What is the Paradox of Intentionality? (Death of the Author)

[@Merione]

I believe that the way to resolve this "paradox" is to consider the goal of the interpreter. Why are you interpreting the work in the first place? Is it for personal enjoyment? Then I would argue that the author's intent matters much less than your personal experience (even though knowing the author's intent can still enrich and shape that experience for you). Are you doing historical/biographical research on that specific author? Then the author's interpretation is the most important thing to consider. Are you trying to assess a work's cultural impact? Then the general/most popular opinions about the work are what matter the most, even if they don't match the author's. Whenever the question is in the form "Does x matter more or less than y?", the correct next logical step should always be "Matter to what purpose?"

[@ramenpower8097]

This was a great video about waffles (that’s how I interpreted it)

[@joecoolmccall]

I have a great deal of trouble finding common ground with people who totally throw authorial intent out the window at least when it comes to liturature.

[@punkrider8758]

Was just thinking about this topic 2 hours ago...cool! The author doesn't escape the burden of proof, therefore their word is not law. If the topic is about: What does the author think? Then his interpretation matters! If the topic is: What does the text mean? Then the position deposited must be argued!

[@RENATVS_IV]

For me, the main (let's not say "correct") interpretation is the artist's one, because he's the reason the piece of art was made. The other ones derived from the piece itself are valid, in the sense that if you don't know the artist's intention, it might be a good meaning of the piece If the artist had different interpretations, he's enabling others to take the best one, and/or propose their own ones

[@cliffordhodge1449]

It's a complicated and troubling problem. If you detach, as it were, the intention from the literary (or speech) act you seem to be letting in the possibility that the work is sort of free-standing with no more "true" meaning than a puddle of water. If the creator/writer lacks the standing to say what a work "means", just how far removed from the original intention must someone be for us to say his pronouncement on the meaning is totally bankrupt, a complete nullity as regards the meaning of the work in question? On the other hand, it seems there is some difference between a simple utterance like "No" on the one hand and a protracted act such as writing a novel or a philosophy paper.

[@Eta_Carinae__]

As an externalist about meaning, I don't see this as a problem. I see the decidability of meaning as no different to any other epistemic dispute about anything else - "Death of the author... and the audience." I think the way we test the meaning of a text is no different to the way we test any other hypothesis - empirically, i.e. we observe _the text itself._ A puddle of water doesn't have meaning since it isn't a truth-bearer, but propositions do, particularly those where the puddle is the subject. So it is with texts.

[@nickswilliamson]

That was a wonderful and concise explanation of the fallacy. Thanks. My view: as @InventiveHarvest says below, art takes at least two. I think SH Butcher answers the question of intentionality adequately in his commentary on Aristotle's Ars Poetica; as the aesthetic effect is born out of the joining of the artist's artifact (matter) with the viewer's grasp (form), the intention of the work to is to generate that surprise (epiphany) or in Thomistic terms that claritas which in consonantia (joining of artist and viewer in the spiritual space of intellect) will generate the integritas (wholeness) reflected in each viewer's own unique attachment to the work and hence the artist. That's how an artist's artifact can perpetually remain an open field of creation; each viewer's personal reaction to the work builds or creates a bond between the two, viewer and artist, that imitates the relationship between a male and female in procreation (albeit that in a material or bodily space). Keep it up. I love these little video aphorisms.

[@km1dash6]

It seems a bit hard to believe that an author's word means absolutely nothing for the artwork. If anything, it does provide context. If a person says they painted a field of bunnies, but to you it looks like a graveyard, we can at the very least say "the artist said those are bunny ears, but to some people they look like tume stones." Of course, the author's intent may not be the end-all be-all, as there are sometimes subconscious themes that bleed through and sometimes people don't know why they do something. With authors, it seems like there is no problem in saying each author can say what they think about what they created, and all those thoughts provide context. They don't definitively determine anything, but just like how in linguistics context and history matter, the same is true in art.

[@InventiveHarvest]

Communication requires at least two people. If the receiver interprets the art differently than intended, then communication was not achieved. In these cases, the art has two meanings - the intended message and the received message. I recently uploaded several paintings of supervillains I made into Google Gemini. The AI thought that my Baron Zeno was a vase of roses, but the other paintings the AI deciphered well. It not only recognized the specific characters, but spoke about their anger or determination. It correctly stated the mood the paintings were each conveying. Does this count as communication when it is with a computer? Does the AI's ability to decipher art give the art meaning?

