Explains the difference between pictorial and linguistic meaning, examines the works of Titian, Poussin, Ingres, Manet, Picasso, and de Kooning, and discusses art's psychological impact.

“The longer you work, the more the mystery deepens of what appearance is, or how what is called appearance can be made in another medium."—Francis Bacon, painter This, in a nutshell, is the central problem in the theory of art. It has fascinated philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein. And it fascinates artists and art historians, who have always drawn extensively on philosophical ideas about language and representation, and on ideas about vision and the visible world that have deep philosophical roots. (...) John Hyman’s _The Objective Eye_ is a radical treatment of this problem, deeply informed by the history of philosophy and science, but entirely fresh. The questions tackled here are fundamental ones: Is our experience of color an illusion? How does the metaphysical status of colors differ from that of shapes? What is the difference between a picture and a written text? Why are some pictures said to be more realistic than others? Is it because they are especially truthful or, on the contrary, because they deceive the eye? _The Objective Eye_ explores the fundamental concepts we use constantly in our most innocent thoughts and conversations about art, as well as in the most sophisticated art theory. The book progresses from pure philosophy to applied philosophy and ranges from the metaphysics of color to Renaissance perspective, from anatomy in ancient Greece to impressionism in nineteenth-century France. Philosophers, art historians, and students of the arts will find _The Objective Eye_ challenging and absorbing. (shrink)

How do pictures represent? In this book Robert Hopkins casts new light on an ancient question by connecting it to issues in the philosophies of mind and perception. He starts by describing several striking features of picturing that demand explanation. These features strongly suggest that our experience of pictures is central to the way they represent, and Hopkins characterizes that experience as one of resemblance in a particular respect. He deals convincingly with the objections traditionally assumed to be fatal to (...) resemblance views, and shows how his own account is uniquely well placed to explain picturing's key features. His discussion engages in detail with issues concerning perception in general, including how to describe phenomena that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists, and the book concludes with an attempt to see what a proper understanding of picturing can tell us about that deeply mysterious phenomenon, the visual imagination. (shrink)

This book presents an original theory of the nature of pictorial representation. The most influential recent theory of depiction, put forward by Nelson Goodman, holds that the relation between depictions and what they represent is entirely conventional. Flint Schier argues to the contrary that depiction involves resemblance to the things depicted, providing a sophisticated defence of our basic intuitions on the subject. Canvassing an attractive theory of 'generativity' rather than resemblance, Dr Schier provides a detailed account of depiction, showing how (...) it illuminates and resolves many of the enigmas of pictorial representation while remaining true to our basic intuitions on the subject. Philosophers, psychologists and art theorists will find this a sophisticated and stimulating treatment of one of the central topics in aesthetics. (shrink)

When we see an object, we also represent those parts of it that are not visible. The question is how we represent them: this is the problem of amodal perception. I will consider three possible accounts: (a) we see them, (b) we have non-perceptual beliefs about them and (c) we have immediate perceptual access to them, and point out that all of these views face both empirical and conceptual objections. I suggest and defend a fourth account, according to which we (...) represent the occluded parts of perceived objects by means of mental imagery. This conclusion could be thought of as a (weak) version of the Strawsonian dictum, according to which “imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself”. (shrink)

Seeing, Doing, and Knowing is an original and comprehensive philosophical treatment of sense perception as it is currently investigated by cognitive neuroscientists. Its central theme is the task-oriented specialization of sensory systems across the biological domain. Sensory systems are automatic sorting machines; they engage in a process of classification. Human vision sorts and orders external objects in terms of a specialized, proprietary scheme of categories - colours, shapes, speeds and directions of movement, etc. This 'Sensory Classification Thesis' implies that sensation (...) is not a naturally caused image from which an organism must infer the state of the world beyond; it is more like an internal communication, a signal concerning the state of the world issued by a sensory system, in accordance with internal conventions, for the use of an organism's other systems. This is why sensory states are both easily understood and persuasive.Sensory classification schemes are purpose-built to serve the knowledge-gathering and pragmatic needs of particular types of organisms. They are specialized: a bee or a bird does not see exactly what a human does. The Sensory Classification Thesis helps clarify this specialization in perceptual content and supports a new form of realism about the deliverances of sensation: 'Pluralistic Realism' is based on the idea that sensory systems coevolve with an organism's other systems; they are not simply moulded to the external world. The last part of the book deals with reference in vision. Cognitive scientists now believe that vision guides the limbs by means of a subsystem that links up with the objects of physical manipulation in ways that bypass sensory categories. In a novel extension of this theory, Matthen argues that 'motion-guiding vision' is integrated with sensory classification in conscious vision. This accounts for the quasi-demonstrative form of visual states: 'This particular object is red', and so on. He uses this idea to cast new light on the nature of perceptual objects, pictorial representation, and the visual representation of space. (shrink)

