constitutes utterance pregnant even if it is designed to infer the utterer's meaning.

Some other troublesome objection states that hypothetical intentionalism collapses into the value-maximizing theory, for, when making the best hypothesis of what the creative person intended, the interpreter inevitably attributes to the artist the intention to produce a piece with the highest caste 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 artful criterion.

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

The third objection is that the distinction between public and private evidence is blurry (Carroll, 2001, p. 212). Is public evidence published testify? Does published information from private sources count as public? The reply from the hypothetical intentionalist emphasizes that this is not a distinction betwixt published and unpublished data (Levinson, 2006, p. 310). The relevant public context should be reconstrued as what the artist appears to accept wanted the audience to know about the circumstances of the work's cosmos. This means that if it appears that the creative person did not want to make certain proclamations of intent known to the audience, then this evidence, even if published at a afterward point, does not constitute the public context to be considered for interpretation.

Finally, two notable counterexamples to hypothetical intentionalism have been proposed (Stecker, 2010, pp. 159–60). The first counterexample is that W means p simply p is non intended past the artist and the audience is justified in assertive that p is not intended. In this case hypothetical intentionalism falsely implies that W does not mean p. For example, it is famously known among readers of Sherlock Holmes adventures that Dr. Watson's war wound appears in two different locations. On 1 occasion the wound is said to be on his arm, while on another it is on his thigh. In other words the Holmes story fictionally asserts impossibility regarding Watson'due south wound. But given the realistic style of the Holmes adventures, the best hypothesis of authorial intent in this case would deny that the impossibility is part of the pregnant of the story, which is patently false.

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

The 2d 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 W means q; the audition would and then falsely conclude that W means p. Once again, what W means is determined by the ideal audience's best hypothesis based on convention and context, not past what the piece of work literally asserts. The meaning of the work is the product of a prudent cess of the total prove available.

6. Hypothetical Intentionalism and the Hypothetical Creative person

a. Overview

At that place is a second variety of hypothetical intentionalism that is based on the concept of a hypothetical artist. More often than not speaking, it maintains that interpretation is grounded on the intention suitably attributed by the interpreter to a hypothetical or imagined artist. This version of hypothetical intentionalism is sometimes called fictionalist intentionalism or postulated authorism. The theoretical appliance of a hypothetical artist can exist traced dorsum to Wayne Booth's business relationship of the "implied author," in which he suggests that the critic should focus on the author we tin can make out from the work instead of on the historical writer, because there is often a gap between the 2.

Though proponents of the present make 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 piece of work. If it appears, based on internal evidence (and perhaps contextual information if contextualism is endorsed), that the creative person intends the work to hateful p, and so p is the right interpretation of the work. The artist in question is not the historical artist; rather, it is an artist postulated by the audience to be responsible for the intention made out from, or unsaid past, the piece of work. For example, if there is an anti-war attitude detected in the work, the intention to castigate war should exist attributed to the postulated artist, not to the historical creative person. The motivation behind this move is to maintain work-centered interpretation simply avoid the fallacious reasoning that whatever we find in the work is intended by the real artist.

Inheriting the spirit of hypothetical intentionalism, fictionalist intentionalism aims to make interpretation work-based just author-related at the same fourth dimension. The biggest deviation 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 well-nigh the real artist such as that the best hypothesis well-nigh the real artist's intention should be abandoned when compelling evidence against it is obtained.

b. Notable Objections and Replies

The first business concern with fictionalist intentionalism is that constructing a historical variant of the actual artist sounds suspiciously like hypothesizing about her (Stecker, 1987). Just at that place is still a departure. "Hypothesizing most the actual artist," or more accurately, "hypothesizing the bodily artist's intention," would be a characterization of hypothetical intentionalism rather than fictionalist intentionalism. The latter does not rails the actual artist's intention but constructs a virtual ane. Equally shown, fictionalist intentionalism, different hypothetical intentionalism, is allowed to any criticisms resulting from ignoring the actual artist'due south proclamation of her intention.

