Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 20:36:27 +0100
From: "Larbaud Jr." <larbaud-AT-mandic.com.br>
Subject: Re: PLC: Intentional Fallacy


George Trail wrote:
> 
> >> >John Palcewski
> >>
> >> I must intrude here that the above is incorrect. I quote directly from W &
> >> B's essay: ". . .the design or intention of the author is neither available
> >> nor desirable as a stndard for judging the success of a work of literary
> >> art." The fallacy is to judge a work by its fulfillment of that
> >> (unavailable) intention. The distinction between this and what John asserts
> >> is crucial.
> >>
> >> g
> >> (aka g trail, engl. u. of houston)
> >
> > If the intention of an author is always unavailable, then it seems to
> >me that you just can't state that 'the above is incorrect'. This can be
> >a metaphor or a lyrical view on the issue, things that can't be
> >'incorrect'.
> >Without the assumption of any intention, communication seems to be
> >impossible.
> >
> >Larbaud Jr.
> 
> I didn't say it was always unavailable, I said it was neither available nor
> desirable _as a standard for judging the success of a work. . . _. Yes? You
> are correct. I cannot say that it is incorrect, but I did. Took the jump.
> Made a bet. Worked out too. Irony is a tricky thing. I don't mean any of
> this. But then you didn't mean what you wrote either (in spite of whatever
> you might say in _another_ post). Any linguistic argument about meaning is
> subject to your _reductio_. That, for me, does not mean we should therefore
> shut up. One never said that intention was not _assumed_. One never said it
> _ought not_ be assummed. One simply said that it was unavailable outside
> the work itself.
> 
> Cheers,
> g

 Ok.
I just want to point out that people go a little too quickly when they
say that intentionality is dead.
I may agree that to determine the intention of the author is difficult
and, in some cases, critically irrelevant. But you always have to assume
some intention in communication, and this makes intention a
transcendental condition of language, in my humble opinion.
In a particular case, you can hardly determine - logically or
scientifically - which intention is that. But this is part of the art of
criticism.

Larbaud Jr.
-- 
"Eine Zeit missversteht die andere; und eine kleine Zeit missversteht
alle andern in ihrer eigenen hässlichen Weise."