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

Philosophical Perspectives on Depiction, 2010

Edited by CATHARINE ABELL and KATERINA BANTINAKI Oxford University Press, 2010. xii þ 242 pp. £40 cloth In their introduction, the editors of this book, Catharine Abell and Katerina Bantinaki, give an excellent account of the present state of play in the philosophy of pictures. Depiction, the mode of representation distinctive of pictures, has seen a growth in philosophical interest over the past few years, and Abell and Bantinaki think the field holds even more potential: 'While the philosophy of language has long been considered a philosophical discipline in its own right, the philosophy of depiction is usually thought of, when it is thought of at all, as a sub-discipline of aesthetics. This is like conflating the philosophy of language with the philosophy of literature' (1). That the study of depiction may grow to occupy a position comparable to philosophy of language might seem doubtful to us now, but Abell and Bantinaki are right to draw attention to the fact that the place of depiction within aesthetics is an historical happenstance. As the papers collected in this volume illustrate, there is usually only incidental concern with the aesthetic and artistic in the literature on depiction. The big issue addressed by that literature in the past is symptomatic of this unconcern with art and aesthetics: it has centred on finding a definition of depiction, one that applies equally to snapshots and Signorellis. This collection largely avoids the problem of definition to focus on issues that are only now beginning to attract substantial attention. It is telling of the state of the field just how much one such issue, the experience of pictures, dominates: it is the central topic of five of the book's eight chapters. But let me say something about the other three chapters first. The first of these, by John Kulvicki, investigates the commonplace that there are many different ways-styles and systems-of picturing. Kulvicki argues that the situation is, in some ways, simpler than this suggests: there are many different ways of producing a picture, but rather fewer ways of interpreting it. The key is to recognize that it is not the multitude of different styles and systems of picturing that are significant for interpretation, so much as the representationally salient properties they instantiate-and these present much less diversity. Kulvicki goes on to argue, with some justification to my mind, that the constraints on interpretation are explained by the fact that pictures resemble what they depict, a central plank of his own (2006) theory of depiction. Abell includes a paper of her own, investigating the epistemic value of photographs. Photographs are generally superior to handmade pictures as sources of knowledge about what they depict. Abell argues, in the face of opposing views, that this fact has its roots in the reliability of the standardized, mechanical processes of photography. Abell's position has the appeal of common sense, and it does seem to me that this is one instance where common sense has it pretty much right. Dominic Lopes's chapter begins with a less commonsensical proposal. Looking at a picture of X, it often seems natural to say 'That's X', rather than 'That's a picture of X'-something we would never do in the presence of a description of X. Lopes holds that this 'image-based demonstrative'-'That's X'-is literally, and not just figuratively, true. He argues that this is so because pictures perceptually ground such reference through deixis, an aspect of visual experience usually associated with actually being in the presence of

Philosophical Perspectives on Depiction * Edited by CATHARINE ABELL and KATERINA BANTINAKI

Analysis, 2012

122 Picture Perfect ( ? ) : Ethical Considerations in Visual Representation

2008

In this paper, I consider the many ethical dilemmas facing visual anthropologists and those using visual rcpresentation material in their research. The issues are many and are complex. With this paper I scratch only the surface of how to confront and deal with some of them. The main pU'lJose of this paper is not to provide solutions, as ethical questions are always unique to the situations in which they develop. What the paper does do is look at ways in which visual anthropologists. and documentary filmmakers have approached and dealt with a variety of these concerns. An extensive review of historical and contemporary works of visual representations are explored and analysed as examples of the types of ethical issues encountered. In our increasingly postcolonial era. issues of voice. co-authorship and copyright highlight just a few of the current topics covered herein. Techniques such as balanced multivocality. reflexivity. collaboration. and reciprocity are discussed with the a...

On the Apparent Incompatibility of Perceptual and Conventional Accounts of Pictures

Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, 2022

What are pictures ? To answer this question, one of the most successful approaches is what has been called the perceptual account. On this approach, pictures are fundamentally characterized by the way they are perceived by subjects. This principle can for example be fleshed out by claiming that pictures foster a specific type of twofold perceptual experience in subjects. By contrast, another type of account, that I shall call conventional account, is somewhat neglected nowadays because it appears as insufficient to distinguish pictures from other kinds of representations. These two types of accounts are often presented as incompatible. However, it is not obvious in what sense they are so. The aim of this paper is thus twofold. Firstly, to precisely identify the differences between the perceptual and the conventional accounts of pictures. Secondly, to suggest that there might still be a role for the conventional account. To provide support for this view, I will show that the perceptual and conventional accounts may not have the same explananda, leaving open the possibility that a theory of depiction integrating both might be built.

