RESEMBLANCE AND
REPRESENTATION
Resemblance and
Representation
An Essay in the Philosophy of Pictures
Ben Blumson
http://www.openbookpublishers.com
© 2014 Ben Blumson
The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute
and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work
providing attribution is made to the author (but not in any way that suggests that
he endorses you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following
information:
Blumson, Ben, Resemblance and Representation: An Essay in the Philosophy of Pictures.
Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0046
Please see the list of illustrations for attribution relating to individual images. Every
effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omissions or
errors will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher.
In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit:
http://www.openbookpublishers.com/isbn/9781783740727#copyright
Further details about CC BY licenses are available at: http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0
Digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at http://
www.openbookpublishers.com/isbn/9781783740727#resources
ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-072-7
ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-073-4
ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-074-1
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-075-8
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-076-5
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0046
Cover image: Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist painting (with black trapezium and
red square) (1915). Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Wikimedia Commons: http://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kazimir_Malevich_-_Suprametism.jpg
All paper used by Open Book Publishers is SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative), and
PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) Certified.
Printed in the United Kingdom and United States by Lightning Source for
Open Book Publishers (Cambridge, UK).
For my father, Richard Blumson
Contents
List of illustrations
ix
Acknowledgements
1
Note on the text
5
1. Introduction
9
1.1 An ostensive definition of depiction
10
1.2 The analysis of resemblance as sharing properties
13
1.3 An intuitive taxonomy of representation
21
1.4 The methodology of analysis
23
1.5 Conclusion
28
2. Defining Depiction
31
2.1 Grice’s analysis of speaker meaning
32
2.2 The intended effect in Grice’s analysis
35
2.3 The salient feature in Grice’s analysis
39
2.4 Abell’s analysis of depiction
44
2.5 Conclusion
49
3. Depiction and Intention
51
3.1 Objections to the necessity of intention
52
3.2 Objections to the necessity of an audience
57
3.3 Objections to the sufficiency of intention
60
3.4 Objections to the necessity of reasons
63
3.5 Conclusion
66
4. Depiction and Convention
67
4.1 Goodman’s definition of symbol systems
68
4.2 Formal definition of languages
70
4.3 Lewis’ analysis of convention
73
4.4 Analysis of depictive symbol systems
77
4.5 Conclusion
81
viii Resemblance and Representation
5. Symbol Systems
85
5.1 Analysis of conventional language
86
5.2 Analysis of symbol systems in use
88
5.3 Depiction outside of symbol systems
92
5.4 Meaning outside conventional language
94
5.5 Conclusion
96
6. Depiction and Composition
99
6.1 Theories of representation
102
6.2 The finite axiomatization constraint
105
6.3 The mirror constraint
108
6.4 The structural constraint
111
6.5 Conclusion
114
7. Interpreting Images
117
7.1 Compositionality and language understanding
118
7.2 Compositionality and understanding pictures
122
7.3 Understanding pictures without compositionality
126
7.4 Understanding language without compositionality
130
7.5 Conclusion
136
8. Intentionality and Inexistence
139
8.1 Analysing depiction in intentional terms
141
8.2 Denying depiction is relational
145
8.3 Denying relations are between existents
148
8.4 Depiction of states of affairs
151
8.5 Conclusion
157
9. Perspective and Possibility
159
9.1 The possible worlds analysis of content
159
9.2 Centred properties and possible worlds
161
9.3 The two-dimensional analysis of content
168
9.4 Structured intensions and impossible worlds
172
9.5 Conclusion
177
10. Pictures and Properties
179
10.1 Predicate nominalism
182
10.2 Class nominalism
185
10.3 Scientific realism
188
10.4 Inegalitarian nominalism
193
10.5 Conclusion
196
References
199
Index
207
List of illustrations
1
A white sphere in front of a black sphere. From Jeff Ross (1997),
Semantics of Media (Dordrecht: Kluwer), p. 73. © Kluwer. With
kind permission from Springer Science and Business Media.
161
A black sphere in front of a white sphere. From Jeff Ross (1997),
Semantics of Media (Dordrecht: Kluwer), p. 73. © Kluwer. With
kind permission from Springer Science and Business Media.
161
3
A black sphere to the left.
163
4
A black sphere to the right.
163
5
A black sphere to the left from above.
164
6
A black sphere to the right from above.
164
7
An impossible triangle. Image from Wikimedia:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pentriangle.svg
172
2
Acknowledgements
This book has had a long gestation, and I have needed a lot of help, so there
are a lot of people to thank. Much of the philosophy of language and mind
I draw on in these pages I learnt as an undergraduate at the University
of Queensland. I thank especially Deborah Brown, William Grey, Dominic
Hyde and Gary Malinas for everything they taught me. I also met many of
my closest friends at the University of Queensland – I would especially like
to thank June Mahadevan.
The first version of the book was my PhD thesis at the Australian
National University (ANU). I especially thank my supervisors Daniel
Stoljar, David Chalmers and Martin Davies. Andy Egan, Frank Jackson
and Robert McRoberts read entire drafts, while Catharine Abell, Jake Beck,
Elizabeth Coleman, Daniel Friedrich, Brendan Jackson and Uriah Kriegel
gave me comments on various chapters. The examiners also gave me
helpful comments on the finished thesis.
I learnt as much at ANU from my fellow students as my teachers. In
particular, Jens Christian Bjerring, David Bourget, Campbell Brown, Carl
Brusse, Jacek Brzozowski, Brett Calcott, Yuri Cath, Philippe Chuard, Aisling
Crean, Nic Damnjanovic, Ben Fraser, Akira Inoue, Ben Jeffares, Mitch Joe,
Ole Koksvik, John Matthewson, Yujin Nagasawa, Karen Riley, Kelly Roe,
Stewart Saunders, Martin Smith, Nic Southwood, Weng Hong Tang and
David Wall all helped me more than they know.
