I here defend hypothetical intentionalism, the view of literary and cinematic interpretation that I endorse, from some recent criticisms, and then illustrate the appeal of the view in connection with a recent film of enigmatic cast.

In a recent essay, Jerrold Levinson defends his version of hypothetical intentionalism, which is a theory of literary interpretation, from two criticisms. The first, argued by Stephen Davies, is that it is equivalent to the value-maximizing view. The second, argued by Robert Stecker, is that there are straightforward counterexamples to HI. We will argue that Levinson does not successfully fend off either criticism, and further, that in the process of attempting to do so, creates another dilemma for his (...) view. (shrink)

Regarded for decades as a fallacy, intentionalist interpretation is beginning to attract a following among philosophers of art. Intentionalism is the doctrine that the actual intentions of artists are relevant to the interpretation of the artworks they create – just as actual intentions are relevant to the interpretation of the everyday words and deeds of other people. Although there are several forms of actual intentionalism, I defend the form known as modest actual intentionalism, which holds that the (...) correct interpretation of an artwork is compatible with the author's actual intention, which itself must be supported by the artwork. Looking at literary works specifically, I consider criticisms of actual intentionalism – for example, the contention that such a stance substitutes paraphrase for a reading of the text. In particular, I argue against hypothetical intentionalism, which maintains that the correct interpretation of an artwork is constrained by the best hypotheses of the artist's intentions. As I show, the methodology of this position is in fact designed to track the author's actual intentions, and furthermore, hypothetical intentionalism does not accurately depict existing interpretive practices. (shrink)

Regarded for decades as a fallacy, intentionalist interpretation is beginning to attract a following among philosophers of art. Intentionalism is the doctrine that the actual intentions of artists are relevant to the interpretation of the artworks they create – just as actual intentions are relevant to the interpretation of the everyday words and deeds of other people. Although there are several forms of actual intentionalism, I defend the form known as modest actual intentionalism, which holds that the (...) correct interpretation of an artwork is compatible with the author's actual intention, which itself must be supported by the artwork. Looking at literary works specifically, I consider criticisms of actual intentionalism – for example, the contention that such a stance substitutes paraphrase for a reading of the text. In particular, I argue against hypothetical intentionalism, which maintains that the correct interpretation of an artwork is constrained by the best hypotheses of the artist's intentions. As I show, the methodology of this position is in fact designed to track the author's actual intentions, and furthermore, hypothetical intentionalism does not accurately depict existing interpretive practices. (shrink)

Intentionalism in aesthetics is, quite generally, the thesis that the artist's or artists' intentions have a decisive role in the creation of a work of art, and that knowledge of such intentions is a necessary component of at least some adequate interpretive and evaluative claims. In this paper I develop and defend this thesis. I begin with a discussion of some anti-intentionalist arguments. Surveying a range of intentionalist responses to them, I briefly introduce and criticize a fictionalist version of (...) intentionalism before moving on to an approach I call moderate intentionalism. I consider a salient alternative known as hypothetical intentionalism and try to show why moderate intentionalism should be preferred to it. (shrink)

The extent to which the artist’s intentions are a relevant consideration in the interpretation of art has long been the subject of critical debate. First, I outline the various philosophical positions which have been established, specifically focusing on the debate between hypothetical intentionalism and moderate actual intentionalism. Then I look at some previous test cases which have, as yet, failed to demonstrate a decisive victory for either side. Finally, I offer two new test cases, one from the (...) field of contemporary visual art and the other from literary theory. I argue that the former serves to debunk hypothetical intentionalism and the latter lends support to the moderate actual intentionalist position. (shrink)

Paisley Livingston claims that an artist’s intentions are successfully realized and hence determinate of the meaning of a work if and only if they are compatible and “mesh” with the linguistic and conventional meanings of the text or artefact taken in its target or intended context. I argue that this specific standard of success is not without its difficulties. First, I show how an artist’s intention can sometimes be constitutive of a work’s meaning even if there is no significant meshing (...) between the artist’s intention and his work. Second, I argue against the claim that the artist’s intentions need to be compatible with the linguistic and conventional meanings of a text. Third, I discuss a case that creates a particular puzzle for Livingston since the intentions of the artist concerned are clearly not successfully realized, though they are compatible and mesh with all the relevant data. I conclude my paper by suggesting a solution to this puzzle. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Intention Authorial Intention Varieties of Intentionalism The Utterance Model Hypothetical Intentionalism Hypothetical Intentionalism and Actualist Intentionalism Compared Success Conditions and the Dilemma Argument.

In contemporary analytic philosophy of art, the intentionalist debate is about whether the author’s intention is relevant to the interpretation of her work. Various positions have been proposed, and in this paper I defend what I call hypothetical author-hypothetical intentionalism, the position that interpretation is based on the intention attributed to the author constructed from the work. There are three aims to achieve: (1) to give a general account of hypothetical author-hypothetical intentionalism; (2) to (...) present a moderate version of hypothetical author-hypothetical intentionalism; (3) to defend the moderate version of hypothetical author-hypothetical intentionalism against actual intentionalism and actual author-hypothetical intentionalism. Against the current trend that focuses on actual authors, I hope to show that the hypothetical author account is still a sustainable contender in the intentionalist debate. (shrink)

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I defend a strong version of actual intentionalism. First, I argue against meaning subjectivism, conventionalism and contextualism. Second, I discuss what I take to be the most important rival to actual intentionalism, namely hypothetical intentionalism. I argue that, although hypothetical intentionalism might be acceptable as a definition of the concept of utterance meaning, it does not provide an acceptable answer to the question of what determines an utterance’s meaning. Third, I (...) deal with the most serious objection against actual intentionalism, namely the failure objection. I argue that the failure objection can be overcome within a framework of full-blown actual intentionalism if one distinguishes between categorial and semantic intentions. Moreover, I show how this version of actual intentionalism accounts for the possibility of innovative metaphors and other implicatures. Finally, I demonstrate that actual intentionalism – thus construed – makes it possible to distinguish between communicative failures and the intentional breaking of conventions. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Actual Intentionalism Criticisms of Actual Intentionalism What Do we Aim At When We Interpret a Work? The Aims of Interpretation and the Value of Art Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism Theories of Work Meaning Hypothetical Intentionalism Versus the Unified View Notes.

