Abstract

The thesis of this dissertation is that the arguments of W. K. Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe Beardsley advanced in their seminal article "The Intentional Fallacy" against contextual criticism are not decisive nor are their suggestions for a criticism without context particularly compelling. Additionally, I try to show an important consistency between the assumptions of this article and theoretical positions held by Wimsatt and Beardsley in later contexts. Finally, I try to indicate important epistemological assumptions between contextual and isolationist aesthetics