Abstract

This essay is my contribution to a symposium responding to several papers by Walter Benn Michaels that bring the work of Elizabeth Anscombe to bear on philosophical problems of artistic representation. In it, I take Benn Michaels's side in a dispute with Dominic McIver Lopes over the difference between Anscombe's view of intentional agency and that of Donald Davidson. I also critique Benn Michaels's reading of a difficult passage in section 29 of Anscombe's INTENTION, where she presents the famous case in which "I shut my eyes and write something". There is also some discussion of the work of Robert Morris and the differing roles for intention in painting compared with photography. (Benn Michaels responds to my arguments elsewhere in the same issue.)