Premium
The Unavailability of Authorial Intent
Author(s) -
Lin SzuYen
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
theoria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1755-2567
pISSN - 0040-5825
DOI - 10.1111/theo.12266
Subject(s) - unavailability , argument (complex analysis) , interpretation (philosophy) , meaning (existential) , interpreter , focus (optics) , epistemology , philosophy , judgement , linguistics , computer science , mathematics , programming language , statistics , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , optics
Abstract Monroe C. Beardsley's unavailability argument is one of the most underrated anti‐intentionalist arguments in the philosophy of interpretation. The main idea of this argument is that, since independent evidence of authorial intent is normally unavailable, the literary interpreter should focus on what a text means rather than on what the author intends it to mean. In this article I propose a revised version of the argument to show that the unavailability of authorial intent suffices to make actual intentionalism untenable as a recommendation for finding out textual meaning.