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Philosophical Review

Explaining DepictionAuthor(s): Robert HopkinsSource: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 104, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), pp. 425-455Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review

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The Philosophicaleview, ol. 104, No. 3 (July 995)

Explaining Depiction

RobertHopkins

1.

Howdo pictures epresent?o doubtthey o so inmanyways.fa paintinghows seatedwoman,f hesymbolizesespair,ndif

thework xpressesmelancholy,eshouldnotassume hat herep-resentational elationshere are all the same.Nonetheless,perhapsone formof representations speciallypictorial.Perhaps, n otherwords,there s a formof representation hat s distinctivelyxhib-ited bypicturesand that t is distinctive f pictures to exhibit. tseems more likely hatour paintingexhibits this distinctive ormin representing seatedwoman thanin representing espair. Forconsider a representation hat s not a picture-a written escrip-tion. This mightdescribea seated womanwho symbolizedDespair.It is tempting o say that the pictureand thedescription epresenta seated woman in differentways,but representDespair in thesame way-by representing omethingthat itself ymbolizesDe-spair.This is not ust a point concerning the meansbywhich rep-resentation s achieved; it rendersplausible theclaim thattheformof representationn the two cases is also the same.

Let's make theworking ssumptionthat there s a speciallypic-torialform of representation, nd let's call it "depiction."' Whatis depiction?

Philosophershave providedmanydifferentnswers o thisques-tion. These appeal, interalia, to formal featuresof the represen-tationalsystem,o natural relationsbetweendepictionand depict-ed, to our experience of pictures, nd to the resourceswe must

deployto understandthem.2This varietyswelcome,butit has not

11shall not putmuch weight n the term tself, incein ordinary peechit applies rathermore widely hanhere. It is,for nstance, uite natural tospeak of music or literatures depicting hings. use the termanyway e-cause there s no better lternative,nd its use is increasinglytandard nphilosophicaldiscussionof thistopic.

2The best examples of these four approaches are: (i) Goodman 1976;(ii) Peacocke 1987, Budd 1993-both of whichalso embody the third p-

proach; (iii) Gombrich 1977, Wollheim 1987, Walton 1990; (iv) Schier1986.

425

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ROBERT HOPKINS

led to healthydebate. Instead discussionhas all too oftenreducedto the tradingof counterexamples.The protagonistshave

merelyexchanged conflicting ntuitions s to whether a particular casedepicts or not. This may lead us to wonder ifthere is interestingdisagreementhere. Perhaps the different iews articulate severaldistinctnotions,ratherthan offer ivalaccountsof a single idea.

The purpose of thispaper is to remedy his ituation.Order canbe broughtto the chaos ifwe rememberthat thepointof a philo-sophical theory s to offerexplanations.This suggestsa certain

approach to the topic. We must dentifyome prominentfeaturesof depictionand try o explain why t has them. We providethatexplanation by offeringn analysisof depictionfromwhichthosefeaturesfollow.The key testof any analysis s whether t succeedsin this role. This approach will not guarantee an end to contro-versy, ince some may disagreewithour chosen explananda. Butat least the termsofdebate will have changed, and for the better.

The proposed explananda must be plausibleindependently f theaccount that explains them; nonetheless, once we have that ac-count itwillsupportthe explananda as well as being supportedbythem.The equilibriumthusattained s a more substantial chieve-ment than merely nsisting n some intuition bout a particularcase. Those who wish to offer serious alternative o our viewwillhave to offer better xplanationfor our chosen features, r pro-

vide a different,nd equally plausible, set of features nd an ex-planationforthem.In the next sectionI describe some featuresof depiction suffi-

ciently trikingo demand explanation.Section 3 discusses he abil-ity f some prominent urrentviewsto meet thatdemand. Section4 outlinesan alternativeccount ofdepiction, nd in section 5 thisaccount is used to providethe needed explanations.

2.

Depiction can, but need not, be of some particular.A portrait e-picts a particular person, but many examples of genre paintingdepictsomeone ofa certaintypewithout herebeing anyparticularperson of thattypewhomthepainting depicts.3 f no particular s

3Amorecomplex ase is one inwhichdepictions ofsome fictionalparticular,orexample picture urportingo portrayon Quixote.believe hecorrectnalysisfthedepictionffictions illbe parasiticn

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

depicted, depiction is simplyof a thingwithcertainproperties.Moreover,depictionof a particular s alwaysdepictionof it as en-joyingsome properties.For example,a portrait annotdepictWin-ston Churchillwithout scribingsome featuresto him. Thus thedistinction s reallybetweendepicting set ofproperties s instan-tiatedby a particularand depictingthem as co-instantiated, utnot byanyparticular hing.4

Whetheror not theydepict particulars, icturesalwayshave afairly ichcontent.The thoughthere is important ut elusive. t is

perhaps part ofwhatpeople mean whenthey aythatpicturespainta thousandwords. Can we tease somethingmore precise from histalk of richness?