Depiction, Pictorial Experience, and Vision Science

Philosophical Topics, 2016

Pictures are patterned, 2D surfaces designed to elicit 3D-scenerepresenting experiences from their viewers. In this essay, I argue that philosophers have tended to underestimate the relevance of research in vision science to understanding the nature of pictorial experience. Both the deeply entrenched methodology of virtual psychophysics as well as empirical studies of pictorial space perception provide compelling support for the view that pictorial experience and seeing face-to-face are experiences of the same psychological, explanatory kind. I also show that an empirically informed account of pictorial experience provides resources to develop a novel, resemblance-based account of depiction. According to what I call the deep resemblance theory, pictures work by presenting virtual models of objects and scenes in phenomenally 3D, pictorial space. Most people think they know what a picture is. Anything so familiar must be simple. They are wrong.-Gibson 1980, xvii And Dominic Lopes: [P]ictures are at bottom vehicles for the storage, manipulation, and communication of information. .. Pictures share language's burden in representing the world and our thoughts about it. (Lopes 1996, 7) Depiction. .. is a form of representation. This is one of the few bedrock truths approved by all philosophers who have worked up an opinion on the matter. (Lopes 2006, 160) We can call the general, but seldom, if ever, defended, assumption common to these statements the (Pictorial) Content Thesis. According to the Content Thesis, pictures, like assertions, beliefs, and perceptual experiences, are constitutively representational: 1. The Content Thesis is formulated here in a general way that doesn't presuppose any particular account of pictorial content. For some widely accepted constraints on an adequate account of pictorial content, see Hopkins 2006, 145-46. For an expression of the view that "pictures are human artefacts specifically designed for communication, " see Lopes 1996, 19, 86-89.

NATURAL IMAGES AND FICTIONAL INCOMPETENCE

In this paper, I discuss the claim that photographs are natural images and how this affects their epistemic value and their capacity to represent ficta. In section 2 I discuss the notion of natural images—the idea that photographs acquire their content in a special way. This claim has led theorists to conclude that photographs are epistemically advantageous and (some other theorists) to think that photographs cannot represent ficta. In section 3, I will deal specifically with the latter claim: I address the debate on the purported ‘fictional incompetence’ of photography. I argue that this claim derives from a limited conception of photographic means and that if we provide a more true-to-practice conception of photographic means there is no reason to deny that photographs can indeed represent ficta (sections 4 and 5). This, in turn, shows that the traditional conception of how photographs acquire their content is overly narrow: even if photographs are usually natural images or cases of natural meaning, where intentions and the mental states of the artist do not play a crucial role in determining content, there are some cases where the intentions do indeed play a role; in these cases, photographs are instances of non-natural meaning. However, this does not mean that photographs are not typically natural images and thereby do not typically have the epistemic advantage conferred to natural signs. In sections 6 and 7, following the signalling model of communication (Green 2007; Maynard-Smith and Harper 2004), I defend the view that photographs are a special type of natural signal—a handicap, and sometimes an index, in Mitchell Green’s terms—that is difficult (although not impossible) to manipulate. As I make clear in section 8, this view presents a modest or weak account of the epistemic merits of photography. Finally, in section 9 I consider a stronger view—Robert Hopkins’ theory of factive pictorial experiences—and give reasons to think that such a stronger view is not viable.

Content and Target in Pictorial Representation

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

Truth, or accuracy, is widely thought to be the centerpiece of any formal theory of meaning, at least in the study of language. This paper argues for a theory of pictorial accuracy, with attention to the relationship between accuracy and pictorial content. Focusing on cases where pictures are intended to convey accurate information, the theory distinguishes between two fundamental representational relations: on one hand, a picture expresses a content; on the other, it aims at a target scene. Such a picture is accurate when the content it expresses fits the target scene it aims at. In addition, content is thought to divide into two aspects: singular content specifies the particular individuals which a picture is of, and attributive content specifies the properties and relations which the picture ascribes to those individuals. For a picture to be accurate, both aspects must be matched in the target. I call this the Three-Part Model, because it distinguishes between a triad of factors-singular content, attributive content, and target-which together determine pictorial accuracy. Through close examination of a series of cases, I argue that each component of this model is essential in order to make sense of pictorial accuracy across a range of cases.

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

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