Catharine Abell and Katerina Bantinaki (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199585960
- eISBN:
- 9780191723490
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585960.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
Pictures are representations that depict their objects. Although depiction plays as important a role as language in contemporary culture and communication, its function is relatively poorly ...
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Pictures are representations that depict their objects. Although depiction plays as important a role as language in contemporary culture and communication, its function is relatively poorly understood. This book of specially written chapters by leading philosophers offers to set the agenda for the philosophy of depiction. It addresses a wide range of philosophical issues, concerning the nature and value of depiction, the role of our perceptual processes in interpreting pictures, and the role of depiction in everyday communication.Less
Pictures are representations that depict their objects. Although depiction plays as important a role as language in contemporary culture and communication, its function is relatively poorly understood. This book of specially written chapters by leading philosophers offers to set the agenda for the philosophy of depiction. It addresses a wide range of philosophical issues, concerning the nature and value of depiction, the role of our perceptual processes in interpreting pictures, and the role of depiction in everyday communication.
Dominic McIver Lopes
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199277346
- eISBN:
- 9780191602641
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199277346.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Pictures are vehicles for seeing-in—they enable us to see scenes in marked surfaces. However, seeing-in takes several forms. In some cases, the scene is seen together with the marked surface, and, in ...
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Pictures are vehicles for seeing-in—they enable us to see scenes in marked surfaces. However, seeing-in takes several forms. In some cases, the scene is seen together with the marked surface, and, in other cases, seeing the scene excludes seeing the marked surface. In every case, evaluating a picture as a picture involves evaluating it as a vehicle for seeing-in. But evaluation, like seeing-in, comes in many flavours. Aesthetic, cognitive, and moral evaluations of pictures are especially prominent in picture criticism. These three types of evaluation of pictures interact, for one may imply another. Moreover, aesthetic, cognitive, and moral evaluations of pictures asvehicles for seeing-in may also interact. This result overturns the intellectual basis for recent criticism of pictures, such as that found in scepticism about political hotography and in critiques of the male gaze.Less
Pictures are vehicles for seeing-in—they enable us to see scenes in marked surfaces. However, seeing-in takes several forms. In some cases, the scene is seen together with the marked surface, and, in other cases, seeing the scene excludes seeing the marked surface. In every case, evaluating a picture as a picture involves evaluating it as a vehicle for seeing-in. But evaluation, like seeing-in, comes in many flavours. Aesthetic, cognitive, and moral evaluations of pictures are especially prominent in picture criticism. These three types of evaluation of pictures interact, for one may imply another. Moreover, aesthetic, cognitive, and moral evaluations of pictures as
vehicles for seeing-in may also interact. This result overturns the intellectual basis for recent criticism of pictures, such as that found in scepticism about political hotography and in critiques of the male gaze.
Jerrold Levinson
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199206179
- eISBN:
- 9780191709982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206179.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This essay was written as a contribution to a symposium in honour of the distinguished aesthetician Richard Wollheim, and begins with a sympathetic summary of his highly influential account of ...
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This essay was written as a contribution to a symposium in honour of the distinguished aesthetician Richard Wollheim, and begins with a sympathetic summary of his highly influential account of depiction in terms of the successfully realized intention that viewers have a certain sort ofseeing-inexperience faced with a picture depicting a given subject. While agreeing with the basic thrust of Wollheim's account, which makes a certain sort of visual experience in appropriate viewers criterial of achieved depiction, it differs with Wollheim as to whether that experience is invariably one of seeing in, given the twofold attention to subject and surface that the notion, as Wollheim conceives it, necessarily involves. An alternative account is sketched, Wollheimian in spirit, but closer than most recent proposals to the classic Gombrichian view of depiction as involving something akin to illusion. It is proposed that a picture that depicts a subject is one fashioned so as to yield an experience ofas-if seeingof its subject, but not an experience that engenders the false beliefs typical of illusion.Less
This essay was written as a contribution to a symposium in honour of the distinguished aesthetician Richard Wollheim, and begins with a sympathetic summary of his highly influential account of depiction in terms of the successfully realized intention that viewers have a certain sort ofseeing-inexperience faced with a picture depicting a given subject. While agreeing with the basic thrust of Wollheim's account, which makes a certain sort of visual experience in appropriate viewers criterial of achieved depiction, it differs with Wollheim as to whether that experience is invariably one of seeing in, given the twofold attention to subject and surface that the notion, as Wollheim conceives it, necessarily involves. An alternative account is sketched, Wollheimian in spirit, but closer than most recent proposals to the classic Gombrichian view of depiction as involving something akin to illusion. It is proposed that a picture that depicts a subject is one fashioned so as to yield an experience ofas-if seeingof its subject, but not an experience that engenders the false beliefs typical of illusion.