We have alreadyarticulatedpart of the idea here withperfectprecision,namely, hat t is notpossible to depict a particularwith-out ascribingto it some properties.Whythisshould be certainlyneeds explaining.However, here smore,since eventhedepiction

ofpropertiesdemands a contentthat s not too thin.For example,a picturecannotdepictsomething s simply riangular, r as simplya table. If it depictseither, t depictssomethingofmore determi-natenature-perhaps an isoscelestriangle, erhapsa three-legged,square-toppedtable. Of course, the propertiesdepicted need notbe fully eterminate, nd indeed could not be. Any picture's con-tent must stop somewhere,and thus no picture depicts,for in-

stance,a table of completelydeterminate hape.5Thus beyond acertaindegree indeterminacys unacceptable, but thatdegree isnot zero. Although t is difficult o sayanythingmore about thisdegree, it is striking hatthere is such a limit on depiction.Anexplanationofwhy here s one wouldbe welcome,even if t eavesthe limit mprecise.

Itwill be convenientto gather both thesepoints about richnessin a singleexplanandum:

what say n thispaper,but there s no space to offer hatanalysishere,so I limitmyclaims to nonfictional epiction.

40ther treatments fthese ssues can be found n Goodman 1976 chap.1, secs. 5-6; Kaplan 1969, 225-26; Wollheim1987, chap. 2, n. 16.

5This is denied byDennett (1969, 135), who thinks hatsuch indeter-minacywilloccuronlywhenthepicture scribes o thetablesomepropertythatobscures its precise shape. Goodman's account of depiction (1976)

seems to commit him too to denyingthatpictorialcontentcan be inde-terminate n thisway.For his attempt o deal withobviousexamples oftheabove, see his 1988, chap. 8, sec. 3.

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ROBERT HOPKINS

(xl) Any depicted particular s depicted as having some prop-

erties,and any properties depicted are reasonably deter-minate.

The second and third explananda providefurther,more specificconstraints n the content ofdepictions.Here is the second:

(x2) Everythingdepicted is depicted from some point(s) ofview.

In otherwords, depiction is essentially erspectival. ngres's por-trait fLouis Frantois Bertindepictshim fromthe front. ome ofMagritte's elf-portraitshowhim frombehind. I cannot depict achair, ay,without epicting ome partof it as nearer thananother.And in general any depiction of any thingmustrepresent t asspatially elated to a certainpoint,the point fromwhichit is de-picted.6

Two clarificationsmayhelp here. First, here may be more thanone point of view fromwhich a picture depicts.An architecturaldrawing howing building'sfront nd side elevations n thesamecontinuousfiguredepictsdifferentartsof the buildingfromdif-ferentpointsof view.Cases thatmayseem moreproblematic, uchas earlyCubistworks,are merelymore complex versionsof thesame phenomenon. Second, the point of viewmaybe somewhatindeterminate.A

child's drawingof a

house mightnot depict itfromany very determinatepoint at all. Perhaps one can say nomore than that the house is representedfrom the front, atherthan the side or the back.

The perspectivalnature of picturing s one of its most strikingfeatures,one any account of depiction mustattemptto explain,and one that has frequently een noted.8No less importants the

6There need be no independent way of specifyinghispoint.A depic-tion of a cube may depict it froma point opposite one of its faces, eventhoughthe only way to specify he face is as the one nearest the point.However, he circularity ere isbenign,forhow else are we to describethiscase?

7Could a sufficientlyragmentaryubist worknot as a whole depict itsobject fromno pointof viewat all? Even ifso, the picturewould achievethisprecisely y havingpartsthatdepict partsofthe objectfromparticular,butdifferent,ointsofview. ince thespirit f (x2) is not threatenedhere,there seems littlepointlegislating n theputative ounterexample.

8See forexample Budd 1993, 170.

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

insight of the Renaissance theoristAlberti that "the painter is con-cerned solely with representing what can be seen" (1966, 43). Agloss makes this a little clearer:

(x3) Whatever can be depicted could be seen.

This also invitesclarification. There is a distinction, applying to the

depiction of particulars, between those properties the depictedparticular actually enjoys and those it is depicted as enjoying.

Should we take (x3) as claiming that any particular depicted mustactuallybe visible, or that it must be depicted s visible? I suggest weaccept both readings. We can do so by allowing 'whatever' to cover

any particular or property. Then any particular depicted must in

fact be visible; so the first eading is secured. Further, any propertya picture ascribes must be one the possession of which by an itemis in general visuallydetectable, thus guaranteeing the second read-ing.9

The result is a strong claim-why should we make it? It is hardto deny that the vast majority of pictures depict items that are

themselves visible, and depict them as having a visual appearance.

