Why the pictorial relation is not reference

British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (3):226-247 (2004)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Nelson Goodman argued that the pictorial relation is reducible to reference. After explaining why previous attempts to refute this thesis of reduction have failed, I argue that in order to show that the thesis is indeed wrong we must find an aspect of pictures that is incompatible with it. I proceed to argue that there is indeed such an element to pictures. Ordinarily, a picture depicts its subject as having aesthetic properties. I show that the depiction of these properties requires the picture’s engagement of our aesthetic judgement. Yet if according to the thesis of reduction a picture refers to these aesthetic properties, they must be inaccessible to aesthetic judgement, because reference is based on arbitrary correlation rules. Since pictures do engage our aesthetic judgement, we must conclude that the pictorial relation is irreducible to reference.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 84,108

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Pictorial perception as illusion.Katerina Bantinaki - 2007 - British Journal of Aesthetics 47 (3):268-279.
Aesthetic essays.Malcolm Budd - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Pictorial space and the possibility of art.Paul Crowther - 2008 - British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2):175-192.
Is twofoldness necessary for representational seeing?Bence Nanay - 2005 - British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (3):248-257.
Inflected Pictorial Experience: Its Treatment and Significance.Robert Hopkins - 2010 - In Catharine Abell & Katerina Bantinaki (eds.), Philosophical Perspectives on Depiction. Oxford University Press. pp. 151.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
163 (#92,424)

6 months
1 (#511,561)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Alon Chasid
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan
Stephen Davies
University of Auckland

Citations of this work

Content-Free Pictorial Realism.Alon Chasid - 2007 - Philosophical Studies 135 (3):375-405.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references