In a recent article, ‘An Epistemic Dilemma for Actual Intentionalism’, Saam Trivedi argues that the way we ought to interpret artworks is best understood using the model proposed by hypothetical intentionalism. Trivedi alleges that actual intentionalism faces a serious dilemma, the upshot of which is that actual intentionalists must choose between redundancy and indeterminacy. Largely on the basis of this dilemma, he concludes that even if actual intentionalism is descriptively accurate, it is prescriptively untenable. In (...) this essay, I focus on this alleged dilemma and argue that, contra Trivedi, it fails to undermine the prescriptive legitimacy of moderate actual intentionalism. That is, Trivedi's dilemma does not offer us a good reason to refrain from working to understand works of art under the methodological guidance of actual intentionalism. (shrink)

I discuss three theories regarding the interpretation of fictional literature: actual intentionalism (author's intentions constrain how their works are to be interpreted), hypothetical intentionalism (interpretations are justified as those most likely intended by a postulated author), and the value-maximizing theory (interpretations presenting the work in the most favourable light are to be preferred). I claim that actual intentionalism cannot account for the appropriateness or legitimacy of some interpretations, or alternatively that it must be weakened to the (...) point that the considerations raised by hypothetical intentionalists and value maximizers come into play. And I argue that hypothetical intentionalism either reduces to the value-maximizing theory, which provides a more accurate and clearer expression of the position than does hypothetical intentionalism, or it mistakenly attributes to hypothesized intentions the kind of force that attaches only to actual intentions. (shrink)

This essay considers the reliability and proper role of authorial intention in the interpretation of figurative language and argues that, even in cases of metaphor and irony, the meaning of a text must remain logically independent of the intent of its historical author. Irony and metaphor have been broadly considered to be the most problematic cases for the anti-intentionalist approach to interpretation. The arguments in this essay address standard intentionalist arguments and, in the end, defend a sort of hypothetical (...) intentionalism that is, in all significant respects, anti-intentionalist. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Interpreting ContextualitiesStephen DaviesIf, as so often demanded, the context of a literary work should be considered in interpreting it, which context is that? Is it the past context within which the work was created, or, rather, the different context in which the book and interpreter presently are located? In this essay, I consider theories of interpretation that disagree on the answers to these questions. To appropriate terms that have (...) become fashionable, one presents a model for interpretation that is “readerly” in being restrained and backward-looking, while the second allows for interpretations that are “writerly” in being creative and forward-looking. Both kinds of interpretation are used in literary criticism, with the first paying homage to the efforts of the work’s creator and the second showing respect for meanings the work presents to the critic’s contemporary audience. I argue that, despite appearances to the contrary, the first theory is no less capable than the second of accounting for actual critical practice. If not by seeing which account better matches the practice, how might we adjudicate between them? This is to be done by considering whether the creation and appreciation of literature answers primarily to an interest in works alone, or to works as the product of human authors. I prefer the second alternative and suggest that an interest in works as of their authors can be consistent with the widely held view that literary works admit of multiple interpretations.II call the first account of interpretation the Original Context Theory. It holds that the meaning of a literary work is fixed by factors holding at the time of the work’s creation. (A work might be revolutionary in style, [End Page 20] of course, but in that case it will be apparent that standard literary practices are invoked only to be challenged or repudiated.) The original context theory comes in at least three versions, depending on which of the factors present at the work’s creation is given primacy.Actual intentionalism maintains that the author’s successfully realized intentions determine the work’s meaning. 1 This variant of the original context theory holds that a literary work has the meaning that its author intends, provided that the author carries through the relevant intentions in appropriately employing the language of the day, as well as the then recognized conventions of the given genre and artistic practice. The artist’s intentions, if successfully executed, are publicly manifest in the work but will be recognized only by those familiar with the linguistic and artistic practices by which their expression is facilitated. The meaning of a work can be ambiguous or multi-layered, but usually this is because it is created to be so. The intentions need not be present to the author’s mind; they need not be self-consciously formulated as he works. Moreover, the author might have difficulty in articulating or formulating his intentions if asked, just as one often has difficulty in describing what one does in performing a familiar yet complex action. But they are nonetheless his intentions, nor are they the more difficult to discern in the product of those actions, for these facts.Hypothetical intentionalism holds that the work’s meaning is determined by inferences made by a suitably placed audience to the intentions of a hypothetical author, where these inferences are founded on a grasp of the linguistic conventions and artistic practices of the day, as well as publicly available knowledge concerning the creation of the given work. 2 Here the meaning of the work is generated by hypothesizing intentions authors might have had, given the context of creation, rather than relying on their actual intentions. Such inferences must have interpersonal validity if they are to reveal a meaning that can be attributed legitimately to the work. Because more than one set of inferences can be justifiable, a work might possess or display a multiplicity of meanings, even if the actual author intended only one of these.Conventionalism maintains that the conventions of language and art in place when the work was created are sufficient to secure the work’s meaning. 3 This last variant focuses on “utterance” rather than “utterer... (shrink)

Appeals to the actual author's intention in order to legitimate an interpretation of a work of literary narrative fiction have generally been considered extraneous in Anglo-American philosophy of literature since Wimsatt and Beardsley's well-known manifesto from the 1940s. For over sixty years now so-called anti-intentionalists have argued that the author's intentions – plans, aims, and purposes considering her work – are highly irrelevant to interpretation. In this paper, I shall argue that the relevance of the actual author's intentions varies in (...) different approaches to fiction, and suggest that fictions are legitimately interpreted intentionally as conversations in a certain kind of reading. My aim is to show that the so-called conversational approach is valid when emphasizing the cognitive content of a fiction and truths it seem to convey, for example, in a philosophical approach to fictions which contain philosophical purport using Sartre's fictional works as paradigmatic, and that anti-intentionalists' arguments against intentionalism do not threaten such an approach. (shrink)

This article discusses the relationship (or lack thereof) between authors’ intentions and the meaning of literary works. It considers the advantages and disadvantages of Extreme and Modest Actual Intentionalism, Conventionalism, and two versions of Hypothetical Intentionalism, and discusses the role that one’s theoretical commitments about the robustness of linguistic conventions and the publicity of literary works should play in determining which view one accepts.

I argue that contemporary artists fix the features of their works not only through their actions of making and presenting objects, but also through auxiliary activities such as corresponding with curators and institutions. I refer to such fixing of features as the artist’s sanction: artists sanction features of their work through publicly accessible actions and communications, such as making a physical object with particular features, corresponding with curators and producing artist statements. I show, through an extended example, that in order (...) to grasp the nature of contemporary artworks, and thus be in a position to interpret them, we must attend to the features the artist has sanctioned. However, this does not amount to saying that the artist’s intention fixes the features of the work. While related to intentions, sanctions are not identical to them; and, indeed, the features the artist has sanctioned may conflict, in some cases, with those she intended. I distinguish my view from actual and hypothetical intentionalism and show that considering the artist’s sanction does not force us to accept any particular interpretation of the work. I also show that, while it has special relevance to our understanding of contemporary artworks, the notion of the sanction is in fact relevant to traditional Western art as well. (shrink)