Aviad Kleinberg
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231174701
- eISBN:
- 9780231540247
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231174701.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Where outraged iconoclasts and horrified philosophers are told that seeing is believing.
Where outraged iconoclasts and horrified philosophers are told that seeing is believing.
Denis McManus
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199288021
- eISBN:
- 9780191713446
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199288021.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter presents some of the crucial proposals that the Tractatus offers concerning the nature of objects, facts, propositions, names, and what he calls ‘the internal relation of depicting that ...
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This chapter presents some of the crucial proposals that the Tractatus offers concerning the nature of objects, facts, propositions, names, and what he calls ‘the internal relation of depicting that holds between language and world’. It explores how Wittgenstein defends these proposals on the grounds that they free us from any commitment to there being impossibly ‘substantial’ logical truths. It sketches a possible interpretation of those proposals as articulating, nonetheless, a species of what is called ‘con-formism’ (cf. Ch.1), a species which is distinctive in being, strictly speaking, inexpressible. It goes on to argue that this interpretation is mistaken. An argument against con-formism is presented and how Wittgenstein’s sign/symbol distinction helps to articulate the confusion that con-formism embodies is explained.Less
This chapter presents some of the crucial proposals that the Tractatus offers concerning the nature of objects, facts, propositions, names, and what he calls ‘the internal relation of depicting that holds between language and world’. It explores how Wittgenstein defends these proposals on the grounds that they free us from any commitment to there being impossibly ‘substantial’ logical truths. It sketches a possible interpretation of those proposals as articulating, nonetheless, a species of what is called ‘con-formism’ (cf. Ch.1), a species which is distinctive in being, strictly speaking, inexpressible. It goes on to argue that this interpretation is mistaken. An argument against con-formism is presented and how Wittgenstein’s sign/symbol distinction helps to articulate the confusion that con-formism embodies is explained.
Christopher Piñón
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199544325
- eISBN:
- 9780191720536
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199544325.003.0013
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
This chapter is concerned with the denotation of the object argument of verbs of creation. Through an examination of the verb draw, Piñón argues that the object of verbs of creation cannot in general ...
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This chapter is concerned with the denotation of the object argument of verbs of creation. Through an examination of the verb draw, Piñón argues that the object of verbs of creation cannot in general denote ordinary individuals. In particular, Piñón argues for three different readings of draw a house, depending on the denotation of the object. Thus, not only ordinary individuals or images of ordinary individuals satisfy the predicate house, but abstract individuals such as house‐depictions and house‐descriptions, which are not necessarily related to ordinary individuals. He distinguishes two different ‘relational’ readings of draw a house, which involve the depiction either of a particular house or of a particular house‐description, from the ‘notional’ reading which involves a general house‐depiction, but no house or house‐description in particular. The argument is based not only on the semantic differences between the three readings, but also on the fact that in some languages (Piñón describes Hungarian) these three readings correspond to three different verbs.Less
This chapter is concerned with the denotation of the object argument of verbs of creation. Through an examination of the verb draw, Piñón argues that the object of verbs of creation cannot in general denote ordinary individuals. In particular, Piñón argues for three different readings of draw a house, depending on the denotation of the object. Thus, not only ordinary individuals or images of ordinary individuals satisfy the predicate house, but abstract individuals such as house‐depictions and house‐descriptions, which are not necessarily related to ordinary individuals. He distinguishes two different ‘relational’ readings of draw a house, which involve the depiction either of a particular house or of a particular house‐description, from the ‘notional’ reading which involves a general house‐depiction, but no house or house‐description in particular. The argument is based not only on the semantic differences between the three readings, but also on the fact that in some languages (Piñón describes Hungarian) these three readings correspond to three different verbs.