This dissertation works out a new approach to understanding what makes a representation pictorial and what makes a representation imagistic. Over the last thirty years, the most common approach to these problems has been to claim that what makes a representation pictorial is that normal perceivers can perceive it in certain ways. By contrast, my approach singles out structural features of representational systems as that which distinguishes pictures from other kinds of representations. Pictorial systems are those that are transparent, relatively (...) syntactically sensitive, relatively replete, and semantically rich. All pictures are images, but the converse relation does not hold because images need not be transparent, though they satisfy the weaker condition of being mimetic. This approach is similar to, but enjoys advantages over, Nelson Goodman's work on the topic. ;The account of what makes a representation pictorial or imagistic is then brought to bear on the imagery debate, which concerns whether the brain implements imagistic systems of representation, specifically in the early stages of perception. A review of what we know about the workings of the visual and auditory systems reveals that no representations in the brain are pictorial, though some are imagistic in quite limited respects. Though they fail to be imagistic in many interesting respects, the early stages of the visual and auditory systems are highly isomorphic to what they represent. ;The role of isomorphism in perceptual states has been much discussed in both philosophy and cognitive neuroscience. The last two chapters of the dissertation argue that perceptual representations of traditionally secondary qualities like colors and sounds are isomorphic to those properties to a lesser degree than representations of traditionally primary qualities like shapes. This distinction in how such properties are represented can affect out intuitions concerning the nature of those properties and the nature of perceptual experience. Furthermore, it is argued that isomorphism is an important feature of perceptual representations because of the role it plays in making information cognitively available. This role for isomorphism is maintained even if one is an information theorist, and therefore thinks that lawful causal generalizations fix the content of representations. (shrink)

It’s a platitude – which only a philosopher would dream of denying – that whereas words are connected to what they represent merely by arbitrary conventions, pictures are connected to what they represent by resemblance. The most important difference between my portrait and my name, for example, is that whereas my portrait and I are connected by my portrait’s resemblance to me, my name and I are connected merely by an arbitrary convention. The first aim of this book is to (...) defend this platitude from the apparently compelling objections raised against it, by analysing depiction in a way which reveals how it is mediated by resemblance. -/- It’s natural to contrast the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance, which emphasises the differences between depictive and descriptive representation, with an extremely close analogy between depiction and description, which emphasises the similarities between depictive and descriptive representation. Whereas the platitude emphasises that the connection between my portrait and me is natural in a way the connection between my name and me is not, the analogy emphasises the contingency of the connection between my portrait and me. Nevertheless, the second aim of this book is to defend an extremely close analogy between depiction and description. -/- The strategy of the book is to argue that the apparently compelling objections raised against the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance are manifestations of more general problems, which are familiar from the philosophy of language. These problems, it argues, can be resolved by answers analogous to their counterparts in the philosophy of language, without rejecting the platitude. So the combination of the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance with a close analogy between depiction and description turns out to be a compelling theory of depiction, which combines the virtues of common sense with the insights of its detractors. (shrink)

Pictures are 2D surfaces designed to elicit 3D-scene-representing 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. (shrink)

The central thesis (CT) that this paper upholds is that a picture depicts an object by generating in those who view the picture a visual experience of that object. I begin by presenting a brief sketch of intentionalism, the theory of perception in terms of which I propose to account for pictorial experience. I then discuss Richard Wollheim’s twofoldness thesis and explain why it should be rejected. Next, I show that the socalled unique phenomenology of pictorial experience is simply an (...) instance of perceptual indeterminacy. Lastly, I discuss a phenomenon associated with pictures that could be considered a problem for CT, and account for it by invoking the thesis that visual experience is cognitively penetrable. (shrink)

