Intentions in the Experience of Meaning

by Raymond W. Gibbs

Overview

Does our understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's plays demand that we know exactly who Shakespeare really was and what he intended to communicate in his work? This volume examines the role that authorship plays in people's experience of language and art as meaningful human artifacts, as well as reviewing the fierce debates over these issues both within academia and popular culture. It is argued that many aspects of our understanding of language (both oral and written) and artworks (paintings, music, theater, etc.) rests on people's fundamental, often unconscious, bias to seek who created something and for what communicative purpose.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521572453
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/13/1999
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.06(d)
Lexile:	1530L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction: 1. The controversy over intentions; Part II. Searching For Intentions: 2. Intentions and intentional action; 3. Meaning and communication; 4. Inferring intentionality in experience; Part III. Intentions in Discourse: 5. Spoken language; 6. Saying what we don't mean; 7. Writing and reading; Part IV. Intentions in Criticism; 8. Questions of authorship; 9. Literary interpretation and criticism; 10. Interpreting the law; 11. Understanding art; Part V. Conclusion: 12. The intentional mind.