Pictures and the Standard of Correctness (original) (raw)

A range of theories of depiction incorporate a ‘standard of correctness’ in order to defend themselves against certain kinds of potential counter-examples. However, disagreement exists about what sets the standard of correctness. Richard Wollheim and Robert Hopkins hold that it is the picture-maker’s intention, while Dominic Lopes argues that it is the source of the information embodied in the picture. This paper criticises these existing approaches and presents a new account, in which non-photographic and photographic pictures have different standards of correctness. These standards of correctness, however, are determined by a single rule that takes into account the different kinds of information these two ways of picturemaking can reliably convey.