This article brings together two prominent topics in the literature over the past few decades—the ethical criticism of art and art interpretation. The article argues that debates about the ethical criticism of art have not acknowledged the fact that they are tacitly underpinned by a number of assumptions about art interpretation. I argue that the picture of interpretation that emerges from the analysis of these assumptions is best captured by moderate actual intentionalism. Reflection upon the nature of ethical criticism, (...) I argue, offers new reasons to prefer moderate actual intentionalism to hypothetical intentionalism. I conclude by arguing for the necessity of broadening our conception of ethical criticism. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that speech act theory can be altered to accommodate art objects as evocative illocutionary speech acts that areaimed toward reaching understanding. To do this, I discuss the example of Zen Buddhism’s use of the koan, an aesthetic object that can be seen as evoking a given experience from its auditors for the purpose of reaching understanding on a point that the teacher wishes to make. I argue that such a reading of art as evocative can (...) be merged with hypothetical intentionalism insofar as it recognizes a certain orientation on the part of the auditor to approach art in a certain way. In the case of koans and other artworks, the approach is one of considering what claim an author may want to convey through the auditor’s experience of the artwork. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that speech act theory can be altered to accommodate art objects as evocative illocutionary speech acts that are aimed toward reaching understanding. To do this, I discuss the example of Zen Buddhism's use of the kōan, an aesthetic object that can be seen as evoking a given experience from its auditors for the purpose of reaching understanding on a point that the teacher wishes to make. I argue that such a reading of art as evocative (...) can be merged with hypothetical intentionalism insofar as it recognizes a certain orientation on the part of the auditor to approach art in a certain way. In the case of kōans and other artworks, the approach is one of considering what claim an author may want to convey through the auditor's experience of the artwork. (shrink)

Some theorists on literary interpretation have suggested a connection between Monroe C. Beardsley’s anti-intentionalism and hypothetical intentionalism based on an implied author. However, a full exploration has never been attempted. I undertake this task in this paper. A close reading of Beardsley reveals that he assumes something very similar to the implied author in interpretation. I distinguish five types of fictional works in terms of their narrative mode and show that my claim stands in at least four (...) of the five types. The significance of my argument lies in exposing the above version of authorism in anti-intentionalism. -/- Beardsley is generally perceived as advocating the irrelevance of authorial intention to literary interpretation. The common interpretation of his theory is that work-meaning is generated by linguistic conventions, with intention playing no role in meaning-determination. All the interpreter needs is knowledge of public, linguistic conventions in order to recover textual meaning. -/- Nevertheless, when dealing with the problem of interpretation, Beardsley explicitly talks about attributing textual meaning to a fictional speaker. Although he does not elaborate on the nature of this speaker, clues scattered in his writings point to the striking similarity of this theoretical apparatus to an implied author. The key lies in his presumption that every fictional work must have an ultimate speaker to whom meaning inferred from the text should be attributed. This claim is almost the core of an implied author theory of interpretation. -/- A difficulty in classifying Beardsley’s view as a version of the implied author position is that his characterization of the story’s presenter might apply better to the story’s narrator than to its implied author. To test this, I examine different types of narrative modes to see whether the fictional speaker merges with the implied author in each of these scenarios. -/- The first factor to consider for classifying narrative modes is whether the narrator’s presence is explicit or implicit. The narrative scenario in which the narrator is implicit can be further divided into two sub-types: either the story is told from an omniscient viewpoint or centers on the experience of a third-person character. In either case, the story is not told by any of the characters in the story; rather, it is told by an implicit speaker whose words the work purports to be. It seems reasonable to identify this fictional speaker with the implied author, for both function as the subject to which textual meaning is attributed. -/- As for the narrative mode in which the narrator is explicit, this involves first-person narratives. In these, either the narrator is reliable or unreliable. When the narrator is unreliable, a transcendental perspective is required in determining the text’s meaning, because what is said ultimately in the work is not equivalent to what is literally said by the unreliable narrator. It follows that an implicit speaker has to be assumed and she again coincides with the implied author. -/- Where the narrator is reliable but textual meaning transcends what is literally expressed, an implicit speaker is at play again. This narrative scenario is thus better classified as a case in which the narrator’s presence is implicit. This leaves us with the narrative scenario in which the narrator is a reliable spokesperson for the implied author. -/- The identification of the narrator with the implied author in the case last mentioned is controversial. The crucial difference between them is that the former is dramatized in the story while the latter is not. I accept that the narrator here is not happily called an implied author, though I also point out several similarities between the two. -/- Finally, I discuss four complications to my argument. The first concerns multiple points of view in a story. To accommodate this kind of narrative, Beardsley could argue that an implicit narrator is needed to explain the definite meaning concealed behind what is literally said by different characters. The second complication is about the ontological status accorded to the narrator and the implied author. It might be objected that the two reside in different fictional worlds and this is what makes their merging impossible. But it is questionable whether this is a definitional feature of the implied author; moreover, the interpreter can take the implied author to be an instrumentalist concept and hence avoid talk about the ontological status of fictional entities. The third complication claims that versions of the implied author position developed by philosophers tend to be based on a contextualist ontology of literature; however, Beardsley’s account is acontextual. This is not true, for Beardsley has exhibited contextualist leanings in his writings. Finally, it has been objected that the formalist resources Beardsley has are not enough to guarantee a single right interpretation. But if Beardsley is actually a contextualist, contextual constraints will come into play and raise the chance of getting a single right interpretation. -/- The article concludes by reflecting on the significance of the misrepresentation of anti-intentionalism: it is the intention of the actual author which anti-intentionalism is against. The position in question is actually developed in an intentionalist framework based on the implied author. (shrink)

Intentionalism, it has been remarked, just won't go away.1 The idea that the meaning of a literary work is determined by the intentions of its author remains appealing and deeply entrenched in most people's thinking,2 in spite of ever-new waves of resistance. I do not wish to resume the discussion of the overall plausibility of intentionalism. Nor will I take a stand in the discussion of its different varieties, like actual versus hypothetical intentionalism.3 My interest lies (...) in exploring the different ways in which intentions might determine literary meaning, and the different kinds of meaning that may be found in a literary work. I contend that proponents of intentionalism have been insufficiently attentive to... (shrink)

In this paper I test major analytic theories of interpretation, including anti-intentionalism, the value-maximizing theory, actual intentionalism, and hypothetical intentionalism, against Li Shang-yin’s poem ‘The Ornamented Zither’. I argue that, based on the results of the test, all of these theories face grave difficulties. If their supporters want their accounts to be sustained in the debate over interpretation, they need to address the worries I raise.