What is it for a picture to depict a scene? The most orthodox philosophical theory of pictorial representation holds that depiction is grounded in resemblance. A picture represents a scene in virtue of being similar to that scene in certain ways. This essay presents evidence against this claim: curvilinear perspective is one common style of depiction in which successful pictorial representation depends as much on a picture's systematic differences with the scene depicted as on the similarities; it cannot be analyzed (...) in terms of similarity alone. The same problem arises for many other kinds of depiction. The essay concludes that depiction in general is not grounded in resemblance but geometrical transformation. (shrink)

Images have power - for good or ill. They may challenge us to see things anew and, in widening our experience, profoundly change who we are. The change can be ugly, as with propaganda, or enriching, as with many works of art. Sight and Sensibility explores the impact of images on what we know, how we see, and the moral assessments we make. Dominic Lopes shows how these are part of, not separate from, the aesthetic appeal of images. His book (...) will be essential reading for anyone working in aesthetics and art theory, and for all those intrigued by the power of images to affect our lives. '...tightly focused and carefully argued... an exceptionally interesting contribution to the philosophy of art: it contains subtle, concise, and convincing discussions of a number of difficult concepts and contentious doctrines... lucid and meticulous'. (shrink)

I aim to give a new account of picture perception: of the way our visual system functions when we see something in a picture. My argument relies on the functional distinction between the ventral and dorsal visual subsystems. I propose that it is constitutive of picture perception that our ventral subsystem attributes properties to the depicted scene, whereas our dorsal subsystem attributes properties to the picture surface. This duality elucidates Richard Wollheim’s concept of the “twofoldness” of our experience of pictures: (...) the “visual awareness not only of what is represented but also of the surface qualities of the representation.” I argue for the following four claims: (a) the depicted scene is represented by ventral perception, (b) the depicted scene is not represented by dorsal perception, (c) the picture surface is represented by dorsal perception, and (d) the picture surface is not necessarily represented by ventral perception. (shrink)

Some (Podro, Lopes) think that sometimes our experience of pictures is ‘inflected’. What we see in these pictures involves, somehow, an awareness of features of their design. I clarify the idea of inflection, arguing that the thought must be that what is seen in the picture is something with properties which themselves need characterising by reference to that picture’s design, conceived as such. I argue that there is at least one case of inflection, so understood. Proponents of inflection have claimed (...) great significance for the phenomenon. But what might that significance be? Inter alia, I consider Lopes’s proposal that inflection solves a central problem in pictorial aesthetics, the ‘puzzle of mimesis’. I argue that the puzzle, and the proposed solution, both turn on aspects of Lopes’s conception of seeing-in. Other accounts of seeing-in can make no sense of either. I further argue that the phenomenon of inflection itself puts pressure on the sort of account Lopes offers. Thus it is hard to offer a view which both holds that inflection occurs and is able to make clear sense of why it matters. (shrink)

The problem of amodal perception is the problem of how we represent features of perceived objects that are occluded or otherwise hidden from us. Bence Nanay (2010) has recently proposed that we amodally perceive an object's occluded features by imaginatively projecting them into the relevant regions of visual egocentric space. In this paper, I argue that amodal perception is not a single, unitary capacity. Drawing appropriate distinctions reveals amodal perception to be characterized not only by mental imagery, as Nanay suggests, (...) but also by genuinely visual representations as well as beliefs. I conclude with some brief remarks on the role of object-directed bodily action in conferring a sense of unseen presence on an object's occluded features. (shrink)

Using an approach deeply informed by philosophy of art, art history and perceptual psychology, this book places seeing at the centre of an original theory of pictorial representation and explores the ramifications such a theory has for the visual arts.

