Under Beardsley's definitions, an artist's intentions are not direct evidence of what a work means.

The real debate about the intentional fallacy is, or at least should be, over whether (1) provides criterial evidence for (2). Beardsley argues against an entailment relation between the two, admits that there’s an inductive relation but relegates it to the category of indirect evidence, and thinks the job is done. The intentionalist typically wonders how the meaning of a work can be utterly divorced from the voice, the uttering or creating with an intended meaning, of the artist, and brings up