The role of the artist's intention in the interpretation of art has been the topic of a lively and ongoing discussion in analytic aesthetics. First, I sketch the current state of this debate, focusing especially on two competing views: actual and hypothetical intentionalism. Secondly, I discuss the search for a suitable test case, that is, a work of art that is interpreted differently by actual and hypothetical intentionalists, with only one of these interpretations being plausible. Many examples (...) from many different art forms have been considered in this respect, but none of these test cases has proved convincing. Thirdly, I introduce two new test cases taken from contemporary visual art. I explain why these examples are better suited as test cases and how they lend support to the actual intentionalist position. (shrink)

In a recent article, Hans Maes argues that examples drawn from contemporary visual art shed new light on the long-standing and seemingly intractable debate between Hypothetical Intentionalism (HI) and Moderate Actual Intentionalism (AI). He presents two test cases that, he argues, tilt the scale in favour of AI. In this paper I re-examine Maes's two test cases, and argue that neither succeeds as a test case. The first case fails because it confuses a relevant fact about the (...) artwork with the artist's intentions for the work. The second case fails because the work in question does not count as an utterance. The failure of Maes's examples suggests that the interpretive norms surrounding contemporary visual art cannot settle the debate between AI and HI. (shrink)

Dans cet essai, nous voulons contribuer à poser les bases épistémologiques et ontologiques d’une approche composite de la théorie de l’interprétation que nous désignerons sous le nom d’« interprétationnisme pluraliste ». À l’encontre de l’intentionnalisme hypothétique, mais à l’instar de la théorie du patchwork dont il s’inspire, l’interprétationnisme pluraliste admet une variété de modes d’interprétations sans concéder de statut privilégié à aucun. Cette approche s’accorde avec la thèse de l’interprétation imputationnelle que l’on justifie sur la base d’une analyse de la (...) nature et de la formation des concepts interprétatifs. Elle est aussi compatible avec un modèle tripartite de l’ontologie de l’oeuvre littéraire qui permet d’éviter les critiques habituelles soulevées contre l’interprétation imputationnelle, à savoir le singularisme et l’objection de la dissolution de l’oeuvre.In this essay, we want to contribute to lay down some epistemological and ontological bases for a composite view of the theory of interpretation that we are calling “pluralist interpretationism”. Contrary to hypothetical intentionalism, but like the patchwork theory from which it is derived, pluralist interpretationism recognizes a variety of modes of interpretation without conceding to any a privileged status. This view agrees with the thesis of imputationalist interpretation which can be justified by an analysis of the nature and formation of interpretive concepts. It is also compatible with a tridimensional model of the ontology of literary works that avoids the usual criticisms raised against interpretative imputationalist such as singularism and the reductio ad absurdum. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag werden drei Thesen verteidigt: 1. Interpretationen literarischer Werke (im Sinne von Aussagen über die Bedeutung literarischer Werke) können richtig oder falsch sein. 2. Werke haben eine objektive Bedeutung, unabhängig von Interpretationen. 3. Die Bedeutung eines Werks wird wesentlich durch die kommunikativen Absichten der Autorin determiniert. Die Position, dass Werk- und Textbedeutungen durch tatsächliche Autorabsichten des echten Autors konstituiert werden – die Position des aktualen Intentionalismus – wird gegen eine Reihe von Einwänden und konkurrierenden Theorien verteidigt, nämlich gegen (...) den Konstruktivismus (»Werke und Texte haben keinerlei Bedeutung unabhängig von einer Interpretation«), den Konventionalismus (»Die Werk- und Textbedeutung ist ausschließlich durch linguistische Konventionen determiniert«), den Kontextualismus (»Die Werk- und Textbedeutung ist ausschließlich durch den Äußerungskontext determiniert«) und den hypothetischen Intentionalismus (»Die Bedeutung eines Werks bzw. Textes ist identisch mit dem, was ein intendiertes bzw. ideales Publikum für die Bedeutung des Werks bzw. Textes halten würde«). (shrink)

The discourse regarding intentionality and interpretation in analytic philosophy of art, although ample and lively, has concerned itself almost exclusively with the literary medium. Starting from a paper published by Hans Maes, I discuss the complications that may arise in straightforwardly applying current intentionalist strategies to the realm of the contemporary visual arts. I first present a detailed account of the difference between hypothetical intentionalism and moderate actual intentionalism which will help to better understand the nature of (...) Maes’s arguments in his paper. I then argue that the characteristics which shape the approach of moderate actual intentionalism cannot be accommodated by certain contemporary visual artworks. I will demonstrate how in certain contemporary artworks, should a viewer be interested in accepting actual intentions within her interpretation, she will have to do so with an extreme intentionalist posture rather than a moderate actual one. (shrink)

This paper provides an in-depth review of Jerrold Levinson’s most recent work in aesthetics, focusing especially on his account of the incompatibility of art and pornography. The author argues that this account does not fit well with Levinson’s own intentional-historical definition of art and his Wollheimian account of depiction.

