humanist fallacy

is the mistaken way that texts can be seen as an obstruction to a truer underlying meaning.

jib -This second angle represents the 'humanist fallacy' which Terry Eagleton defines as, 'The naïve notion that a literary text is just a kind of transcript of the living voice of a real man or woman addressing us.' (1983:120). Eagleton notes that in the humanist fallacy, the text is erroneously conceived of as an obstruction to discovering a 'truer' meaning that exist in the individual's intentions. The reader operating under this fallacy comes to the strange conclusion that, 'The print, in all its cold impersonality, interposes its ungainly bulk between ourselves and the author' (121).

is the naïve notion that a literary text is but the delivery system and thus also the obstruction to the 'intention' of the author'.

The naïve notion that a literary text is just a kind of transcript of the living voice of a real man or woman addressing us.' (1983:120). Eagleton notes that in the humanist fallacy, the text is erroneously conceived of as an obstruction to discovering a 'truer' meaning that exist in the individual's intentions. The reader operating under this fallacy comes to the strange conclusion that, 'The print, in all its cold impersonality, interposes its ungainly bulk between ourselves and the author' (121).

humanist fallacy, n.All

humanist fallacy