Dominic Lopes
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199272037
- eISBN:
- 9780191699566
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272037.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
In this chapter, a descriptivist version of the proposal that fictive depiction depends on pictorial content is first explored. The description account of fictive representation supports the idea of ...
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In this chapter, a descriptivist version of the proposal that fictive depiction depends on pictorial content is first explored. The description account of fictive representation supports the idea of explaining fictive depiction as a special case of ordinary descriptive depiction. It also encourages an analysis of fictional reference as reference to possible objects. However, one difficulty with the description theory of fiction is that an actual object, even if it fits all the right descriptions, does not normally qualify as the subject of a fictive picture. In discussing fiction and pretence, the author asserts that Kendall Walton’s analysis of pretence as an activity embedded in games of make-believe provides the tools needed for an account of fictive depiction as pretence. This chapter concludes by claiming that pictures’ status as perceptual mechanisms is the foundation of their function as fictions.Less
In this chapter, a descriptivist version of the proposal that fictive depiction depends on pictorial content is first explored. The description account of fictive representation supports the idea of explaining fictive depiction as a special case of ordinary descriptive depiction. It also encourages an analysis of fictional reference as reference to possible objects. However, one difficulty with the description theory of fiction is that an actual object, even if it fits all the right descriptions, does not normally qualify as the subject of a fictive picture. In discussing fiction and pretence, the author asserts that Kendall Walton’s analysis of pretence as an activity embedded in games of make-believe provides the tools needed for an account of fictive depiction as pretence. This chapter concludes by claiming that pictures’ status as perceptual mechanisms is the foundation of their function as fictions.
ALEXANDER POTTS
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197264904
- eISBN:
- 9780191754081
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264904.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
Michael Podro was a scholar who exterted a considerable influence on the study of art history. His first book was The Manifold in Perception: Theories of Art from Kant to Hildebrand (1972). After ...
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Michael Podro was a scholar who exterted a considerable influence on the study of art history. His first book was The Manifold in Perception: Theories of Art from Kant to Hildebrand (1972). After taking his English degree at Cambridge, Podro studied for a year at the Slade, where he was influenced by the teaching of Ernst Gombrich. His book Depiction was a response to Gombrich. Podro taught art history at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts, then was lecturer in the philosophy of art at the Warburg Institute. Finally, he moved to the University of Essex, where he remained for the rest of his career. Podro was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1992. Obituary by Alexander Potts.Less
Michael Podro was a scholar who exterted a considerable influence on the study of art history. His first book was The Manifold in Perception: Theories of Art from Kant to Hildebrand (1972). After taking his English degree at Cambridge, Podro studied for a year at the Slade, where he was influenced by the teaching of Ernst Gombrich. His book Depiction was a response to Gombrich. Podro taught art history at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts, then was lecturer in the philosophy of art at the Warburg Institute. Finally, he moved to the University of Essex, where he remained for the rest of his career. Podro was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1992. Obituary by Alexander Potts.
Jonathan D. Bellman
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195338867
- eISBN:
- 9780199863723
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338867.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, History, Western
Since the latter part of the eighteenth century, a variety of musical strategies had evolved for telling stories in tones. The most basic of these was depiction; drawing on traditions reaching back ...
