A FALLACY IN THE INTENTIONAL FALLACY

by James Downey

According to a famous argument by W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, the intention of the author is neither available nor desir-able as a standard by which to judge the success of a work of literary art. I wish to focus on the former allegation. The authors intention is not available as a standard by which to judge a works success, it is argued, because If the poet succeeded in doing it [the intention], then the poem itself shows what he was trying to do. And if the poet did not succeed, then the poem is not adequate evidence, and the critic must go outside the poem.1

The intent of this reasoning is not entirely clear. It is intended to pose a dilemma for intentionalism, but what is the dilemma supposed to be? What dif1culty is there for intentionalism if the poem itself shows what the authors intention was? Perhaps it is supposed to follow that somehow intentionalism would be purposeless. Perhaps the point is Socratic: if the intention is successful, then the reader automatically knows it was intended, so that the intention cannot be sought. Or, perhaps it is the success which cannot be sought. The idea may be that one automatically knows the extent of success precisely to the extent that one recognizes the intention. Perhaps both points are intended.

On the other side of the dilemma, suppose the intention is not suc-cessful and the critic must go outside the poem. Is this supposed to imply that whatever meaning is thereby discovered will not be the poems meaning? Or, is the idea that being forced to go outside the poem for evi-dence of its meaning violates some essential goal of intentionalism?

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It is not my main concern, however, to question the implications of the arguments premises. I wish to challenge the basic premise, itself, that if an intention is successful then the work would show that it was the authors intention. I will assume that this means, at least, that the reader would understand a certain intention and know that it was the authors intention, and that the work would provide this knowledge.

Sometimes an author deliberately composes without thematic inten-tions. I take my example from cinematic art because it is a particularly striking example, and the point clearly holds for other forms of art. Furthermore, the intentional fallacy is usually thought to apply to other forms of art in addition to literary art. So, let us consider the method which Salvador Dal claims that he and Luis Buuel used when creating Un Chien Andalou, to put together whatever images came to their mind without any particular intentions directing them. Indeed, Dal claimed, if there was even a pause between the artists, a mere moment when it seemed as though some directed thought might be beginning to take hold of them, he and Buuel immediately discarded that idea. They retained only those ideas which arose with no thematic intentions, or intentions as to larger meaning. (We may set aside the fact that there were still formal intentions, such as what images to present, in what order, etc.although even this can be eliminated to some degree, as when an artist cuts up bits of sound tapes and splices them together willy-nilly, and so forth.) In such a work of art, it is not possible that any such intentions be shown, since there are none.

But there is still a de1nite intention behind such art, namely, the intention to compose with no thematic intentions. This intention could be successfully shown to an audience through a work, certainly. How-ever, Dals often intend otherwise (so they say). They may intend not to reveal whether or not there are certain, or even any, thematic intentions (perhaps that is an intentional anti-religious theme in that scene in Un Chien Andalou, after all; we do not know.) Perhaps, even, Dal does not want us to know whether he wants us not to know. An intention not to reveal might apply to the intention not to reveal. What a grand game Dal might be playing (but we do not know whether this is so)!

Suppose, then, that an artist has the intention i, which is the inten-tion to mean such and such without revealing so. To succeed at i cannot possibly require showing the viewer that it was intended. Necessarily that would constitute is failure. There may even be a higher order artistic intention not to reveal whether the intention is not to reveal. Again, in order to be successful, such intentions must necessarily be occult. Thus,

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certain artistic intentions are such that necessarily if they succeed, then the reader does not know they are the authors intentions and the work does not reveal them.

Therefore, either there is no universalizable basis for the main assumption of the intentional fallacy, or else Dals cannot conceivably succeed at their grandest artistic intentions. Anyone who appreciates those intentions should conclude the former. Beardsley and Wimsatts premise is not axiomatic. There is a fallacy in the intentional fallacy.

It may be objected that my point is rather limited in scope, and that their argument may still apply to much of art. But artists often cook with a pinch of the occult intention, intending to disguise certain of their intentions, perhaps many of their intentions to some degree, including that very intention. Even outside of surrealism and other such modern art, it is not true that successful intentions will always be revealed clearly as the authors intentions.

Another objection might be that if I am correct, then a fortiori Beard-sley and Wimsatts point holds. For, have I not granted that these occult intentions are not available in the work?

I reply that the occult intentions fail if we ever know for certain, through the work, that they are the authors intentions. But they might succeed even if we come close to, but fall short of certain knowledge. Furthermore, there is a deeper ambiguity in the claim that an intention is available or shown in a work. It is possible for a work to acquaint us with that type of intention, as an idea, without our knowing that the author had it. As the result of our critical analysis of a work we might come to understand and appreciate the occult intention as a possible intention, without knowing that it is present. We might suspect that it is the authors intention; we might even 1nd justi1cation in the work for suspecting that it is the authors intention. Only, we are not to know, or not to know with certainty, or at least not to know that we know. In this way such a work shows the authors intention in a sense that is compatible with our being able to seek it: it teaches us the nature of such an intention, and allows (seduces) us to seek whether it is the authors intention, despite the fact that we wont know for certain. We can seek this knowledge because we wont know at the outset that we wont obtain it.

Our understanding the occult intention through the work, and our awareness of the possibility that it was the authors intention at the moment of the creative act (p. 92), but not knowing, and our appre-ciating this situation, constitutes the success of the work. But even this

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particular result is not necessarily intended by the author. We wont know.

Why cant this be part of an intentionalist success standard by which to judge the value and the meaning of a work through the work itself? The type of unavailability that is essential to occult intentions does not seem to undermine intentionalism. Rather, uncovering the very illusive-ness of such intentions could provide a further project that enriches the intentionalist program. Even if this purpose were said to lack certain attributes of intentionalism proper, it still provides the relevant contrast to alternative methodologies which do not care about the issue of the authors intentions.

I am not supporting the intentionalist program, but only challenging a well-known, foundational and still very popular argument against its possibility. I hope to have shown that the argument against intentionalism presented in section 2 of Beardsley and Wimsatts article fails because its main premise is false. Or should I say, this is at least an intention of mine which I wish the reader to know.

Hollins University

1. William K. Wimsatt, Jr., Monroe Beardsley, The Intentional Fallacy, in Philosophy Looks at the Arts, ed. Joseph Margolis (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1962), pp. 91105.

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