Authors, Intentions and Literary Meaning

2018

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

Authorship, 2019

John Farrell, The Varieties of Authorial Intentions: Literary Theory Beyond the Intentional Fallacy. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

This thesis addresses the question of intentionality through the intellectual context of English literary theory in the twentieth century. The epistemological methodology, which is presented in the second chapter, is mainly developed from the works of Martin Heidegger, Ferdinand de Saussure and Jacques Derrida on language. The third chapter initially analyses the concept of intentionality in New Criticism; I make clear that New Criticism was epistemologically founded on metaphysical assumptions. I then argue that the context of the concept developed a different episteme derived from Continental phenomenology. Here the ontological discussions of intentionality by

Metaphilosophy

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.

Philosophy Compass, 2009

: 223 -47. Davies defends the value-maximizing view, according to which, when there is more than one conventional meaning consistent with the work's features, the meaning that should be attributed to the work is the one that makes the work out to be most aesthetically valuable. He allows for the attribution of multiple meanings when more than one candidate (approximately) maximizes the work's value.

Hypothetischer Intentionalismus. Rekonstruktion und Kritik. In: Journal of Literary Theory 1 (2007), S. 80–109, S. 227–228 (English Abstract).

The intentional fallacy debate marked the beginning of an extensive discussion about the role of intentions in the scholarly interpretation of literature. For a long time, treatments of intentionalism in the study of literature were centred on the question of whether the actual intentions of a text's author should or should not be taken into account when interpreting that text. This meant that the argument became reduced to a question of whether one adopted a positive or negative attitude to the relevance of actual intentions. More recently, however, the situation has increased in complexity. Alongside actual intentionalism, rival positions such as hypothetical intentionalism and fictionalist intentionalism are attracting increasing attention in present-day discussions of intentionalism.

At a time in the history of scholarly editing in the twentieth century when «authorial intention» was still, under Anglo-American principles of editorial scholarship, a load-star for the realizing of critical editions, this essay set out to critique the implications of the intentional stance. It endeavoured to show that invoking intention, if valid at all for reaching editorial decisions and arriving at critically edited texts, could claim a theoretical foot-hold only in a conception of the closed and determinate text. A stance in theory recognizing and defining texts as open and indeterminate, by contrast, would needs also foreground texts as by nature processual. In the processes of realizing and modifying texts, «intentions » as expressed in variation and revision will form strings of authors’ readings of successive validity. If and when scholarly editing takes its guidance from the processual variability of texts, «authorial intention is [seen to be no longer] a metaphysical notion to be fulfilled but a textual force to be studied». How such an approach to the forming of scholarly editions might prove to support their critical function is indicated by sketches of examples from texts by Bertolt Brecht and Ezra Pound.