Are You an Intentional Fallacy?
Monday by Caitlin
Is the thought what really counts?
OK, let's say you are a female (not to be sexist or anything, but this is purely hypothetical). You hear a knock on the door, and when you open the door, your boyfriend is standing there, beaming. You let him in, wondering what he's smiling about.
"Hi! I thought about buying you flowers today. Isn't that great?!" he says, still smiling.
Would this make you happy? I mean, it's nice that he thought about buying you flowers, but is that really the same thing as actually getting them for you?
That is kind of a vague example, so let me try another one.
It's Valentine's Day, and you found your boyfriend the perfect gift (yes, this is a female speaking. Sorry for the bias, but it's what I know!) and can't wait to give it to him. You don't expect anything big from him, but he's been hinting at getting you this beautiful necklace you've been talking about for a long time. You give your boyfriend the gift you bought him, and he's ecstatic. He seems really excited to give you your gift, so you close your eyes and eagerly wait for him to put that necklace on you.
Well, you sit there with your eyes closed for about five minutes with a stupid smile on your face, and nothing happens. You finally open your eyes, and just look at your boyfriend, waiting for something to happen.
"I thought about getting you that necklace you want...but I didn't...umm..." he says, trailing off. "Isn't it the thought that counts? Huh?"
Again, these aren't really realistic examples. What I'm trying to say is that it ISN'T the thought that counts, with anything. Wimsatt and Beardsley would agree with me.
W & B, in their "intentional fallacy," say that in regards to literature (specifically poetry), the intention of the poet is irrelevant when the reader interprets the poem. Apparently, many poets thought that they could write poems with hidden meaning that only they understand, or they wrote poems that just didn't make sense. If the reader, in searching for the meaning of the poem, can't determine it by him/herself by purely reading the poem, and the reader feels the need to look at biographical information to figure out what the meaning of the poem is, then the poem is rendered to be inadequate. Basically, if there is a distinction between what the poet meant to do, and what the poem actually does, then the poem is ineffective.
So, let's take this poem:
"Riding the bike in the rain
I go to Mr. Bob's house
Apple pie and strudels
The cat
and scrambled eggs and bacon."
Isn't that a wonderful poem? It's so groundbreaking and fresh! What do you think it means?
I'm sure you could pull some kind of random meaning out of it, but it really doesn't make sense. I wrote that amazing piece of work, by the way. And if you wanted to figure out what it meant, you could go into my biography and see that I lived next door to Mr. Bob when I was little, and his family made me apple pie and strudels, with a side of eggs and bacon. Oh, and he had a cat that I liked. After you read that information, you could maybe get what the poem meant.
BUT, if that's what it took to figure out what my poem meant, then that was basically a bad poem. Well, maybe not a bad poem, but it is ineffective. Poems like that are kind of a secret code, and that isn't cool because it isn't public, that's private. There's no way anyone could figure out exactly what I meant by just reading the poem. And, according to W & B, no one should have to figure out what I meant- if the reader couldn't figure it out by reading the poem, then that's just bad.
That's just a way I try to understand the Intentional Fallacy. It's the fallacy of intent. What you intend is irrelevant; what you do is what's relevant. I think this could apply to many different areas of life.
OK, let's say you are a female (not to be sexist or anything, but this is purely hypothetical). You hear a knock on the door, and when you open the door, your boyfriend is standing there, beaming. You let him in, wondering what he's smiling about.
"Hi! I thought about buying you flowers today. Isn't that great?!" he says, still smiling.
Would this make you happy? I mean, it's nice that he thought about buying you flowers, but is that really the same thing as actually getting them for you?
That is kind of a vague example, so let me try another one.
It's Valentine's Day, and you found your boyfriend the perfect gift (yes, this is a female speaking. Sorry for the bias, but it's what I know!) and can't wait to give it to him. You don't expect anything big from him, but he's been hinting at getting you this beautiful necklace you've been talking about for a long time. You give your boyfriend the gift you bought him, and he's ecstatic. He seems really excited to give you your gift, so you close your eyes and eagerly wait for him to put that necklace on you.
Well, you sit there with your eyes closed for about five minutes with a stupid smile on your face, and nothing happens. You finally open your eyes, and just look at your boyfriend, waiting for something to happen.
"I thought about getting you that necklace you want...but I didn't...umm..." he says, trailing off. "Isn't it the thought that counts? Huh?"
Again, these aren't really realistic examples. What I'm trying to say is that it ISN'T the thought that counts, with anything. Wimsatt and Beardsley would agree with me.
W & B, in their "intentional fallacy," say that in regards to literature (specifically poetry), the intention of the poet is irrelevant when the reader interprets the poem. Apparently, many poets thought that they could write poems with hidden meaning that only they understand, or they wrote poems that just didn't make sense. If the reader, in searching for the meaning of the poem, can't determine it by him/herself by purely reading the poem, and the reader feels the need to look at biographical information to figure out what the meaning of the poem is, then the poem is rendered to be inadequate. Basically, if there is a distinction between what the poet meant to do, and what the poem actually does, then the poem is ineffective.
So, let's take this poem:
"Riding the bike in the rain
I go to Mr. Bob's house
Apple pie and strudels
The cat
and scrambled eggs and bacon."
Isn't that a wonderful poem? It's so groundbreaking and fresh! What do you think it means?
I'm sure you could pull some kind of random meaning out of it, but it really doesn't make sense. I wrote that amazing piece of work, by the way. And if you wanted to figure out what it meant, you could go into my biography and see that I lived next door to Mr. Bob when I was little, and his family made me apple pie and strudels, with a side of eggs and bacon. Oh, and he had a cat that I liked. After you read that information, you could maybe get what the poem meant.
BUT, if that's what it took to figure out what my poem meant, then that was basically a bad poem. Well, maybe not a bad poem, but it is ineffective. Poems like that are kind of a secret code, and that isn't cool because it isn't public, that's private. There's no way anyone could figure out exactly what I meant by just reading the poem. And, according to W & B, no one should have to figure out what I meant- if the reader couldn't figure it out by reading the poem, then that's just bad.
That's just a way I try to understand the Intentional Fallacy. It's the fallacy of intent. What you intend is irrelevant; what you do is what's relevant. I think this could apply to many different areas of life.