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Since the latter part of the eighteenth century, a variety of musical strategies had evolved for telling stories in tones. The most basic of these was depiction; drawing on traditions reaching back to the Renaissance, a stock vocabulary of musical effects imitated battles, storms, bells, horn calls, and other such familiar phenomena. A newer strategy used quotation or citation of familiar melodies, which could adduce their original texts or dramatic meanings to be reinterpreted by the listener in a new narrative context. A third approach was born of the European fascination with its past and its epic poetry; this involved devising musical means for evoking a narratorial presence, artful transitions between scenes and episodes that preserved dramatic coherence while allowing for changes of time and place, and creating approaches to sectional punctuation more subtle than the clear articulations of sonata form. By the mid‐1830s, when Chopin composed his Ballade no. 1, op. 23, the art of musical narrative had gone well beyond depictions of drums and cannon fire.Less
Since the latter part of the eighteenth century, a variety of musical strategies had evolved for telling stories in tones. The most basic of these was depiction; drawing on traditions reaching back to the Renaissance, a stock vocabulary of musical effects imitated battles, storms, bells, horn calls, and other such familiar phenomena. A newer strategy used quotation or citation of familiar melodies, which could adduce their original texts or dramatic meanings to be reinterpreted by the listener in a new narrative context. A third approach was born of the European fascination with its past and its epic poetry; this involved devising musical means for evoking a narratorial presence, artful transitions between scenes and episodes that preserved dramatic coherence while allowing for changes of time and place, and creating approaches to sectional punctuation more subtle than the clear articulations of sonata form. By the mid‐1830s, when Chopin composed his Ballade no. 1, op. 23, the art of musical narrative had gone well beyond depictions of drums and cannon fire.
Robin Le Poidevin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199265893
- eISBN:
- 9780191708619
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199265893.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Can a painting or photograph represent movement and the passage of time? A traditional distinction, due to G. E. Lessing, between the arts of time and the arts of space suggests not: a static image ...
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Can a painting or photograph represent movement and the passage of time? A traditional distinction, due to G. E. Lessing, between the arts of time and the arts of space suggests not: a static image (one that does not itself change) can only represent a single instant of time. This idea was attacked by Ernst Gombrich in a very influential article which is the subject of this chapter. Notions of depiction and time perception are brought together in an attempt to understand how and what static images represent: moments or movements.Less
Can a painting or photograph represent movement and the passage of time? A traditional distinction, due to G. E. Lessing, between the arts of time and the arts of space suggests not: a static image (one that does not itself change) can only represent a single instant of time. This idea was attacked by Ernst Gombrich in a very influential article which is the subject of this chapter. Notions of depiction and time perception are brought together in an attempt to understand how and what static images represent: moments or movements.
Malcolm Budd
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199556175
- eISBN:
- 9780191721151
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556175.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter offers an account of the way a picture looks when it is seen as a depiction of its subject. The account — a perceived-resemblance account — is based on the idea of seeing one thing as ...
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This chapter offers an account of the way a picture looks when it is seen as a depiction of its subject. The account — a perceived-resemblance account — is based on the idea of seeing one thing as looking like another in a specific manner, namely as looking like the two-dimensional appearance of the picture's subject. This notion is elucidated in terms of a distinction between a perceiver's visual field and visual world. The chapter demonstrates that one advantage of the theory developed in it is that it yields easily a plausible account of naturalistic depiction. It concludes by showing that it accounts for many of the most significant and distinctive features of pictorial representation.Less
This chapter offers an account of the way a picture looks when it is seen as a depiction of its subject. The account — a perceived-resemblance account — is based on the idea of seeing one thing as looking like another in a specific manner, namely as looking like the two-dimensional appearance of the picture's subject. This notion is elucidated in terms of a distinction between a perceiver's visual field and visual world. The chapter demonstrates that one advantage of the theory developed in it is that it yields easily a plausible account of naturalistic depiction. It concludes by showing that it accounts for many of the most significant and distinctive features of pictorial representation.
Jody Azzouni
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199738946
- eISBN:
- 9780199866175
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738946.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Fictional discourse, this chapter shows, is a truth-apt discourse that’s supported on and defers to what may be described as a pretence (or story-telling) practice that isn’t truth-apt. Nevertheless, ...
