From: open1-AT-execpc.com
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 15:55:53 -0700
Subject: Re: PLC: Intentional Fallacy


Brian Connery wrote:
> 
> Isn't this again the issue of authority? Who has authority over the
> text's meaning?
> 
> I'm struck by how different some people's analyses are here from the
> positions they took in regard to political authority.
> 
> In any case, I'd like to push the discussion to its inevitable crux
> with the thought problem of an intentionless text. Beardsley, in one
> of his last essays I believe, claims that a computer generated text is
> as meaningful and as potentially beautiful as a human generated one.
> Barthes, in "The Death of the Author," like Reg in gesturing towards
> Hopscotch, claims that much modern literature is, in fact,
> intentionless.

I have dabbled in computer text recognition, parsing and artificial intelligence.  Not 
suprisingly, my program, when asked "Does God exist?" will dutifully respond "Yes."  
This is not because I explictily programed the answer, but because I programmed my 
understanding of reality.  Is there intentionality here?  Yes.  Whose?  Mine.  The 
program is a my "canned" intent as much as any other text I write.

> (Knapp and Benn Michaels, in the essay that Howard mentioned a long
> time ago, "Against Theory," claim the opposite--saying that squiggles
> on the sand of a beach that look like letters remain squiggles until
> we posit an author who intends (i.e., means) something.)

And they remain squiggles after that as well - but now squiggles with a possible 
meaning. Whose meaning?  Perhaps the author - if there is an author, or, perhaps, as 
with tea leaves, the reader is the source of the meaning.  In either case the meaning 
arises out of some intentional state.

> Whaddayall think?... 
> Brian
> 
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> Brian Connery
> connery-AT-oakland.edu
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dennis Polis