Editing Infinite monkey theorem (section)

===Literary theory===
[[R. G. Collingwood]] argued in 1938 that art cannot be produced by accident, and wrote as a sarcastic aside to his critics,

{{blockquote|...&nbsp;some ... have denied this proposition, pointing out that if a monkey played with a typewriter ... he would produce ... the complete text of Shakespeare. Any reader who has nothing to do can amuse himself by calculating how long it would take for the probability to be worth betting on. But the interest of the suggestion lies in the revelation of the mental state of a person who can identify the 'works' of Shakespeare with the series of letters printed on the pages of a book&nbsp;...<ref name="Sclafani1975">p.&nbsp;126 of ''The Principles of Art'', as summarized and quoted by {{cite journal |first=Richard J. |last=Sclafani |title=The logical primitiveness of the concept of a work of art |journal=British Journal of Aesthetics |year=1975 |volume=15 |issue=1 |doi=10.1093/bjaesthetics/15.1.14 |page=14}}</ref>}}

[[Nelson Goodman]] took the contrary position, illustrating his point along with Catherine Elgin by the example of Borges' "[[Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote]]",

{{blockquote|What Menard wrote is simply another inscription of the text. Any of us can do the same, as can printing presses and photocopiers. Indeed, we are told, if infinitely many monkeys ... one would eventually produce a replica of the text. That replica, we maintain, would be as much an instance of the work, ''Don Quixote'', as Cervantes' manuscript, Menard's manuscript, and each copy of the book that ever has been or will be printed.<ref name="John2004">{{cite book |editor1=John, Eileen |editor2=Dominic Lopes |title=The Philosophy of Literature: Contemporary and Classic Readings: An Anthology |year=2004 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=1-4051-1208-5 |page=96}}</ref>}}

In another writing, Goodman elaborates, "That the monkey may be supposed to have produced his copy randomly makes no difference. It is the same text, and it is open to all the same interpretations.&nbsp;..." [[Gérard Genette]] dismisses Goodman's argument as [[begging the question]].<ref name="Genette1997">{{cite book |first=Gérard |last= Genette |title=The Work of Art: Immanence and Transcendence |url=https://archive.org/details/workofart00gene |url-access=registration |year=1997 |publisher=Cornell UP |isbn=0-8014-8272-0}}</ref>

For [[Jorge J. E. Gracia]], the question of the identity of texts leads to a different question, that of author. If a monkey is capable of typing ''Hamlet'', despite having no intention of meaning and therefore disqualifying itself as an author, then it appears that texts do not require authors. Possible solutions include saying that whoever finds the text and identifies it as ''Hamlet'' is the author; or that Shakespeare is the author, the monkey his agent, and the finder merely a user of the text. These solutions have their own difficulties, in that the text appears to have a meaning separate from the other agents: What if the monkey operates before Shakespeare is born, or if Shakespeare is never born, or if no one ever finds the monkey's typescript?<ref name="Gracia1996">{{cite book |last=Gracia |first=Jorge |title=Texts: Ontological Status, Identity, Author, Audience |year=1996 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=0-7914-2901-6 |pages=1–2, 122–125}}</ref>