Abstract: "Three Kinds of Intention" (1972)
- Objections to authorial intention as a norm for the
interpretation
of texts often equivocate on various meanings of the word
"intention."
I distinguish three basic kinds: programmatic intention,
or the
intention to write something; active intention, or the
intention
that what one writes mean (and be recognized to mean) something;
and final
intention, or the intention to seek some contingent end
through the
instrumentality of what one writes. These three kinds of
intention relate
to J. A. Austin's trichotomy of the locutionary act, the
illocutionary
act, and the perlocutionary act.
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Michael Hancher
Department of English, University of Minnesota
URL: http://umn.edu/home/mh/abstkoi.html
Comments to: mh@umn.edu
Created February 1995
Last revised 17 September 1996