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Fictional discourse, this chapter shows, is a truth-apt discourse that’s supported on and defers to what may be described as a pretence (or story-telling) practice that isn’t truth-apt. Nevertheless, truth-apt fictional discourse is indispensable despite its terms being empty. It’s shown how being clear that such a discourse isn’t required to honor metaphysical facts about fictional objects, but is required to be useful and true can illuminate and make sense of how we talk about fictions. It’s shown how truth-based properties can be attributed to fictional characters—the property of being depicted in such and such a story, for example—and how the identification of fictional entities within works and across works can be made cogent (despite there being no fictional objects, and consequently, fictional objects having no properties).Less
Fictional discourse, this chapter shows, is a truth-apt discourse that’s supported on and defers to what may be described as a pretence (or story-telling) practice that isn’t truth-apt. Nevertheless, truth-apt fictional discourse is indispensable despite its terms being empty. It’s shown how being clear that such a discourse isn’t required to honor metaphysical facts about fictional objects, but is required to be useful and true can illuminate and make sense of how we talk about fictions. It’s shown how truth-based properties can be attributed to fictional characters—the property of being depicted in such and such a story, for example—and how the identification of fictional entities within works and across works can be made cogent (despite there being no fictional objects, and consequently, fictional objects having no properties).
Catharine Abell and Katerina Bantinaki
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199585960
- eISBN:
- 9780191723490
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585960.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
Although depiction plays as important a role as language in contemporary culture and communication, this role is relatively poorly understood. While the philosophy of language has long been ...
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Although depiction plays as important a role as language in contemporary culture and communication, this role is relatively poorly understood. While the philosophy of language has long been considered a philosophical discipline in its own right, the philosophy of depiction is usually though of, when it is thought of at all, as a sub‐discipline in aesthetics. This is like conflating the philosophy of language with the philosophy of literature. Although there are many interesting issues concerning the aesthetics of pictures, at least as many non‐aesthetic issues fall within its domain. The Introduction provides an overview of both the main issues in the philosophy of depiction and the main positions contemporary philosophers hold with regard to those positions, and give readers a sense of how these issues and positions are related. Secondly, it situates the various chapters in this collection in relation to these issues and positions. This Introduction is intended to provide both useful background knowledge for those unfamiliar with the topics addressed by the chapters that follow, and a tool to assist subsequent reflection on their wider implications.Less
Although depiction plays as important a role as language in contemporary culture and communication, this role is relatively poorly understood. While the philosophy of language has long been considered a philosophical discipline in its own right, the philosophy of depiction is usually though of, when it is thought of at all, as a sub‐discipline in aesthetics. This is like conflating the philosophy of language with the philosophy of literature. Although there are many interesting issues concerning the aesthetics of pictures, at least as many non‐aesthetic issues fall within its domain. The Introduction provides an overview of both the main issues in the philosophy of depiction and the main positions contemporary philosophers hold with regard to those positions, and give readers a sense of how these issues and positions are related. Secondly, it situates the various chapters in this collection in relation to these issues and positions. This Introduction is intended to provide both useful background knowledge for those unfamiliar with the topics addressed by the chapters that follow, and a tool to assist subsequent reflection on their wider implications.
John Kulvicki
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199585960
- eISBN:
- 9780191723490
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585960.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
There are undeniably many ways of depicting things, but it is unclear what the diversity of depictive representational systems consists in. What is a way of depicting something, and how many ways of ...
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There are undeniably many ways of depicting things, but it is unclear what the diversity of depictive representational systems consists in. What is a way of depicting something, and how many ways of depicting things are there? Pictorial diversity starts to seem interesting and confusing when one tries to fix a picture's content while varying its surface features, or vice versa. This chapter seeks to explain what is at issue in discussing pictorial diversity and to introduce two tools for understanding it: the notions of syntactic competition and semantic competition. The fact that pictures compete neither syntactically nor semantically places important constraints on picture interpretation.Less
There are undeniably many ways of depicting things, but it is unclear what the diversity of depictive representational systems consists in. What is a way of depicting something, and how many ways of depicting things are there? Pictorial diversity starts to seem interesting and confusing when one tries to fix a picture's content while varying its surface features, or vice versa. This chapter seeks to explain what is at issue in discussing pictorial diversity and to introduce two tools for understanding it: the notions of syntactic competition and semantic competition. The fact that pictures compete neither syntactically nor semantically places important constraints on picture interpretation.
Dominic McIver Lopes
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199585960
- eISBN:
- 9780191723490
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585960.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
Pictures can be vehicles for demonstrative reference because they put their perceivers in a perceptual state of the kind that grounds demonstrative reference. This is a state that represents objects ...
