Abstract In this paper, I shall discuss the latest attempt in analytic jurisprudence to revive the view that reference to legislators’ intentions should play a role in the interpretation of statutes whose texts leave issues of meaning, purpose, or application unclear or controversial. I use ‘revive· advisedly: reference to legislative intention in one form or another is reasonably common among judges in the United States, and the appeal to ‘original intent’ is common too in the politics of American constitutional law. Philosophically, however, the idea of appealing beyond the statutory text to what legislators are thought to have intended has been subject to such powerful criticisms, most notably by Ronald Dworkin, that one is surprised to find it appearing again in anything other than a trivial form in respectable academic jurisprudence.