Abstract
This essay argues for a minimalist or redundant concept of intention. It claims that, as a heuristic notion that shapes but does not seek to govern interpretation, it may be useful, and, as a way of deciding which signifiers an author wished to use, it may even be indispensable. The pursuit of embodied intention in a text will respect intentionality as the incarnation of complex social actions, but it cannot reveal the author's intention as the cause and determinant of the text's meanings. These unfold over time within the constraints of a particular period, and encompass the manifold of contextual conditions, assumptions, and relations that make it possible to mean and understand anything in a particular place at a particular time, including collaborative procedures and the distribution of agencies exemplified by Shakespeare's practice. As a concept used in interpreting a text, intention is thus a retrospective construct made after the event; it does not consist of mental events that determine the meaning of any linguistic event. Furthermore, the debate about intention in Shakespeare shows that the role of intention (and its implicit appeals to certain kinds of authority) is at stake in the debate about authoritive critical discourse; it can't be used to settle it.