In addition, I am very grateful to Magdalena Balcerak, John Bigelow,
David Braddon-Mitchell, Tyler Dogget, Christoph Fehige, Alan Hajek,
Bernard Nickel, Daniel Nolan, John O’Dea, Brad Richards, Denis Robinson
and Declan Smithies for discussions at ANU. When Yuri Cath saw the thesis
acknowledgements he accused me of thanking everyone indiscriminately.
But this list is just a small fraction of the people I spoke to at ANU – I am
very sorry to all those I have omitted.
2 Resemblance and Representation
I finished the first draft of the book, conceived as such, as a postdoctoral
fellow at the University of Sydney. I’m grateful to Uriah Kriegel, Raamy
Majeed and Luca Moretti for discussions during this time. I also thank Axel
Gelfert, John Holbo, Wang-Yen Lee, Mike Pelczar, Neil Sinhababu and
especially Tang Weng-Hong for taking part in a reading group on the book
at the National University of Singapore, and Gabriel Greenberg, Raamy
Majeed and David Wall for comments on the draft.
Finally, I am grateful for conversations at conferences and seminars
with Catharine Abell, Rafael De Clerq, Mitchell Green, Robert Hopkins,
John Kulvicki, Paisley Livingston, Dominic Lopes, Dan Marshall, Michael
Newall, Josh Parsons, Michael Rescorla, John Williams, Alberto Voltolini
and John Zeimbekis. And I’m grateful to very many – but unfortunately
not to all – referees who read the book manuscript or drafts of the papers
mentioned below.
Parts of chapters one, two and three appeared previously as “Defining
Depiction” in the British Journal of Aesthetics (2009a). This paper was
presented at the Australasian Postgraduate Philosophy Conference in
Melbourne, the University of Queensland and the Singapore Management
University in 2005, at the Australian National University and the British
Society of Aesthetics in 2006, and at “Images and Intentionality”, a
workshop I organised at the University of Sydney in 2008.
Parts of chapters four and five appeared as “Depiction and Convention”
in dialectica (2008). This paper was also presented at the Australasian
Association of Philosophy Conference in Canberra and at the Australian
National University in 2006. The final paragraphs of chapter four are
from “Depictive Structure?” in Philosophical Papers (2011). This paper was
presented at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division in
2009 and at the University of Western Australia in 2010.
Parts of “Maps and Meaning” from the Journal of Philosophical Research
(2010a) are reused in chapter six. I thank Daniel Friedrich and Uriah
Kriegel for reading this paper. Chapter six in its current form, “Depiction
and Composition”, was presented at the Australasian Association of
Philosophy Conference in Sydney in 2010, the University of Copenhagen
and the London Aesthetics Forum in 2011 and the Victoria University of
Wellington in 2013.
Chapter seven, “Interpreting Images”, was presented to the American
Society of Aesthetics Pacific Division in 2009, at a workshop, “Depiction
and Description” in Singapore in 2010, and to the International Society of
Acknowledgements 3
Philosophy and Literature in Singapore and at the University of Western
Australia in 2013. I thank Liz Blumson for reading this chapter. Chapter
eight previously appeared as “Images, Intentionality and Inexistence” in
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2009b) and was presented at the
University of Sydney and the Australian National University in 2007.
Chapter nine was published as “Pictures Perspective and Possibility”
in Philosophical Studies (2010b). This paper was also presented at the New
Zealand division of the Australasian Association of Philosophy in 2007 and
the University of Sydney in 2008. Chapter ten was presented at a workshop
at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, “Art and Metaphysics”, and at the
University of Sydney in 2012.
It’s difficult to acknowledge family without sounding like one is
winning an academy award rather than writing an academic monograph.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth, Erica and Emily Blumson are the best mother
and sisters one could ask for. While a quick look at my thesis convinced
my nephew that it was mind-numbingly repetitive (no doubt some other
readers will be sympathetic), my father patiently read it all, and corrected
several mistakes. This book is dedicated to him.
Note on the text
I use single quotation marks to mention an expression. So whereas Boston
is a North American city, ‘Boston’ is the name of a North American city.
I use double quotation marks to quote what another person said. For
example, Quine said that quotation “… has a certain anomalous feature
…” (Quine, 1940, 26). I use corner quotation marks when I need to use a
variable or subscript within a quoted expression. So ‘˹the bank1 is open˺’
and ‘˹the bank2 is open˺’ refer to disambiguations of ‘the bank is open’.
I also use corner quotes for substitutional quantification. In particular
‘(∏φ) ˹φ˺ in English means that φ’ asserts that for every English sentence φ,
writing φ (not ‘φ’!) in quotation marks, followed by ‘in English means that’,
followed by φ without quotations marks results in a truth. In particular, it
asserts that ‘snow is white’ in English means that snow is white, that ‘grass
is green’ in English means that grass is green, … and so on.
The passage just quoted from Quine continues “A quotation is not a
description, but a hieroglyph; it designates its object not by describing it
in terms of other objects, but by picturing it” (Quine, 1940, 26). Though
I mostly follow Quine’s recommendations for the usage of quotation
marks I cannot agree with this: in fact I take quotation as a paradigmatic
example of descriptive, rather than depictive, representation. I think this
presupposition is defensible, but also dispensable, so I won’t defend it here.
The fact is that on that night I laughed at the axiom Quae sunt aequalia uni tertio
sunt aequalia inter se (“Things which are equal to a third thing are equal to each
other”), for the portrait resembled M. M. and it also resembled the strumpet, and
the latter did not resemble M. M. Murray admitted it, and we spent an hour
philosophizing.
Giacomo Casanova, History of My Life, volume 4, chapter 10