Against Theory

"From the standpoint of an argument against critical theory, then, the only important question about intention is whether there can in fact be intentionless meanings. If our argument against theory is to succeed, the answer to this question must be no (727)." This statement is all that I got out of the entire article. As many of my classmates have stated earlier, this article is one we could have done with out. The arguments were very confusing and quite frankly not very convincing. Hirsch never gave a firm argument for his theory or lack there of. His argument that "the meaning of a text "is, and can be, nothing other than the author's meaning" and "is determined once and for all by the character of the speaker's intention (725)." His argument is flawed. One can not only rely soley on the authour's intent. Sometimes there are things that come out with out the author even realizing it. This is why we analyze and interperet text using a wide range of techniques. The authors intention is only one aspect of analyzing and intepreting texts to is full potential.