That doesn’t really work, because then we could claim that it was always our intention to speak the truth. That’s precisely why people must agree as to the meaning of the words, otherwise, the intention of the speaker does not matter and nobody would be able to ascertain the truth of the speaker’s statements.
I would argue that the effectiveness of or flaws in the communication are determinative of everything, which is precisely why language must be agreed upon. For instance, if I don’t have a, “Code names,” game with someone and they see that a tanker truck is crossing the intersection in front of me and that person yells, “Floor it!” when the actual intention, or what they wanted, was the equivalent of, “STOP!!!” then we’re probably going to die.
To that extent, how well we agree upon language or communicate can actually have a bearing upon reality itself. In the reality where you tell me to stop, we may live, in the reality where you yell at me to floor it, if I listen, we probably die.
The other problem with that is that we have to communicate well in order to communicate our intentions. I would argue that this is true to the extent that if we run around calling trees, “Glasses of root beer,” and nobody else is in on the, “Code name game,” they’re going to think that we’re crazy when we say we liked to climb glasses of root beer and drink trees when we were kids.
Depending on how poorly one does or does not communicate, the intentions behind a certain statement may never be known, and as such, are completely irrelevant to anything including the truth or falsity of the statement.
The intention can count for something, but only where the language is agreed upon. With, “Code words,” we have a pre-arranged agreement (just like we learn language from our parents, as children) that a certain phrase has a certain meaning. With something such as, “Code words,” to say that the language doesn’t count is an act of sheer folly. How could I play code words with someone who is not using language in the same way that I am? They would think that I was talking nonsense, or at a minimum, literally talking about having Meat Loaf for dinner, which has nothing to do with what I want to convey.
I guess I should also point out that intention is also subjective, which is precisely why we may misunderstand what another person’s intention is. If intention were objective, there would be far fewer misunderstandings, especially those that occur despite the fact we are using language the same way!