Saying more than we intend

Gracia nicely illustrates how meaning can go beyond authorial intention with a reference to games: “one of the plays makes a move the significance of which he does not quite grasp. For the player is the author of the move, and wins or loses accordingly, by virtue of the fact that he is a player engaged in the game. Likewise, an author is a player in the textual game and, in authoring a text, is to be taken as intending to convey a specific meaning, even if not fully aware of all that is contained in the specific meaning in question.”

It’s a common experience for teachers: A student offers a suggestion that, because of his relative ignorance of the subject, is sillier or more brilliant than he realizes.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Rome and the Church in the United States

George Weigel

Archbishop Michael J. Curley of Baltimore, who confirmed my father, was a pugnacious Irishman with a taste…

Marriage Annulment and False Mercy

Luma Simms

Pope Leo XIV recently told participants in a juridical-pastoral formation course of the Roman Rota that the…

Undercover in Canada’s Lawless Abortion Industry

Jonathon Van Maren

On November 27, 2023, thirty-six-year-old Alissa Golob walked through the doors of the Cabbagetown Women’s Clinic in…