In this article, I argue that pictorial styles are individuated in terms of different degrees of determinacy. For example, Morandi’s still-life etchings and Monet’s cathedral paintings embody different styles in that in the former, shape properties are differentiated in a fine-grained manner, and in the latter, coarse grained. I develop this view by critically examining John Kulvicki’s analysis of how we interpret pictures. According to Kulvicki, we rarely interpret pictures as differing in terms of features that belong to the vehicle (...) of representation—that is, the design-content relation. Rather, he thinks that we individuate pictorial styles in terms of the content that each picture represents. Contra Kulvicki, I argue that we interpret the vehicular features of pictures in light of our knowledge of picture production, and that the diversity of pictorial styles involves both content and vehicle. (shrink)

In the twentieth century, no person epitomized more dramatically the “Renaissance mind” than Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001). In aworking life spanning over 60 years, Simon made seminal contributions to administrative theory, axiomatic foundations of physics, economics, sociology, econometrics, cognitive psychology, logic of scientific discovery, and artificial intelligence. Simon's life of the mind, thus, affords nothing less than a “laboratory” in which to observe and examine at close quarters the phenomenon ofmultidisciplinary creativity. In this paper, we attempt to shed some light (...) on the nature of Simon's creativity and the nature of his particular Renaissance mind. In particular, we have attempted here to articulate thecognitive styleunderlying Simon's multidisciplinary creativity. (shrink)

Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Early Modern Art Heinrich Wölfflingetty research institute. 2015. pp. 356. £20.00.

The emergence of Bildwissenschaft as a new interdisciplinary formation that is intended to encompass all images calls for an analysis of the grounds on which the claim to universality can be upheld. I argue that whereas the lifting of scope restrictions imposes only a weak universality requirement, the identification of features that belong to the entire class of entities that are categorized as images imposes a strong universality requirement. Reflection on this issue brings into focus the distinctive character of Bildwissenschaft (...) and the features that distinguish it not only from other related disciplines such as art history and visual studies, but also from recent work in the philosophy of the image. (shrink)