So why does "intent" matter? The passage you cite explains why we can't know an artist's or his work's intent (if it can have one independently), but I don't understand how it supports the statement that "intent" matters. Intent may well matter or not, but these statements don't seem to support that conclusion one way or the other.
-----Original Message----- From: joseph berg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2008 9:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Suitable vs. unsuitable audience members, or, Why intent matters - ...Writing involves a similar disadvantage to painting. The productions of painting look like living beings, but if you ask them a question they maintain a solemn silence. The same holds true of written words; you might suppose that they understand what they are saying, but if you ask them what they mean by anything they simply return the same answer over and over again. Besides, once a thing is committed to writing it circulates equally among those who understand the subject and those who have no business with it; a writing cannot distinguish between suitable and unsuitable readers. And if it is ill-treated or unfairly abused it always needs its parent to come to its rescue; it is quite incapable of defending or helping itself. Plato (*Phaedrus.* Tr. Walter Hamilton.) http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/quotations.html
