Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA21881 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 3 May 2001 13:45:49 +0100 User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.0 (1513) Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 08:41:53 -0400 Subject: Re: Information From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B716CA50.9044%bbenzon@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <3AF0CE64.48384526@wehi.edu.au> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
on 5/2/01 11:20 PM, wilkins at wilkins@wehi.EDU.AU wrote:
>>>>
>>> Actually, #4 is VERY important, for it is significance, or meaning,
>>> that comprises a meme; that is what is propagated. Behaviors and
>>> discourse, the engines of imitation, MEAN something to those doing or
>>> saying them. A meme is the selfsame meme regardless of whether it is
>>> performed, spoken or written; it is not the code or carrier which
>>> matter (although one kind or another must obtain, which is of no
>>> consequence), but the content; that is, memetic identity is a matter
>>> of semantics and pragmatics, not syntactics.
>
> This is what I call the Intentional Fallacy (in reverse homage to
> Dennett).
FWIW, this term has an established use among aestheticians and literary
critics. I believe it was coined by Monroe Beardsley, but am not sure. In
this context the Intentional Fallacy is the notion that an author's (or
artist's) stated intention about a literary work is to be taken at face
value as a statement of what the work means or is about.
The idea was adopted by the so-called New Critics (after WWII) and was
intended to counter biographical approaches to literary criticism. The New
Critics believed that the text itself contained all you needed to formulate
a valid interpretation.
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