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    An author can intentionally produce the marks 'the cat is... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The proposition that a text means whatever the author intends is false.

    An author can intentionally produce the marks 'the cat is on the mat' with the intention of using those words in English, while also intending the words to mean that dogs are carnivorous.

    Philosophy of Language
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    Philosophy of Language

    Key Terms

    Semantic meaning (or 'mean' in philosophy)(The statement explores the gap between what words are supposed to mean versus what an author might intend them to mean)
    What a word or phrase is supposed to refer to or communicate—basically, what it stands for or represents.
    intentionality(Philosophy of mind and emotion)
    The property of being object-directed; the quality of mental states whereby they are directed at or about something
    linguistic convention(Philosophy of language; used to ground the relationship between speaker intention and sentence meaning)
    A function of overall community understanding, treatment, and belief regarding what a sentence means

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    Even granting that marks without intentions are meaningless, it does not follow ...Regardless of the author's intention that 'the cat is on the mat' means dogs are...The proposition that a text means whatever the author intends is false.The speaker's meaning (what the speaker intends) and the sentence's meaning (wha...

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    Regardless of the author's intention that 'the cat is on the mat' mean...89%Sentences like 'The cat is on the mat' are referred to by quoted expre...75%The Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNA) is incorrect because it predicts...73%A text means whatever the author intends it to mean71%

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    Even if we grant for the sake of argument the not-at-all-obvious premise that marks without intentions are meaningless, the proposition that a text means whatever the author intends does not follow (see Sinnott-Armstrong 2005; Berman 2009, 47-49) – and it is false. Given the premise, the marks “the cat is on the mat” would have no meaning unless their maker produced them intentionally. So, let’s assume that an author produces those marks intentionally – specifically, with the intention of using

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