this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Sounds like we're talking about a speech act.
If the question is intention vs. perception, intention all the way. Perception of a speech act should track the intent of the speaker, otherwise the perception has failed.
There are of course ways a person can make their intention clearer, particularly by following rules/norms of communication, and a person receiving or processing that communication should also utilize understanding of those rules to interpret (to properly perceive) the information.
But if both parties are doing their level best to clearly encode and decode the information, but the perceived message varies from the intended one, which one is closer to the truth? Intention. And over the long term truth wins out.
With this argument it puts the burden of understanding on the listener. That's like saying it's little kids fault for not understanding the teacher.
Not quite saying that.
What I'm saying is that communication is a burden upon the speaker and the listener, or the writer and the reader. The encoder and the decoder. But any way you look at it, the goal is to communicate (on the part of the encoder) and discern (on the part of the decoder) the intent of the communication act. It's not about fault or responsibility when communication fails, but what's more important in understanding a communication act.
See, I don't disagree with that - because that shifts the statement to be 'encoder and decoder share responsibility for intention and perception' - which is more reasonable, but does not marry up with your original statement of intention all the way.
Well the question which it was trying to answer was "Which is more important?" without further context. We've all had to fill the blanks around "more important for what?" The intent is somewhat unclear, ironically enough.
I've interpreted as a question about communication, or specifically about which of these two factors is more important in determining how communication ought to be interpreted. A way to rephrase the question as I interpreted it could be "When a communication fails, when the interpretation varies from the intent, which merits greater consideration in determining the final disposition of the communication? Do we circle back to the intent of the statement, or does meaning imbued in the new interpretation take precedence?"
So it's to that question that I say it's intention all the way, and that if we iteratively communicate with the goal of making intent and interpretation match, the goal should be to arrive at the intent of the initial communicator and not to convince the intial communicator that the interpreter's initial interpretation was correct.
Of course I might have misunderstood what OP was asking, idk.
I agree that the goal would be for perception to match intent. But the acknowledgement that in order to do so we must iterate on a poor first communication highlights the fact that the perception is the important aspect as intent is static and unchanged by further iteration.
If perception wasn't at least as important as intent, then you could make a well intentioned communication and not worry if it was received correctly.
I did write some more but managed to fat-finger delete it and now I can't remember what I was trying to say. I'm hoping my point has still come across clearly? Sorry!
To the ends of coherent communication, intent always has to have priority over perception. That's not to absolve speakers of responsibility for failures of communication, just to define the ends of communication.
Consider a discorse you may have heard before, in some variation:
A: How're you? B: I'm terrible. I was trying to mow the lawn today, and the mower just wouldn't start. I think the gas I used was too old. Did you know gasoline can actually expire? (etc for a couple of minutes). A: I'm so sorry to hear that. Your total is $57.48. Will that be cash or card?
B misinterprets A's perfunctory greeting as a literal inquiry. What's more important? That A's original intent be understood (I.e. A simple salutation and transaction)? Or that B's interpretation be recognized and explored? I believe it's A's intent.
Or maybe: C: Nice shirt! D: What? C: I said that's a nice shirt man. It looks good on you. D: I'm not gay. C: What?
D's perception of C's compliment as a sexual advance is incorrect. What's more important here: C's intent, or D's interpretation? I believe it's again C's intent. Maybe it's easier to empathize with C here, but I think the principle holds broadly. C gives a compliment, and D replies with a general inquiry as to the intent. C mistakenly believes that he was not heard clearly, and repeats the statement with greater detail. D, believing that C is clarifying that he is making a pass at him, expresses that he is not interested. C is confused D's seemingly random declaration of his sexual orientation, and asks why he said that.
And on it goes when people talk past each other. But the way people stop talking past each other is by understanding the intent behind each other's words. Understanding a perception, or more particularly a misperception, only gets you part of the way there. It helps you determine whether or not communication was successful, but it is a measure of the success of communication only by the degree to which it conforms to the intent of the speaker.