A Fallacy In The Intentional Fallacy

by James Downey

A ccording 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 author’s intention is not
available as a standard by which to judge a work’s 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 difficulty is there for intentionalism if the poem itself shows what
the author’s 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 poem’s
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?

Philosophy and Literature, © 2007, 31: 149–152

150 Philosophy and Literature

It is not my main concern, however, to question the implications of

the argument’s premises. I wish to challenge the basic premise, itself,
that if an intention is successful then the work would show that it was
the author’s intention. I will assume that this means, at least, that the
reader would understand a certain intention and know that it was the
author’s 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 Dalí claims that he and Luis Buñuel used when creating
Un Chien Andalou, to put together whatever images came to their mind
without any particular intentions directing them. Indeed, Dalí 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 Buñuel 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 definite 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, Dalís 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, Dalí 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
Dalí 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 i’s 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,
 James Downey 151

certain artistic intentions are such that necessarily if they succeed, then
the reader does not know they are the author’s 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 Dalís cannot conceivably
succeed at their grandest artistic intentions. Anyone who appreciates
those intentions should conclude the former. Beardsley and Wimsatt’s
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 author’s intentions.
Another objection might be that if I am correct, then a fortiori Beard-
sley and Wimsatt’s 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 author’s 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 author’s intention; we might even find justification in the work for
suspecting that it is the author’s 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 author’s 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
author’s intention, despite the fact that we won’t know for certain. We
can seek this knowledge because we won’t know at the outset that we
won’t obtain it.
Our understanding the occult intention through the work, and our
awareness of the possibility that it was the author’s 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
152 Philosophy and Literature

particular result is not necessarily intended by the author. We won’t

know.
Why can’t 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
author’s 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 Wimsatt’s 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 Scribner’s Sons, 1962), pp. 91–105.