In this paper I argue for a syncretistic theory of depiction, which combines the merits of the main paradigms which have hitherto faced themselves on this issue, namely the perceptualist and semioticist approaches. The syncretistic theory indeed takes from the former its stress on experiential factors and from the latter its stress on conventional factors. But the theory is even more syncretistic than this, for the way it accounts for the experiential factor vindicates several claims defended by different perceptualist theories. (...) In a nutshell, according to the syncretistic theory a picture depicts its subject iff i) it is transformed into an entity-cum-meaning and ii) one has the twofold experience of seeing that subject in the picture qua noninterpreted entity, the image, just in case one consciously misrecognizes it in consciously seeing that image, for that subject resembles the image in some grouping properties (originally labelled Gestalt-qualities in psychology). By appealing to objective resemblance in grouping properties, the theory can vindicate what are nowadays taken to be the most neglected doctrines in the perceptualist camp: objective resemblance theories. By appealing, moreover, to conscious misrecognition, the theory not only squares with both the seeing-in and the recognition theories of depiction, but it also shows the grain of truth in illusion theories of depiction, since conscious misrecognition is a kind of perceptual illusion. (shrink)

Depiction is the form of representation distinctive of figurative paintings, drawings, and photographs. Accounts of depiction attempt to specify the relation something must bear to an object in order to depict it. Resemblance accounts hold that the notion of resemblance is necessary to the specification of this relation. Several difficulties with such analyses have led many philosophers to reject the possibility of an adequate resemblance account of depiction. This essay outlines these difficulties and argues that current resemblance accounts succumb to (...) them. It then develops an alternative resemblance account, drawing on Grice's account of nonnatural meaning and its role in determining sentence meaning to argue that something depicts an object if it bears intention-based resemblances to the object that jointly capture its overall appearance. In addition to solving the metaphysical problem of what it is for something to depict an object, this account also sheds significant light on the epistemological issue of how we are able to work out that something depicts an object. This essay argues that our ability to work out that something depicts an object results from both our more general ability to identify intentions from the products of communicative behavior and our knowledge of stylistic conventions. This account avoids the difficulties that face rival attempts to analyze depiction in terms of resemblance. It also clarifies and explains the features that distinguish depictive from nondepictive representation. (shrink)

Mimesis as Make-Believe is important reading for everyone interested in the workings of representational art.

Richard Wollheim claimed that twofoldness is a necessary condition for the perception of pictorial representations and it is also a necessary condition for the aesthetic appreciation of pictures. Jerrold Levinson pointed out that these two questions are different and argued that though twofoldness may be a necessary condition for the aesthetic appreciation of pictures, it cannot be a necessary condition for the perception of pictorial representations. I argue that Wollheim's use of the term ‘twofoldness’ alternates between two concepts: the simultaneous (...) visual awareness of the surface and of the represented object on the one hand and the simultaneous visual awareness of the represented object and the way it is represented on the other. Finally, I argue that twofoldness in the first sense is a necessary condition for the perception of pictorial representations, whereas twofoldness in the second sense is a necessary condition for the aesthetic appreciation of pictures. (shrink)

"Perception is not something that happens to us, or in us," writes Alva Noe. "It is something we do." In Action in Perception, Noe argues that perception and perceptual consciousness depend on capacities for action and thought — that ...

Although the study of visual perception has made more progress in the past 40 years than any other area of cognitive science, there remain major disagreements as to how closely vision is tied to general cognition. This paper sets out some of the arguments for both sides and defends the position that an important part of visual perception, which may be called early vision or just vision, is prohibited from accessing relevant expectations, knowledge and utilities - in other words it (...) is cognitively impenetrable. That part of vision is complex and articulated and provides a representation of the 3-D surfaces of objects sufficient to serve as an index into memory, with somewhat different outputs being made available to other systems such as those dealing with motor control. The paper also addresses certain conceptual and methodological issues, including the use of signal detection theory and event-related potentials to assess cognitive penetration of vision. A distinction is made among several stages in visual processing. These include, in addition to the inflexible early-vision stage, a pre-perceptual attention allocation stage and a post-perceptual evaluation, memory-accessing, and inference stage which provide several different highly constrained ways in which cognition can affect the outcome of visual perception. The paper discusses arguments that have been presented in both computer vision and psychology showing that vision is "intelligent" and involves elements of problem solving". It is suggested that these cases do not show cognitive penetration, but rather they show that certain natural constraints on interpretation, concerned primarily with optical and geometrical properties of the world, have been compiled into the visual system. The paper also examines a number of examples where instructions and "hints" are alleged to affect. (shrink)