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Pictures can be vehicles for demonstrative reference because they put their perceivers in a perceptual state of the kind that grounds demonstrative reference. This is a state that represents objects as lying at various distances and directions from a viewpoint. In particular, seeing objects in pictures grounds demonstrative reference to objects when it represents them as lying at various distances and directions from a viewpoint which overlaps with the perspective of the picture's perceiver. Depiction grounds demonstrative reference because picture perception engages motor vision.Less
Pictures can be vehicles for demonstrative reference because they put their perceivers in a perceptual state of the kind that grounds demonstrative reference. This is a state that represents objects as lying at various distances and directions from a viewpoint. In particular, seeing objects in pictures grounds demonstrative reference to objects when it represents them as lying at various distances and directions from a viewpoint which overlaps with the perspective of the picture's perceiver. Depiction grounds demonstrative reference because picture perception engages motor vision.
Catharine Abell
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199585960
- eISBN:
- 9780191723490
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585960.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
There is a variety of epistemic roles to which photographs are better suited than non‐photographic pictures. Photographs provide more compelling evidence of the existence of the scenes they depict ...
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There is a variety of epistemic roles to which photographs are better suited than non‐photographic pictures. Photographs provide more compelling evidence of the existence of the scenes they depict than non‐photographic pictures. They are also better sources of information about features of those scenes that are easily overlooked. This chapter examines several different attempts to explain the distinctive epistemic value of photographs, and argues that none is adequate. It then proposes an alternative explanation of their epistemic value. The chapter argues that photographs play the epistemic roles they do because they are typically rich sources of depictively encoded information about the scenes they depict, and reliable depictive representations of those scenes. It then explains why photographs differ from non‐photographic pictures in both respects.Less
There is a variety of epistemic roles to which photographs are better suited than non‐photographic pictures. Photographs provide more compelling evidence of the existence of the scenes they depict than non‐photographic pictures. They are also better sources of information about features of those scenes that are easily overlooked. This chapter examines several different attempts to explain the distinctive epistemic value of photographs, and argues that none is adequate. It then proposes an alternative explanation of their epistemic value. The chapter argues that photographs play the epistemic roles they do because they are typically rich sources of depictively encoded information about the scenes they depict, and reliable depictive representations of those scenes. It then explains why photographs differ from non‐photographic pictures in both respects.
John Dilworth
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199585960
- eISBN:
- 9780191723490
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585960.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
A picture provides both configurational content concerning its design features, and pictorial or recognitional content about its external subject. This chapter argues that a picture's design both ...
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A picture provides both configurational content concerning its design features, and pictorial or recognitional content about its external subject. This chapter argues that a picture's design both encodes artistically relevant design content, and in turn that design content encodes the subject content of the picture — producing overall a double content structure. An adequate theory for this structure should be able to explain the ambiguities involved in abstracting two levels of visual content from a single visible surface, as well as explaining the systematic relations between the two kinds of content. The chapter provides an orientational theory — based on a recently developed spatial logic of orientational concepts — for this purpose, and shows how depictive and perceptual content in general can be usefully explained in these orientational terms. This account of picturing also integrates well with a previously developed, more generic double content theory of art, and it is also plausible in cognitive science terms.Less
A picture provides both configurational content concerning its design features, and pictorial or recognitional content about its external subject. This chapter argues that a picture's design both encodes artistically relevant design content, and in turn that design content encodes the subject content of the picture — producing overall a double content structure. An adequate theory for this structure should be able to explain the ambiguities involved in abstracting two levels of visual content from a single visible surface, as well as explaining the systematic relations between the two kinds of content. The chapter provides an orientational theory — based on a recently developed spatial logic of orientational concepts — for this purpose, and shows how depictive and perceptual content in general can be usefully explained in these orientational terms. This account of picturing also integrates well with a previously developed, more generic double content theory of art, and it is also plausible in cognitive science terms.
Dominic Lopes
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199272037
- eISBN:
- 9780191699566
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272037.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
How do pictures represent? The intuitive concept of a picture runs something like ‘a two-dimensional representation that looks like what it represents’. However, the idea that ‘looking like’ explains ...