A second objection criticizes fictionalist intentionalism for not being able to distinguish between dissimilar histories of creative processes for the same textual appearance (Livingston, 2005, pp. 165–69). For example, suppose a piece of 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 aforementioned actually emerged from an uncontrolled procedure. Then, if we follow the strictures of fictionalist intentionalism, the interpretations we produce for these two works would turn out to exist the same, for based on the same appearance the hypothetical artists nosotros construct in both cases would be identical. But these 2 works have different creative histories and the deviation in question seems besides 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 annotation beside a painting tells u.s.a. it was created when the painter got heavily drunk. Any well-organized feature in the work that appears to effect from careful manipulation by the painter might now either look disordered or structured in an eerie way depending on the characteristic'due south actual presentation. Compare this scenario to some other where a (almost) visually indistinguishable counterpart is exhibited in the museum with the exhibit note revealing that the painter spent a long menstruation crafting the work. In this second case the audience's perception of the work is not very likely to be the aforementioned equally that in the beginning example. This shows how the apparent artist account tin all the same discriminate between (appearances of) different creative histories of the same artistic presentation.

Finally, at that place is often 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 just of appearances instead of quantifying over hypothetical artists or their actions.

7. Conclusion

From the above word we tin can notice two major trends in the debate. Start, most tardily twenty^th century and 21^st century participants are committed to the contextualist ontology of fine art. The relevance of art's historical context, since its commencement philosophical appearance in Arthur Danto'southward 1964 essay "The Artworld," continues to influence analytic theories of art interpretation. There is no sign of this trend diminishing. In Noël Carroll'due south 2016 survey article on interpretation, the contextualist basis is still causeless.

Second, actual intentionalism remains the nearly popular position among all. Many substantial monographs have been written in this century to defend the position (Stecker, 2003; Livingston, 2005; Carroll, 2009; Stock 2017). This intentionalist prevalence probably results from the influence of H. P. Grice's work on the philosophy of linguistic communication. And over again, this tendency, similar the contextualist faddy, is still ongoing. And if nosotros encounter intentionalism equally an umbrella term that encompasses not only actual intentionalism but also hypothetical intentionalism and probably fictionalist intentionalism, the influence of intentionalism and its related emphasis on the concept of an artist or author will be even stronger. This presents an interesting contrast 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 past Barthes and Foucoult (Lamarque, 2009, pp. 104–15).

viii. References and Further Reading

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

• Contains four philosophical essays on literary criticism. The first two are among Beardsley's well-nigh of import contributions to the philsoophy of estimation.

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

• A comprehensive volume on philosophical issues across the arts and also 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, Thou. C. (1982). The aesthetic indicate of view: Selected essays. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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

• Booth, W. C. (1983). The rhetoric of fiction (2^nd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

• Contains the original business relationship of the implied writer.

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

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

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

• An engaging book on creative evaluation and estimation.

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

• Anthologizes Carroll's survey article on the intention contend.

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

• Contains a defense of fictionalist intentionalism.

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

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

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

• First paper to depict attention to the relevance of a piece of work's context of production.

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

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

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

• Criticizes Carroll's conversation argument and actual intentionalism.

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

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

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

• The most representative presentation of extreme intentionalism.

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

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

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

• A brilliant criticism of Carroll'due south conversation argument.

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

• A valuable collection of essays featuring Beardsley's business relationship of the work's autonomy, Knapp and Michaels' accented intentionalism, Iseminger's extreme intentionalism, Nathan'southward business relationship of the postulated artist, Levinson's hypothetical intentionalism, and 8 other contributions.

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

• A defense of the conversation argument.

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

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

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

• The 3rd and the fourth chapters discuss analytic theories of interpretation along 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'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 University Press.

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

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

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

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

• A thorough discussion on intention, literary ontology, and the problem of estimation, 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'due south intentions. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 22, 245–56.

• Criticizes the notion of an intended audience.

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

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

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

• Presents some other version of fictionalist intentionalism.

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

• Criticizes different versions of fictionalist intentionalism

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

• A valuable monograph devoted to the intention debate and its related issues such every bit the ontology of fine art, incompatible interpretations and the awarding of theories of art interpretation to police. The book defends moderate intentionalism in item.

• Stecker, R. (2010). Aesthetics and the philosophy of fine 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, S. (2010). The hypothetical intentionalist'southward dilemma: A reply to Levinson. British Journal of Aesthetics, 50, 307–12.

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

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

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

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

• The founding certificate of hypothetical intentionalism.

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

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

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

• A collection of essays, including "Categories of Art," which might have inspired Levinson'due south formulation of categorial intention; and "Style and the Products and Processes of Art," which is a defense of fictionalist intentionalism in terms of the notion "apparent creative person."

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

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

Writer Information

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

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Source: https://iep.utm.edu/art-and-interpretation/