Several recent books indicate that the philosophy of art has embarked upon a new alliance with cognitive science. One impetus for this is the move, beginning in the 70s and 80s, away from general aesthetics to a greater concern with the philosophies of the individual arts. Questions about the nature of art, expression, aesthetic experience and aesthetic properties as generic phenomena are still with us but many philosophers now approach them by means of specialized studies of music, literature, film, the (...) visual arts or the performing arts. Some claim that these questions can only be answered, or can best be answered, by studying the individual art forms. This has brought aesthetics into alignment with empirical research, which has always been concerned with individual art forms, for reasons having to do both with experimental design and with views of the mind as functionally differentiated. There is no psychological work on the perception of beauty, for example, but only on the perception of visual beauty, beauty in music and the like. Now that aesthetics is equally specialized, empirical research on the individual arts can be brought to bear upon familiar problems in aesthetics. (shrink)

Robert Hopkins’s Picture, Image and Experience aims to provide an account of pictorial representation that vindicates the intuitions of the many, namely that pictorial representation is a deeply visual phenomenon, that an explanation of pictorial representation needs to be based on an explanation of our experience of pictures, and that there must be some sense in the idea that pictures resemble their objects. Hopkins proposes that we can show what is correct in these intuitions by explaining pictures as representations that (...) depend on a distinctive sort of perceptual experience: experienced resemblance in outline shape between a picture and its object. Experienced resemblance in outline shape is the experience of sameness of the solid angle subtended by the contours on the pictorial surface and the solid angle subtended by the actual depicted objects. Pictures don’t resemble their objects but they are experienced as such and it is sameness of outline shape or sameness of subtended solid angles that secures this experience. (shrink)

The nature of representation is a central topic in philosophy. This is the first book to connect problems with understanding representational artifacts, like pictures, diagrams, and inscriptions, to the philosophies of science, mind, and art. Can images be a source of knowledge? Are images merely conventional signs, like words? What is the relationship between the observer and the observed? In this clear and stimulating introduction to the problem John V. Kulvicki explores these questions and more. He discusses: the nature of (...) pictorial experience and "seeing in" recognition, resemblance, pretense, and structural theories of depiction images as aids to scientific discovery and understanding mental imagery and the nature of perceptual content photographs as visual prostheses. In so doing he assesses central problems in the philosophy of images, such as how objects we make come to represent other things, and how we distinguish kinds of representation - pictures, diagrams, graphs - from one another. Essential reading for students and professional philosophers alike, the book also contains chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary. (shrink)

The representation of color by pictures raises worthwhile questions for philosophers and psychologists. Moreover, philosophers and psychologists interested in answering these questions will benefit by paying attention to each other's work. Failure to recognize the potential for interdisciplinary cooperation can be attributed to tacit acceptance of the resemblance theory of pictorial color. I argue that this theory is inadequate, so philosophers of art have work to do devising an alternative. At the same time, if the resemblance theory is false, then (...) color depiction has interesting implications for color science. Empirical researchers must rethink the widespread assumption that color recognition requires color constancy. I suggest that a neuropsychological account of color recognition will be instrumental to completing the philosophical task, but by the same token scientists might do well not to proceed without casting an eye to the work of philosophers of art. (shrink)

I aim to give a new account of picture perception: of the way our visual system functions when we see something in a picture. My argument relies on the functional distinction between the ventral and dorsal visual subsystems. I propose that it is constitutive of picture perception that our ventral subsystem attributes properties to the scene, whereas our dorsal subsystem attributes properties to the surface. Keywords: picture perception; dorsal subsystem;.

This paper proposes that pictorial experience, the experience that pictures give rise to when we understand them, involves the non-veridical experience of seeing the picture's subject matter. Using phenomenological analysis and material from philosophy of mind and perceptual psychology, it argues that both pictorial experience lacking awareness of the picture surface, such as illusion, and pictorial experience that includes this awareness, i.e. seeing-in, should be understood in this way.