Artistic Intention and Interpretation
Does what an artist intended determine what a work means? This topic addresses the role of intention in interpretation and the intentional fallacy.
Definition
Artistic intention and interpretation concerns whether and how the artist's intentions bear on the correct interpretation of a work, with positions ranging from actual intentionalism through hypothetical intentionalism to anti-intentionalism.
Scope
This topic covers the debate over intention in interpretation: the New Critical thesis of the intentional fallacy, actual intentionalism (meaning is fixed by the artist's actual intentions), hypothetical intentionalism (meaning is what an ideal audience would attribute), and anti-intentionalist conventionalism. It treats the arguments for and against appealing to intention and the distinction between a work's meaning and its maker's aims. It does not cover the justification of evaluative verdicts, treated in a sibling topic.
Core questions
- Is the artist's intention relevant, decisive, or irrelevant to a work's meaning?
- What is the intentional fallacy, and is it really a fallacy?
- Should we appeal to actual intentions or to those an ideal audience would attribute?
- How does a work's meaning relate to its maker's aims and to public conventions?
Key theories
- The intentional fallacy
- Wimsatt and Beardsley argue that the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging a work's meaning or success, since the work's meaning is public and embodied in the text.
- Hypothetical intentionalism
- Levinson holds that a work's meaning is what a suitably informed and sympathetic audience would attribute as the author's intended meaning, given public evidence, rather than the author's bare actual intention.
- Actual intentionalism
- Carroll argues that interpreting an artwork is like understanding a person in conversation, so a work's meaning is constrained by the artist's actual successfully realized intentions.
History
The debate was set by Wimsatt and Beardsley's 1946 essay 'The Intentional Fallacy', a foundational text of New Criticism that severed meaning from authorial psychology. Later analytic aesthetics revived intentionalism in qualified forms: Carroll defended actual intentionalism on a conversational model, while Levinson developed hypothetical intentionalism, locating meaning in the best hypothesis about intention warranted by public evidence. The dispute connects to hermeneutics and the philosophy of language.
Debates
- Actual vs. hypothetical intentionalism
- Whether a work's meaning is fixed by the artist's real intentions or by the intentions an ideal audience would best attribute on public evidence divides the two main intentionalist camps.
- Availability and relevance of intention
- Anti-intentionalists argue that intentions are often unavailable and, even when available, should not override what the work itself means, a claim intentionalists dispute.
Key figures
- W. K. Wimsatt
- Monroe Beardsley
- Jerrold Levinson
- Noël Carroll
Related topics
Seminal works
- wimsattbeardsley1946
Frequently asked questions
- What is the intentional fallacy?
- It is Wimsatt and Beardsley's claim that it is a mistake to judge the meaning or value of a work by appeal to the author's intention, since intentions are often unavailable and the work's meaning is public and embodied in the text itself.
- What is the difference between actual and hypothetical intentionalism?
- Actual intentionalism takes the artist's real, successfully realized intentions to fix meaning, while hypothetical intentionalism takes meaning to be what an ideal, informed audience would best hypothesize the artist intended, based on public evidence.