Question

What is one way that an intentionalist can respond to the fallacy?

Answer 1

Intentional fallacy is a fallacy that involves an assessment of a literary work or art based on the author or the artist’s intended meaning rather than based on the actual response of the audience to the work.

The idea of intentional fallacy came form art critics W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley in their essay "The Intentional Fallacy." in which they argued that one can never know the rela intention of the artist behind a painting and the only way of derivativing the possibly real meanings of a painting are the ones based on the experience elf the critic or the viewer and the historico-cultural context of the artist.

Thus, one cannot understand intention at the moment of the work's creation. We don't have the opportunity to ask Van Gogh about his original concept or intention for his work like the ‘Potato Eaters’. However, an intentionalist will just as well approach the painting from such a position of having an access to the artist’s intent and thus respond in the negative to the existence of the intentional fallacy and produce evidence in the form of correlating the painting with the painter’s biographical details. However, the supporters of intentionlaism may commit the fallacy when they fail to relaize that Interpretation is only subject to what we see in the moment of viewing the painting.