Abstract
In this essay, I will argue that images can play a substantial role in argumentation: exploiting information from the context, they can contribute directly and substantially to the communication of the propositions that play the roles of premises and conclusion. Furthermore, they can achieve this directly, i.e. without the need of verbalization. I will ground this claim by presenting and analyzing some arguments where images are essential to the argumentation process.
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Notes
When talking of images in this context, I mean external man-made images, like pictures, symbols, icons, diagrams, maps, etc. My account is not intended to cover mental or natural images. I will also restrict my examples to static images, even though I suspect the lessons I will try to draw would also apply to moving images.
This in no way commits us to taking propositions to be structured entities. As Bealer (1993, 1998) has insisted, talk of combining constituents into a proposition need not be taken too literally, as if a proposition was literally assembled out of its parts in the hearer’s mind. Instead, it is better to think of the hearer as inferring what proposition is being communicated out of the information provided by words, context and images. A more detailed account of this process can be found in the aforementioned (Stainton 2006) and (Sperber and Wilson 1986, 1995).
A more detailed account of my own take on Stainton’s views on this point is developed in Barceló (forthcoming).
On the similarities and differences between verbal directions and maps, see Tversky and Lee (1999).
However, we do speak of propositions being true on them. For example, in Eugene and Federika’s argument, we may say that it is true that on the map the street is closed (Malinas 1991).
For an exception, see Prakken (2011).
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Acknowledgments
I am very thankful to the members of the Tecuemepe seminar (Carmen Curcó, Laura Duhau, Ángeles Eraña, Leonard Clapp, Eduardo García-Ramírez, Ekain Garmendia and Elías Okón) and Juan Pablo Aguílar for feedback on earlier versions of this paper. I also greatly appreciate the many comments from the reviewers of Argumentation. I also want to thank Leo Goarke and Sergio Martínez for their encouragement to develop my views on this topic, and the material support from the following research projects: “Representación y Cognición” (PAPIIT IN401611-3), “Lenguaje y Cognición” (CONACYT 083004) and “Intervención de organismos vivos: los límites del arte en el entrecruzamiento con la ciencia y la tecnología” (PAPIIT IN 403911).
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Barceló Aspeitia, A.A. Words and Images in Argumentation. Argumentation 26, 355–368 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-011-9259-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-011-9259-y