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How do pictures represent? The intuitive concept of a picture runs something like ‘a two-dimensional representation that looks like what it represents’. However, the idea that ‘looking like’ explains depiction harbours a serious error. This error is masked by a failure to make certain distinctions. Pictures can be distinguished through design, content, and subject, explaining content by means of design, subject, and the relation between them. In this chapter, the author claims that the task of a theory of pictorial representation is to explain how it is that pictures come to have content in the first place. In addition, the author stipulates that the focus is more on figurative pictures rather than on abstract ones. Two schools of thought concerning pictorial representation—perceptual and symbolic—are also introduced.Less
How do pictures represent? The intuitive concept of a picture runs something like ‘a two-dimensional representation that looks like what it represents’. However, the idea that ‘looking like’ explains depiction harbours a serious error. This error is masked by a failure to make certain distinctions. Pictures can be distinguished through design, content, and subject, explaining content by means of design, subject, and the relation between them. In this chapter, the author claims that the task of a theory of pictorial representation is to explain how it is that pictures come to have content in the first place. In addition, the author stipulates that the focus is more on figurative pictures rather than on abstract ones. Two schools of thought concerning pictorial representation—perceptual and symbolic—are also introduced.
Dominic Lopes
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199272037
- eISBN:
- 9780191699566
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272037.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
In Languages of Art, Goodman argues that just as words, descriptions, and sentences are symbols belonging to languages, so pictures are symbols in systems of representation. In this chapter, before ...
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In Languages of Art, Goodman argues that just as words, descriptions, and sentences are symbols belonging to languages, so pictures are symbols in systems of representation. In this chapter, before the author discusses the most prominent symbol theory of depiction, he first demonstrates several ways to model depiction on language, with some compatible with perceptual explanations of picturing. The compatibilist suggestion that pictures belong to systems of symbols is Goodman’s central insight. This, as the author asserts, is critical to the development of an adequate perceptual theory of depiction. Goodman’s view on depiction is encapsulated here in seven theses. Each is discussed in detail. A separate section provides a brief assessment of each thesis.Less
In Languages of Art, Goodman argues that just as words, descriptions, and sentences are symbols belonging to languages, so pictures are symbols in systems of representation. In this chapter, before the author discusses the most prominent symbol theory of depiction, he first demonstrates several ways to model depiction on language, with some compatible with perceptual explanations of picturing. The compatibilist suggestion that pictures belong to systems of symbols is Goodman’s central insight. This, as the author asserts, is critical to the development of an adequate perceptual theory of depiction. Goodman’s view on depiction is encapsulated here in seven theses. Each is discussed in detail. A separate section provides a brief assessment of each thesis.
Dominic Lopes
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199272037
- eISBN:
- 9780191699566
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272037.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Mind
Pictorial variations illustrate one way in which the aspectual content characteristic of depiction can itself become the focus of artful picture-making. As the chapter title suggests, how a picture ...
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Pictorial variations illustrate one way in which the aspectual content characteristic of depiction can itself become the focus of artful picture-making. As the chapter title suggests, how a picture can depict another picture and what could be the meaning of a picture of another is explored. The most conspicuous way in which pictures represent other pictures is by variation. Variation identification is distinguished by the way it depends upon and is infused by experience of another picture, the variation’s original. An account of variation meaning that does justice to the character of variation experience depends on an adequate account of variation. However, the author contends that the available accounts of variation meaning are inadequate, because they are predicated upon theories of variation that are also inadequate, and proposes that an account of variation inspired by the aspect-recognition theory is more amenable to an adequate account of variation meaning.Less
Pictorial variations illustrate one way in which the aspectual content characteristic of depiction can itself become the focus of artful picture-making. As the chapter title suggests, how a picture can depict another picture and what could be the meaning of a picture of another is explored. The most conspicuous way in which pictures represent other pictures is by variation. Variation identification is distinguished by the way it depends upon and is infused by experience of another picture, the variation’s original. An account of variation meaning that does justice to the character of variation experience depends on an adequate account of variation. However, the author contends that the available accounts of variation meaning are inadequate, because they are predicated upon theories of variation that are also inadequate, and proposes that an account of variation inspired by the aspect-recognition theory is more amenable to an adequate account of variation meaning.
