intentional fallacy the (purported) fallacy of holding that the meaning of a work of art is fixed by the artist’s intentions. (Wimsatt and Beardsley, who introduced the term, also used it to name the [purported] fallacy that the artist’s aims are relevant to determining the success of a work of art; however, this distinct usage has not gained general currency.) Wimsatt and Beardsley were formalists; they held that interpretation should focus purely on the work of art itself and should exclude appeal to biographical information about the artist, other than information concerning the private meanings the artist attached to his words.
Whether the intentional fallacy is in fact a fallacy is a much discussed issue within aesthetics. Intentionalists deny that it is: they hold that the meaning of a work of art is fixed by some set of the artist’s intentions. For instance, Richard Wollheim (Painting as an Art) holds that the meaning of a painting is fixed by the artist’s fulfilled intentions in making it. Other intentionalists appeal not to the actual artist’s intentions, but to the intentions of the implied or postulated artist, a construct of criticism, rather than a real person.
See also AESTHETIC FORMALISM , AESTHET – ICS , INTENTIO. B.Ga.