A Defense of Interpretive Intentionalism

In the twentieth century, we witness various attitudes in different fields such ashermeneutics, literary theory, and semiotics a common point of which is opposinginterpretive intentionalism. According to them, the intention of the author does notplay any role in the process of understanding and interpreting the text, and weshould not take the real purpose and the intended meaning of the author as the goaland objective of semantic encounter with the text. On the other hand, authororientedness and interpretive intentionalism is one of the major characteristics of theacceptable and prevalent theory of interpretation among the Muslim scholars. Thepresent article seeks two objectives. First it is an attempt to study and criticize themajor reasons of the opponents of interpretive intentionalism defending the essentialrole of the intention of the author in the process of reading the text. Then it presentsan account of interpretive intentionalism free from the flaws and deficiencies ofcertain accounts of author orientedness.