Chapter 1: An Introduction: The ‘Semantic Sting’ Argument Describes Dworkin’s theory as concerning the conditions of legal validity. “A legal system is a system of norms. Validity is a logical property of norms in a way akin to that in which truth is a logical property of propositions. A statement about the law is true if and only if the norm it purports to describe is a valid legal norm…It follows that there must be certain conditions which render certain norms, (...) but not others, legally valid. Hence it also follows that there can be two types of disagreement over the truth or falsehood of propositions about the law. People can disagree over the question ‘What are the conditions of legal validity?’, in which case their disagreement is a theoretical one. Or they can agree on the conditions of validity, and disagree as to whether or not those conditions actually obtain in a given case or not.” Argues that the best way to interpret Dworkin’s ‘semantic-sting argument’ is as a general argument against conventionalism in legal positivism. Summarizes the outcome of Dworkin’s argument as follows: “[I]f Dworkin is right about the legal reasoning of lawyers and judges, conventionalism would be self-defeating: if lawyers and judges recognize as legally binding not only those norms which are uncontroversially identifiable under the Rule of Recognition, that is, if what they recognize as binding is not only source-based law, then conventionalism turns out to be false on its own terms. In other words, either law is not what lawyers and judges think that it is, in which case law is not a matter of conventions, or – if it is what lawyers and judges think – conventionalism is false, as they do not see the law as purely a matter of conventions.” Dworkin’s theory, then, is a new conception of jurisprudence aiming to present itself as a rival to conventionalism. The book will be concerned with re-examining positivism in light of the interpretative challenge. Chapter 2: Meaning and Interpretation “[R]oughly, interpretation can be defined as an understanding or explanation of the meaning of an object.” Interpretation in this narrow sense is distinct from a less formal and broader use of interpretation that makes it equivalent to explanation. “Hence also, only those objects which are capable of bearing some meaning qualify as objects of interpretation.” [Why shouldn’t we think of interpretation as object-identification? This seems to be closer to what Dworkin has in mind.] Thus, a consideration of the philosophical work on meaning is appropriate. First, a consideration of Davidson on interpretation. The thesis is that Davidson’s “radical interpretation” can only account for sentence meaning and not for linguistic interpretation in general. Davidson cannot account for the non-rule-governed aspects of communication. “Semantics, as opposed to interpretation, concerns those aspects of communication which are rule or convention governed…but such rules are normally unavailable as reasons or justifications for an interpretation. On the contrary, interpretation is usually required because the issue is not determined by rules or conventions.” Interpretation, rather, is parasitic with understanding the meaning of an expression and not equivalent with it. As Dummett notes, any reflection on the meanings of words assumes prior knowledge of ordinary meanings. “This leads to the conclusion that understanding or explaining the meaning of an expression and interpreting it, are two conceptually separate things. It also indicates that seman ics can only be employed, if at all, to elucidate the concept of interpretation by way of contrast: interpretation concerns those aspects of communication which are under-determined by semantic rules or conventions.” Pragmatics, the study of problems posed by discrepancies between utterer’s meaning and sentence meaning, would seem to be closer to inquiry into interpretation. Both are concerned with understanding how meaning is possible where conventional rules leave off. Contemporary pragmatics, moreover, recognizes the logically indeterminate character of communicative inferences beyond conventional meaning and that the contextual conditions that account for the possibility cannot be realized in the semantic structure of the sentence. However, different criteria of success may be at work in pragmatics than interpretation. Pragmatics is concerned with how communication is achieved and thus the criteria of success would be grasping a speaker’s intentions. Many think, however, that communication is unimportant in certain spheres of communication, e.g. artistic interpretation, and that in these cases the aim of interpretation is not to uncover the actual artist’s intentions. What kind of meaning is interpretation aimed at then? It cannot be the meaning the object has for the interpreter. “Interpretation purports to be a statement about the object interpreted, not about the subject who offers the interpretation…it is crucial to remember that not everything we say about a work of art, or any other text, amounts to an interpretation of it. Only those aspects of a text which can shed light on its meaning form part of the text’s interpretation. What the text means for someone rarely entails anything about what the text means.” [This is puzzling to some extent for it remains somewhat ambiguous what it means to talk of subject-independent meaning.] Interpretive meaning attribution is, rather, counterfactual. “In general, I will suggest that the answer to this question consists in the fact that meaning is assigned by a counterfactual statement. Given that x is the meaning attributed to, for instance a text T, and x is not the literal meaning of T, nor is it the meaning of T intended by its author, then the attribution of meaning x to T can only be understood as the contention that on the basis of certain assumptions a certain fictitious or stipulated speaker would have meant x by expressing T.” Thus, on this account, interpretation, when it does not concern an actual speaker, turns out to be a kind of counterfactual intention attribution. Twofold point: “First, that interpretation is essentially a matter of attributing intentions, that is, in the pragmatics sense of ‘meaning’, namely, meaning that such-and-such by an act or expression. At the same time, interpretations need not be based on the intentions of actual authors; the meaning of an act or expression is understandable in terms of counterfactual intentions.” [Are we really restricted to understanding the coherence and integrity of meaning in such a way? Presumably the author is a kind of device for organizing meaning, much like Dworkin’s integrity, but need it take that format?] The logic of interpretation is typically reducible to intention attribution. [What role does the counterfactual author play in structuring meaning?] The criteria of interpretive success will depend upon the object, whether it is the real author or the counterfactual author. If the former, success will depend upon the retrieval of the author’s actual intentions. “Likewise, if the author is characterized in terms of some ideal representative of a certain genre, for instance, the presumptions which are taken to determine this c aracterization would provide the criteria of success for the particular interpretation offered.” [The criteria of success would seem, then, to be the principles, ideals, etc. that we attribute to the counterfactual author. These attributed qualities would be doing all the work – is the attribution of intention to the hypothetical author, then, really necessary at all?] [Does this account presuppose a weird dichotomy between what an object is and what it means? This dichotomy is different, if present at all, in Dworkin.] Chapter 3: Dworkin’s Theory of Interpretation and the Nature of Jurisprudence Three main insights of Dworkin’s theory of interpretation: “First, that interpretation strives to present its object in its best possible light. Second, that interpretation is essentially genre-dependent. And third, that there are certain constraints that determine the limits of possible interpretations of a given object.” Why the best light? Dworkin doesn’t really address this question in depth but claims that otherwise we are left with no way of justifying and choosing an interpretation or we are left with the author’s intention model, which we should reject. [Marmor doesn’t seem clear on what precisely it means to present something in its best light – seems to conflate it with most appealing light which, I take it, is different than what Dworkin has in mind.] “Dworkin is quite right to maintain that without having some views about the values inherent in the genre to which the text is taken to belong, no interpretation can take off the ground. The values we associate with the genre partly, but crucially, determine what would make sense to say about the text, what are the kinds of meaning we could ascribe to it.” There is no necessity for an interpretation to present an object in its best light with regards to the genre it is taken to be part of. Interpretations “could simply strive to present it in a certain light, perhaps better than some, worse than others, but in a way which highlights an aspect of the meaning of the text which may be worth paying attention to for some reason or another.” [What kind of reasons would count in choosing to present it in one light rather than another?] There is simply zero grounds for Dworkin’s assertion that we have no reason to pay attention to an interpretation that does not present it in its best light. Take a psychoanalytic interpretation of Hamlet, for example – not the best light, but a legitimate one. [This seems related to the next criticism – clearly Dworkin would have to loosen his insistence on the best, though not to detriment.] Moreover, especially with regards to art, it doesn’t appear possible to make an all things considered judgment about the best interpretation given the incommensurability of different values that are taken to inhere in a given genre. [Dworkin can respond here that we may have different available interpretations that could be justified with respect to the relevant value. Moreover, a lack of common denominator does not prevent any comparison whatsoever.] Constructive interpretation concerns social practices constituted by norms – it imposes a purpose or value rendering intelligible the normative character of the practice. There is a separate aspect of constructive interpretation that maintains that elements of the practice are sensitive to the point of the practice. It is important to note that different social practices will institutionalize themselves in different ways – thus, different practices will establish varying conditions on how the practice can be altered. The position of the positivists is that evaluative judgments concerning what the law should be are insufficient for determining what the law is given the nature of law’s institutionalization.&nb p; [This would seem to reside on a certain conception of law, i.e. an interpretation about where the value of law lies.] “[T]his being one of the main points of dispute between Dworkin and his positivist opponents, Dworkin cannot at this initial state presume law to be sensitive to its value in the manner that other, non-institutional practices might be, without incurring the charge of having assumed the very point at issue.” The upshot for Dworkin is that any explanation of a social practice such as law requires the same kind of reasoning as participation in that practice. This will be called the hermeneutic thesis. We can try to reconstruct a justification for this view based on the necessity of shared background assumptions – but this will not do since Dworkin’s claim is stronger: it contends that participants’ and theorists’ must “adopt one and the same normative point of view.” [The sense of normative here is unclear. It is true, though, that shared background assumptions do not imply viewing the law as valuable in any particular way, or at least it does not imply this in any strong sense.] Dworkin makes two distinct points with the hermeneutic thesis: “First, that the explanation of a social practice, like law or the arts, is essentially interpretative, and as such, necessarily value laden. Second, that the interpretation of such social practices, which Dworkin calls ‘argumentative’, is unique in the sense that the practice itself is an evaluative enterprise, and that therefore the interpreter of such a practice must form an evaluative judgment of her own about those values which are inherent in the practice that she purports to interpret.” [As stated, the first thesis is terribly ambiguous – for Dworkin, it clear implies a commitment to constructive interpretation. For Marmor, who accepts it, it is totally unclear what commitment he intends to make. He seems to mean simply that we have criteria for success concerning what