[@BradleyZS]

The way I see it is the author/artist intent in making the art is the objective meaning, and anyone else interpreting has a subjective meaning. Both exist at once, there are a limited number of objective meanings (effectively the motive) possibly infinite subjective ones. The objective only exists in the author's mind and isn't necessarily the same thing as what they say. When the work is complete they become an observer and their interpretation of the meaning after the fact is subjective. Only the objective can be correct or incorrect, the subjective is all poetic in nature - emotional, while our emotions are true to ourselves they aren't absolute and change. In collaborative work, the authors are also observers. They may have different intents or the same and if they differ they are a partial truth but not a whole truth. Now, if I haven't been unhinged enough, I'll do so now. AI doesn't make art, and neither do humans. Art is a skill, artwork is the product. AI also doesn't make artworks, and not all 'artists' make artworks as I'll explain with AI. An AI that is trained, that doesn't learn on its own, has fitness rather than skill. That is, the ability is gauged by its means to fulfill a role. In image generation an AIs fitness is how well it creates something we would consider to match the prompt. Where this applies to other 'artists' who aren't is that not all skills are arts. The art, as I am defining it, is a creative skills whereas skill is just the ability to do something. For example, following a tutorial or drawing a refence exactly builds/takes skill (fitness like with an AI), but drawing an original or stylised image is art. Some commision work could also be considered 'skillworks' rather than 'artworks'. AI generated images, "fitworks", on their own have no objective meaning, only subjective.

[@adenjones1802]

Death of the author doesn't really exist. It is more accurate to say theft of the author because you are making the interpreter the author of their own self made up message. If you have author x and reader y, and reader y interprets author x's words however the hell they want to regardless of what x meant, then just as the author x tried to imbue the words with meaning, now that job is moving to reader y. Reader y essentially becomes the author and they functionally gain authorial intent. So death of the author hasn't achieved anything meaningful. It only strips the process of making and consuming art of empathy between humans.

[@dragonrykr]

Well is it a paradox or a fallacy?

[@DevinBigSeven]

I think if intentionality is intentionally encoded, such as in certain kinds of speech or writing acts, then the author has primacy over the interpretation, but then it's probably not art at that point because the primary purpose is to communicate utilitarian information. Is the author trying to be correctly understood? So a drawing depicting a scientific observation wouldn't be art and there should be a clear consensus on its interpretation that includes the author and viewers or it's a bad depiction. Similarly, the example given of a compliment being interpreted as an insult would be a breakdown in communication; the speaker and listener are working of off different background information that they would need to overcome to understand the idea that was failing to be conveyed in the speech act. Precision is not a required quality of art and can't be the primary, and art can't be considered incorrect, so I don't think the author's full intent survives in the work. So the relationship between the author and viewer can't be one where intentionality is expected to be communicated so art interpretations are subjective.

[@karldehaut]

I will give an example to all lovers of a certain realism where the sentences precisely describe the objective features of the world. A horrible literary example and moreover about an Italian poet. Buy an Italian edition with commentaries on Dante's Divine Comedy. You will see a tercet on a page and below 4 paragraphs of explanation which starts from Boccaccio to B Croce. Yet Dante knew how to express himself.

[@EvanG529]

There are no right and wrong interpretations, but there are definitely stupid interpretations.

[@jaredgreen2363]

It’s what the individuals responsible intended at the time. When there are multiple authors, for each one that applies to their contribution. For ai art, it’s up to the user. The only exception being if the literal content directly contradicts the stated intention even in the authors dialect.(what is inferred through symbolism doesn’t count)

[@cliffordhodge1449]

Author: "My book argues that the author does not have a privileged perspective on the meaning of his work." Reader of the book: "No it doesn't. It argues that pigs can fly." Something seems wrong here.

[@MIKAEL212345]

There is a difference between what an author writes about their own text and the text itself. If the quote above comes from the book, then yes, it is silly. However, if the authors comments on their book then I don't really see it as silly.

[@rugbybeef]

Did not Marcel Duchamp pose this question when he submitted his work 𝘍𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 to the Society of Independent Artists of which he was a board member? But for Duchamp's artistic flare and positioning, his sculpture would likely have been urinated on for decades. Instead that particular pig flew, and in flight forced his former colleagues to acknowledge his message in submitting the work. The pig's flight can be the criticism.

[@treesb201]

Whatever the author or artist intended is what takes primacy. Others can have different interpretations, but they should not supersede what the creator intended. I don't believe AI has any intentions, so it does not have the same motivation or intention as a human creating art. One should look to whomever is using AI rather than AI itself if there's a need to find a reason for the work.

[@prbmax]

For the algorithm. You can agree or disagree or have your own interpretation.