Understanding Pictures (Oxford Philosophical Monographs) - Hardcover

Lopes, Dominic

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019824097X ISBN 13: 9780198240976

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1996

Synopsis

There is not one but many ways to picture the world--Australian "x-ray" pictures, cubish collages, Amerindian split-style figures, and pictures in two-point perspective each draw attention to different features of what they represent. Understanding Pictures argues that this diversity is the central fact with which a theory of figurative pictures must reckon. Lopes advances the theory that identifying pictures' subjects is akin to recognizing objects whose appearances have changed over time. He develops a schema for categorizing the different ways pictures represent--the different kinds of meaning they have--and argues that that depiction's epistemic value lies in its representational diversity. He also offers a novel account of the phenomenology of pictorial experience, comparing pictures to visual prostheses like mirrors and binoculars.

About this title

About the Author

Dominic Lopes is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Indiana University at Kokomo.

From the Back Cover

There are not one but many ways to picture the worldAustralian 'x-ray' pictures, cubist collages, Amerindian split-style figures, and pictures in two-point perspective each draw attention to different features of what they represent. The premise of Understanding Pictures is that this diversity is the central fact with which a theory of figurative pictures must reckon. Lopes argues that identifying pictures' subjects is akin to recognizing objects whose appearances have changed over the time. He develops a scheme for categorizing the different ways pictures represent - the different kinds of meaning they have - and he contends that depiction's epistemic value lies in its representational diversity. He also offers a novel account of the phenomenology of pictorial experience, comparing pictures to visual prostheses like mirrors and binoculars. The book concludes with a discussion of works of art which have made pictorial meaning their theme, demonstrating the importance of the issues this book raises for understanding the aesthetics of pictures.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019824097X
• ISBN 13: 9780198240976
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248