counts as a successful explanation.] Mamor denies the second thesis. “What Dworkin seems to ignore here is that there is a crucial difference between forming a view about the values which are manifest in a social practice, like law, and actually having evaluative judgments about them.” [The problem, however, it that it is a contentious matter what values are part of the law – a theorist’s account of what values are constitutive of a particular legal system must rely on the kind of arguments which participants rely on. Of course, a theorist might simply note a debate about values and attempt to remain agnostic, but this will fail to be a full theoretical account of what law is!] Dworkin’s thesis seems to depend exclusively on his account of constructive interpretation. [This seems exactly right.] Chapter 4: Coherence, Holism, and Interpretation: The Epistemic Foundation of Dworkin’s Legal Theory Begins with discussion of Rawls’ reflective equilibrium. Sums up dual criticism as follows: “[T]he assumption that intuitions are independently true and the converse one, that their truth depends on fitting a coherent scheme, both seem to yield paradoxical results.” Dworkin, in his article “The Original Position”, claims that Rawls cannot commit himself to ethical realism. “[T]he natural model presupposes some form of ethical realism, while the constructive model does not. One important difficulty arising from an attempt to apply the natural model to Rawls is, that under the natural model, any theory which dopes not account for an intuition, at least for one which is held firmly, cannot be wholly satisfactory, just as scientific theory which does not account for certain observational data it is supposed to cover, would not be satisfactory in a familiar way.” Rawls, rather, is committed to a constructivist view of morality. Moreover, the reason we value coherence epistemically in moral theory is that it itself is a value of political morality – fairness requires consistency and publicity in the application of moral standards. Marmor notes the following problem with such a view: “[I]f coherence is justified, as it is here, with reference to certain moral values, that is, a specific conception of fairness, then we face the following problem: the presupposed values of fairness must themselves be based upon intuitive convictions, in which case the question of their truth cannot be ignored. If they are taken to be true…we are driven back to the perplexities of the natural model.” Discusses, helpfully, the Fish/Dworkin debate. The upshot is that Dworkin’s interpretive model is best off if it commits itself to a Quineian holism. However, this undermines his distinction between internal and external skepticism since holism must deny that moral judgments constitute a closed system. [This analysis seems exactly right.] Endorses Simmonds view that Dworkin’s theory does not meet the requirements of complexity he identifies as necessary to avoid vicious circularity in interpretive judgments of fit and identity. Coherence is doing the work through and through and therefore the interpretive theory of law is circular. [Will require further investigation, though it is unclear how coherence is doing any work in the pre-interpretive stage. At this stage, the judgments, if interpretive, seem to be derived from different sources. In any case, using coherence as a value seems to be highly suspect.] Why doesn’t Dworkin just reject Fish’s assumptions: because of his jurisprudence. “If legal texts can have a meaning that is not entirely dependent on a process of interpretation, then it is at least sometimes the case that the law can simply be understood, and applied, without the mediation of interpretation. And if that is the case, then the argument from interpretation against legal positivism collapses. It is no longer the case that every conclusion about what the law is, depends on evaluative considerations about what it ought to be.” Chapter 5: Semantics, Realism, and Natural Law Assessment of Michael Moore’s legal realism and its implications. [The final criticisms of Moore are not decisive.] Chapter 6: Constructive Identification and Razian Authority A consideration of Dworkin’s denial that the communication model of interpretation is appropriate for legal interpretation. Marmor argues that intentions do play a crucial role in the identification of legal norms in a way that is incompatible with Dworkin’s “coherence thesis”. Marmor takes Dworkin to be committed to the constructive identification thesis: that the identification of something as part of the legal, artistic, etc. genre can be done sufficiently by evaluative considerations. “Here, one must maintain that evaluative considerations are sufficient to determine whether something is a legal norm or a work of art”. [Fit, however, constrains possible evaluative considerations – thus evaluative considerations are not sufficient in themselves.] “Now the crucial point here is this: if you maintain the possibility of constructive identification in art, you must assume that works of art can be identified as such on the basis of certain features they happen to possess, features which contain no reference to any particular intention to create a work of art…unless we take intentions into account, how can we discriminate between the concept of an aesthetic artifact and the con ept of a work of art?” [It is unclear, and I think false, that constructive interpretation of anything requires identifying something irrespective of an artificers intentions. Those intentions may be relevant, dependent upon the genre under which we are trying to classify the object. Nothing, seemingly, about constructive interpretation in general excludes this possibility.] Marmor’s point is that it turns out to be impossible to identify art as art without reference to an artist’s intentions – especially given the state of contemporary art. [It is notable that Marmor’s response to counterexample implicitly depends upon a fully developed theory of aesthetics. His cursory comments on the matter of identifying art seem insufficient to say the least.] The rest of the chapter considers the incompatibility of Raz’s account of authority with constructive interpretation. The incompatibilities mentioned do not move beyond what Raz identifies in his article “Authority, Law and Morality”, but a defense of this notion of authority is defended in several [inconclusive] respects. [Raz and Marmor want to separate identification from content. This is not clearly a defensible separation.] Chapter 7: No Easy Cases? Chapter defends notion that there is a distinction between easy and hard cases in the positivist sense. Takes a Hartian approach and ultimately defends the distinction by associating it Wittgenstein’s conception of rule following. The point is that one need to look the purpose of rule in order to understand what the rule requires. Chapter 8: Legislative Intent and the Authority of Law Examines the following doctrine concerning the role of legislative intent in adjudication: “[F]irst, it would hold that laws, at least in certain cases, are enacted with relatively specific intentions, and that this is a matter of fact which is discernible through an ordinary fact-finding procedure. Second, that in certain cases the presence of such a fact, namely, that the law was enacted with a certain intention, provides judges with a reason to decide the legal dispute in accordance with the relevant legislative intent.” [It is important that for Marmor, interpretive strategies are only appropriate in hard cases. However, we should wonder what grounds positivism can offer for deciding a hard case in any manner which is not the morally best manner according to the judgment of the judge. There are no legal grounds, by definition, in hard cases and so what justificatory strategy would endorse any judicial decision except for the morally best one?] We can ascribe intentions to a legislative body, when this is possible at all, by taking the shared intentions of the majority, rather than some group intention, to be the significant intentions. Moreover, we should expect a good deal of consensus about intentions for otherwise it is hard to explain how legislative bodies are able to produce so much legislation. Discussion of kinds of intentions concludes as follows: “I have distinguished between three main types of intention that are potentially relevant from the legal point of view. Apart from the intentions that are manifest in the language of the law itself, legislators typically have further intentions in enacting a given law, and sometimes they would have certain intentions bearing on its proper application. I have also suggested that some of these further intentions may be essentially non-avowable, in which case they are rendered initially irrelevant. Finally, I have pointed out that considerations of consistency require that the legislator’s application intentions be taken into account only if, and to the extent that, they are in accord with his further intentions.” The manner in which intentionalism is to be justif ed relies on the distinction, Marmor maintains, between expert and mere collective action authority. “The point I wanted to make is strictly conditional: if, and only if, a certain law is justified on the basis of the expertise branch of the normal justification thesis, would it make sense to defer to the legislature’s intentions in the interpretation of the law, that is, to the extent that there is, in fact,; such an intention and it can clarify something that needs clarification.” Insofar as a legislature can be considered an expert on the matter requiring adjudication and interpretation should the body’s intention be taken into account. Chapter 9: Constitutional Interpretation Begins by laying out general necessary features of a constitution. Then Marmor moves on to consider general questions of constitutional legitimacy. First, he considers what grounds might be offered for the legitimacy of a constitution at all. He notes that the central question is what permits a single generation to bind future generations. He then examines four arguments to avoid this problem. The first is based on the moral legitimacy of the constitution; Marmor rejects this solution for the [truly dubious] reason that the constitution would make no practical difference because it would not supply reasons in addition to those provided by morality [but, presumably, the point is that these legally valid rules would be institutionally enshrined]. The second is based on the moral authority of the framers and Marmor rightly rejects this on the basis of the idealization of the framers it requires and less rightly on the basis that there cannot be moral authorities. Third is the “argument from interpretation” which claims that “as long as the particular content of the constitution is determined by its interpretation, and the authoritative interpretation at any time correctly instantiates the values which ought to be upheld in the community, the constitution would be morally legitimate”. The fourth is Raz’s which argues that a constitution is valid so long as its constraints are morally permissible because conventions of this type might aid the continuity of the legal system, i.e. it is important to have a convention of this type and the constitution is a kind of this type. Marmor appears to endorse these two approaches and concludes: “The conditions for the legitimacy of a constitution must comprise the following conditions. First, the values and principles enshrined in it must be morally permissible…Second, when certain choices are made in particular cases, they would be legitimate if they are either morally underdetermined, or else, morally correct…It follows from this that both arguments must assume that at least in those areas in which the constitution would make a moral difference, it can be interpreted to make the difference that it should, that is, according to the true moral principles that should apply to the particular case...the moral legitimacy of constitutions very much dependent on the practices of their interpretation. In other words, a great deal of the burden of moral legitimacy is shifted by these arguments to the application of the constitution, thus assuming that the constitution is legitimate only if the courts are likely to apply the constitution in a morally desirable way.” [This implies that the only significant value constitutions have is in providing a conventional practice where some such practice is required.] Moves on to argue that courts typically rely, and rightly so, on moral considerations when deciding constitutional issues because typically, in cases of the kind that reach the supreme or constitutional court, there is no law on the case. Much of this relies on his earlier discussion about the nature of interpretation in the law – that legal interpretation is always a matter of cha ging the law. (shrink)

