Abstract
My main objective in this paper is to formulate a view of pictorial
realism I call ‘hypothetical verity’. It owes much to John Kulvicki but diverges
from his view in an important respect: rather than thinking that realistic pictures
are true to our conceptions of things, I hold that they are true to what things
would be like if they existed. In addition, I agree with Dominic Lopes that different
realisms reflect different aspects of reality, but restate the case without recourse to
symbol systems. Together, the twin principles of hypothetical verity and aspectival
absolutism constitute a theory of realism able to account for realistic fictional
entities, the problem of revelatory realism and images that teach new information.