1. If a friend says oh, look at how green the grass is today, I have no doubt what she meant—I look about and see its punchy emerald hue. (If she were to say the grass was red, it would be quite another matter.)
I am often misunderstood. Despite this I rarely catch myself wondering mid-conversation how it is my words have meaning.
It is in quiet moments when I question how words mean.
At first I want to say: a word has meaning because it names something. This works for tables and chairs and the names of colors but not so well for shapes and numbers.
What if the meaning of a word functions not unlike pointing to indicate that instead of this? Okay, but point to an object’s shape as opposed to its color or number. How did you manage it?
Pointing seems to be a solid addition to this model. Let’s say that I was just wrong about pointing to something in the external world. Instead, words refer to some inner mental sense of meaning.
If I accept this then it would be as if my friend who wants me to notice the color of the grass has some big book in her head. Inside are lines and lines filled with every word she knows, beside each word is a mental sample or picture of the words meaning. Thus the words look, green, grass and the rest are essentially placeholders pointing back to the meaning housed in this index in her mind.
Ah, but then how do I know that her sample of green is the same as mine since I can’t very well lay my book alongside hers to check?
If this is true—and of all the models this seems the most functional—I can only know with certainty what green means in my own case.
2. It doesn’t matter if I can compare my friend’s sample of green to mine. It could be fire engine red for all it matters as long as we both identify grass as being green in color.
Words have meaning because they refer to what is in the world around us, by how they are used and the context in which they are used.
3. That is but process, one side of the coin. The obverse is occupied by the question: how are words understood?
I want to explain understanding in terms of a mental process. I hear a word and then a picture of it flashes before my mind’s eye. Is the flash or the picture the understanding?
Right off, I want to make understanding a mental process. I hear a word and it triggers some internal experience: whether it is a picture flashing before my mind’s eye, a feeling of a light bulb going off over my head or some effortless associative connection.
Are these experiences what understanding entails?
Well, if I see the quadratic equation all written out on a sheet of college-ruled notebook paper every time I solve a formula requiring the quadratic equation, the picture is not the understanding. Only, solving the problem is indicative that I understand. What every inner process can happen or not happen without consequence. For as long as I can comprehend the given information at the same time as knowing what to do what that information, I can be said to understand.
4. Although these are processes are a function of the other; it is a colossal mistake to conflate them..
5. All this has a bearing on a matter that aggravates the piss out of me: critics who go on and on about the intentions of the artist.
First off, there is the very practical consideration of what the fuck does ‘artistic intention’ even fucking mean. There are at least six different schools of thought—the majority deems matters of authorial intention to be irrelevant or unknowable.
What I understand ‘artistic intent’ to indicate is what an artist intended their work to mean. And this framing comes perilously close to the demonstrably erroneous view that a word has meaning by pointing to some mental conceptual index.
Like a word, a work of art means and is understood because it is tied not to anything inner but to a common place use in the world through which we move.
6. As best as I can tell the term ‘artistic intention’ indicate something closer to what might be termed ‘artistic pretense’. The artist has an idea or no idea whatsoever. They weigh medium, experiment with form and take into account any number of conceptual considerations.
The work comes out fully formed in one go; or, it takes them three thousand attempts. The artist edits, obsesses or doesn’t. Yet at a certain point the work reaches a point where it is ready to stand on its own two feet, to return to the wild.
In my own work, I find that if the work is especially well-executed, it eclipses my original vision for it. To speak of ‘artistic intention’ here is baffling to me.
(This reminds me of a scene in Anna Karenina where Anna and Vronsky visit a famous Russian painter-in-exile during the travels in Italy. It is my favorite scene in one of my two all-time favorite novels. Anna comments at length on a painting. The artist doesn’t completely agree with her but on one point, he is absolutely blown away by how much better her notion is than anything he had ever considered. After the couple departs, he makes several minor changes to the painting to more clearly suggest Anna’s interpretation.)
7. At the point when work enters the world with whatever facts are known, additional multi-valences and contexts, the audience is left to interpret it. Interpreting is not unlike understanding a word; it is no one thing. It can spark a memory, suggest some technical insight, and engender a purely aesthetic reaction.
Such responses do not necessarily get at the meaning of the work as much as revel the psyche of the audience. (Remember your AP English: never assume the narrator is interchangeable with the author.)
8. What if my friend does comment on the redness of the grass?
My first instinct is not to question whether she intended to say green. No, it is to question whether I understood her correctly. In other words, I am operating on the side of the meaning understanding coin that is appropriate considering who uttered the word and who heard the word uttered. For example, I might ask: did you really just say the grass was red?
If she maintains the grass is, in fact, red, I might wonder if she were color blind? Perhaps, she is pulling some elaborate prank reminiscent of Margritte. Or, suspect her of having taken some hallucinogen without offering any to me.
At this point, I am rather quite a ways into the scenario and I am still working at understanding what she meant, not questioning her intentions—and what would the point of that be as she has made it clear that she does emphatically intend red.
I might ask her to identify the color of a fire alarm box. Her answer her would implicate whatever was at issue as well as suggesting the subsequent actions to be taken.
9. ‘Artistic intention’ is a misnomer at best and at worst a fallacy. In effect, and inference with regard to intention arises from interpretation of/response to the work and not the work itself.
Similar to the way I can only know what my friend means by her words, I can only know what the artist means through their work. Trying to access the intention of the work is not an available option given that as a member of the audience my role is to understand.
Acetylene Eyes 