This paper highlights the fundamental difference in the criteria adopted to explain original intentionality, which is the basic stratum of intentional phenomena, between the mentalist mainstream and the minority inspired by the rejection of the Myth of the Given. Among the attempts on the latter, inferentialism has become a view of particular interest. According to inferentialism, full intentionality is a feature of cognitive subjects who participate in normative discursive practice. Therefore, the criteria to which the basic intentionality of the mind (...) can be attributed are fundamentally linguistic and not mentalist; for example, perception alone is not sufficient to ground full intentional states. This situation is an interesting challenge to mainstream intentionalism. Furthermore, it can be argued that this view can be a good basis to develop a different conception of collective intentionality in social ontology. In fact, inferentialism makes use of the basic normative notion of discursive commitment to track and evaluate the inferential moves of speakers. This notion can be easily extended hypothetically in the direction of the idea of a ‘joint commitment’ developed by Margaret Gilbert. In what follows, a number of questions and remarks are raised as a first explorative attempt. The role that language plays in social ontology through this approach is of particular interest because of its strict connection with collective intentionality: it is an ‘active’ institution (maybe a meta-institution), the medium and the practice to create and establish other institutions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.2 (2004) 38-52 [Access article in PDF] Artist-Audience Communication: Tolstoy Reclaimed Saam Trivedi Whoever is really conversant with art recognizes in [Tolstoy's What is Art?] the voice of the master.1There has to be some presumption that, as one of the greatest artists who ever lived, Tolstoy might actually have known what he was talking about.2It is widely accepted in contemporary Anglo-American aesthetics that, despite (...) Tolstoy's own literary achievements, his "moralism" about art is a view without much merit. For the most part, I concur with this current consensus about Tolstoy. However, despite the many flaws in his view, I think Tolstoy was on to something, after all. In particular, I believe a concept of artist-audience communication similar to what Tolstoy had in mind can be fleshed out so as to avoid the problems that Tolstoy ran into, while reclaiming the insights in his view.3In what follows, I begin by suggesting briefly that recognizing a quasi-Tolstoyan concept of artist-audience communication may have important implications for how we should approach artworks, and thus also for aesthetic education. Next, I spell out this concept. I then offer trenchant criticisms of Tolstoy's view. Finally, I point out affinities between Tolstoy's concept and mine, while also distinguishing my concept of artist-audience communication from Tolstoy's concept of artistic communication. It will emerge, I hope, that while I disagree more than agree with Tolstoy, the issues where I agree with him may be more significant. Artist-Audience Communication I begin by discussing briefly how talk of a quasi-Tolstoyan artist-audience communication bears relevance for how we should approach artworks, and thus has relevance for aesthetic education. If I am right, then in approaching [End Page 38] and experiencing artworks, we should seek a correct experiential understanding of them that is shared between the artist and audience, and between ourselves and other members of the audience. This does not meanthat we seek what the artist did intend in creating the artwork, as actual intentionalism would have us do. Rather, as members of a competent audience, we should first analyze what a given artwork means by attending to the work itself.4 This includes the broad art-historical context of production (including the period, style, category, or genre of the work; the artist's public persona; the oeuvre of the artist; works by the artist's contemporaries; the social, cultural, and political milieu of the artist; and so on) and the public conventions that apply to it. In cases of irony, satire, and allusion, we may also need to broaden the context and appeal to artistic intentions. Then we should attribute this "work-meaning" to the historical artist as part of what she or he could have intended, so long as this was historically possible. If this historically possible work-meaning coincides with what she or he did intend in that artistic intentions are successfully realized in the work, then we have a real sharing of a correct, experiential understanding of the work between artist and audience, and thus real communication between them in the sense of artist-audience communication explained above. On the other hand, if what the artist did intend is not realized in the work and thus does not coincide with work-meaning as part of what she or he could have intended, then we still have at least a minimal, hypothetical sharing and communication insofar as our correct, experiential understanding of the work is shared with what the artist could have intended.This bears relevance for aesthetic education, assuming one of the purposes of aesthetic education is to teach children and other newcomers to art how to appreciate artworks.5 In teaching people how to appreciate artworks, I suggest we emphasize the shared, communicative aspects of the experience of artworks when they are understood more or less correctly. We should tell them that they should seek to communicate with the artist via the artwork, trying to understand the artwork correctly in the very experience of the... (shrink)

