Noël Carroll’s view on Meaning and the Mentality of Artist

Modest actual intentionalism’ is a view held by Noël Carroll, who maintains that the meaning of an artwork is determined by the successfully realized intentions of its author. After calling himself modest actual intentionalist, for a long time, Carroll recently has chosen to change position and, now, he holds a view which he calls ‘modest actual mentalism’. Why he preferred to change his account and how is the latter position different from the former? He did not offer a clear account of the constitution of meaning in his former period, but it seems that he accepts a framework which is based on M-intentions. I argue that this framework is not always suitable for the explanation of meaning. Works of art have implications that are not intended by their writers and I claim that some intentionalists, like Carroll, tend to cover such cases by regarding them as an aspect of the work’s significance, or, are inclined to link them with the unconscious intentions of the author. The former relate those implications solely to the responses of audiences which, I argue, is counterintuitive, on some occasions; and the latter is not justified by a framework, based on M-intentions. I argue that because of these fundamental problems in intentionalism, Carroll, chose to shift to mentalism, which is more powerful and resilient with regard to some counterexamples