In this paper I argue, from the consideration of what I hope is the complete variety of a hearer’s approaches to a speaker’s utterance, that the speaker’s intention does not settle the meaning of her utterance and the hearer does not take a genuine interest in the speaker’s actual intention. The reason why the speaker’s intention does not settle utterance meaning is simply that no utterance meaning determination, as presupposed by intentionalists and anti-intentionalists alike, takes place. Moreover, in the regular (...) course of interpretation the hearer does not care about the speaker’s actual intention, but only about what the speaker presents as her intention: the hearer’s goal is to come up with an interpretation which the speaker will accept rather than an interpretation which corresponds to the speaker’s intention. In cases of accountability, suspicion and lying, the speaker’s actual intention is irrelevant; it is at most the speaker’s hypothetical intention which is at stake. (shrink)

In this paper I argue, from the consideration of what I hope is the complete variety of a hearer’s approaches to a speaker’s utterance, that the speaker’s intention does not settle the meaning of her utterance and the hearer does not take a genuine interest in the speaker’s actual intention. The reason why the speaker’s intention does not settle utterance meaning is simply that no utterance meaning determination, as presupposed by intentionalists and anti-intentionalists alike, takes place. Moreover, in the regular (...) course of interpretation the hearer does not care about the speaker’s actual intention, but only about what the speaker presents as her intention: the hearer’s goal is to come up with an interpretation which the speaker will accept rather than an interpretation which corresponds to the speaker’s intention. In cases of accountability, suspicion and lying, the speaker’s actual intention is irrelevant; it is at most the speaker’s hypothetical intention which is at stake. (shrink)

Moods and emotions are sometimes thought to be counterexamples to intentionalism, the view that a mental state's phenomenal features are exhausted by its representational features. The problem is that moods and emotions are accompanied by phenomenal experiences that do not seem to be adequately accounted for by any of their plausibly represented contents. This paper develops and defends an intentionalist view of the phenomenal character of moods and emotions on which emotions and some moods represent intentional objects as having (...) sui generis affective properties, which happen to be uninstantiated, and at least some moods represent affective properties not bound to any objects. (shrink)

Pain may appear to undermine the radically intentionalist view that the phenomenal character of any experience is entirely constituted by its representational content. That appearance is illusory. After categorizing versions of pain intentionalism along two dimensions, I argue that an 'objectivist' and 'non-mentalist' version is the most promising, if it can withstand two objections concerning what we say when in pain, and the distinctiveness of pain. I rebut these objections, in a way available to both opponents of and adherents (...) to the view that experiential content is entirely conceptual. (shrink)

Provides a clear and cogent defense of the intentionalist approach to the interpretation of texts.

The central and defining characteristic of thoughts is that they have objects. The object of a thought is what the thought concerns, or what it is about. Since there cannot be thoughts which are not about anything, or which do not concern anything, there cannot be thoughts without objects. Mental states or events or processes which have objects in this sense are traditionally called ‘intentional,’ and ‘intentionality’ is for this reason the general term for this defining characteristic of thought. Under (...) the heading of ‘thought’ we can include many different kinds of mental apprehension of an object—including relatively temporary episodes of contemplating or scrutinising, as well as persisting states like beliefs and hopes which are not similarly episodic in character. These are all ways of thinking about an object. But even construing ‘thought’ in this broad way, it is clear that not all mental states and events are thoughts: sensations, emotions and perceptual experiences are not thoughts, but they are also paradigmatically mental. Do these mental states and events have objects too? Or are there mental states and events which have no objects? (shrink)

In Lying and Insincerity, Andreas Stokke argues that bald-faced lies are genuine lies, and that lies are always assertions. Since bald-faced lies seem not to be aimed at convincing addressees of their contents, Stokke concludes that assertions needn’t have this aim. This conflicts with a traditional version of intentionalism, originally due to Grice, on which asserting something is a matter of communicatively intending for one’s addressee to believe it. I argue that Stokke’s own account of bald-faced lies faces serious (...) problems and give several responses on behalf of intentionalism. Some bald-faced lies are best understood as irrational attempts to deceive. Others are best understood as indirect speech acts of various kinds. Still, others are best understood as conventional speech acts, which differ from communicative acts like assertion in the ways that they must be embedded in social institutions or practices. An overarching theme of this essay is that we should not make theoretical decisions about how to classify speech acts by consulting ordinary usage. (shrink)

Traditionally, perceptual experiences—for example, the experience of seeing a cat—were thought to have two quite distinct components. When one sees a cat, one’s experience is “about” the cat: this is the representational or intentional component of the experience. One’s experience also has phenomenal character: this is the sensational component of the experience. Although the intentional and sensational components at least typically go together, in principle they might come apart: the intentional component could be present without the sensational component or vice (...) versa. (shrink)

How should we seek to account for the qualitative aspect of emotion? Strong intentionalism presents one promising avenue for such an account. According to strong intentionalism, the phenomenology of a mental state is entirely determined by that state's intentional content. Given that many views of the emotions have it that the intentionality and phenomenology of the emotions are very closely related, this makes strong intentionalism an especially promising route. However, strong intentionalism has rarely been defended for (...) emotions and, we argue, where it has, it has failed to be explanatory. This paper proposes a new explanatory form of strong intentionalism about emotion. We call it personal intentionalism. According to this view, the qualitative features of emotion are fully determined by the emotion's intentional content. This content varies inter- and intraindividually, according to one's cares and concerns, as well as one's other mental states. We assess its compatibility with theories of consciousness. (shrink)

Intentionalism is the claim that the phenomenological properties of a perceptual experience supervene on its intentional properties. The paper presents a counter-example to this claim, one that concerns visual grouping phenomenology. I argue that this example is superior to superficially similar examples involving grouping phenomenology offered by Peacocke (Sense and Content, Oxford: Oxford University Press), because the standard intentionalist responses to Peacocke’s examples cannot be extended to mine. If Intentionalism fails, it is impossible to reduce the phenomenology of (...) an experience to its content. (shrink)

In the philosophical debate about literary interpretation, the actual intentionalist claims, and the anti-intentionalist denies, that an acceptable interpretation of fictional literature must be constrained by the author’s intentions. I argue that a close examination of the two most influential recent strands in this debate reveals a surprising convergence. Insofar as both sides (a) focus on literary works as they are, where work identity is determined in part by certain (successfully realized) categorial intentions concerning, e.g., title, genre, and large-scale instances (...) of allusion, allegory, and irony and (b) allow that works can acceptably be interpreted for unintended meanings—since an intentional act can, under a different description, exhibit unintended features—then they turn out to share the same interpretive policy concerning authorial intention. This suggests that philosophers should shift the interpretation debate away from issues of authorial intention and toward issues about the aims of interpretation. (shrink)