True, (x3) goes further,precluding the depiction of any nonvisiblefeature. This may seem to clash with the concern, common in por-

traiture,with representing character traits. However, what a por-trait depicts is precisely aspects of character that are visiblymani-

fested-in the curl of the lips, the furrowingof the brows, and soon. Conversely, what it cannot depict is a completely concealed

aspect of character. Thus if (x3) goes too far, t does so by ignoringsome rather unusual pictorial possibilities, rather than by misun-

derstanding the depictive mainstream. There are perhaps two im-

portant sources of anxiety here.

First, can I not depict something as invisible? Suppose I depict

9Note thatthiscoversbothcaseswhere there s a particular epresentedas possessing hepropertyn question and cases wherethere snot-wherevarious propertiesare merely representedas co-instantiated. s for thedepictionof fictions, have alreadysaid that it is not myconcern here,but it anyway eems unlikelyto frustratex3). The Mad Hatter can bedepictedeven though, s a fiction, e cannotbe seen; but it s no accidentthatthepropertieshe fictionallynjoys ncludevisibleones, such as being

behatted.Were this not so, the Hatter could not be depicted. This en-courages the thought hat x3) could be adapted so as to coverthedepic-tionoffictions.

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a wispy, early ransparention, moving mongstvillagerswho look

straight hrough t.10 oes thisprovide a counterexampleto (x3)?Certainly havedepictedthe villagers ailing o see thelion, and,given that they are looking in the right direction,depicted it asinvisible o them. But if am to depict the lion at all, I must givethe viewer of the picturesome indicationof its presence-hencethewispy, early ransparenthape in the depicted scene. But thenI have depicted somethingwispy and nearly transparent-andhence something just) visible.To whom is this thingvisible?Not

to anyone depicted in the scene, but to anyone viewing he scenefrom the point fromwhich it is represented. fyou were lookingat the scene (not the pictureof it), you would see thewispy ion,and the villagers ailing o see it.

Thus the ion isdepictedas invisible o thevillagers, ut as visibleto theviewer. o it is certainly epicted as visible to someone, andhence (x3) stands. The picture ascribes to the lion properties

(wispiness and near transparency) hatcan, in general, be seen,and the factthat talso ascribesto it theproperty f being invisibleto certain depicted people does not change matters.

We mighttry o tightenup the example, for nstanceby repre-sentingthepresence of the lion by tsfootprintslone. But ifonewerelooking (face-to-face)t the scene now,one wouldbe able tosee thata lion was present,but not to see the lion itself. imilarly,

thepicturenowdepictsa scene inwhicha lion ispresent,but doesnot depictthe lion. True,none of theseclaims s so obviously ightas to be undeniable. However,the questions thatarise here, thepressures hapingthe answers o them, nd the resourcesavailableto accommodate those pressures, re strikinglyimilarforseeingand depicting.Thus farfromweakeningthe hold (x3) has on us,this refinedexample strengthenst.

Second, thereis class of

representationshat seem to fly ull n

the face of both the claims (x3) captures. Consider,for nstance,an illustration howingthe layoutof a magneticfield. It is notobviouslywrongto describe this s depictingthefield;yetthe fieldhas no visualappearance, and the illustration oes not ascribe oneto it.

Plainlythe illustration epresents he field,but does itdepict it?It is hard to say.Any ntuitionwe mayhave on thismatter s hardly

101 we this xample oan anonymouseferee.

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enough to dictate a reasoned philosophical response. There areother possibilities o consider, and no grounds forthinking hatintuition s a sufficientlyiscriminating ool to guide us amongthem.

Consider two such possibilities. ictures mayrepresent n manydifferent ays, nd, a separatepoint, manydifferent ormsofrep-resentationmay be more or less akin to depiction. So perhapsthereis no depictionhere, onlya formof representation ontin-uous with t, s isprobably he case formaps.Alternatively,erhaps

the illustration epicts something (for instance,how iron filingson a sheet of paper would look when positioned in the field),withoutdepictingthe field tself.On thisview, fthe diagramrep-resentsthe field at all, it does so nonpictorially-somewhat s ourpaintingof a seated woman nonpictorially epresentedDespair.

These alternative nalysesbringus to theedge of a quagmire ofthe sort that has oftenblocked philosophical discussion of depic-

tion,and thatI want to avoid. It is easy to insist that one of thepossible views s the rightone, but not of much value withoutframeworko provide that insistencewith some justification ndpoint.Faced withthissituation, t seems best to stepback and seeifthe obstacle can be circumvented. hus I shall put thiscounter-example to (x3) aside, and giveno more thanprovisionalaccep-tance to the explanandum itself. hope that the rest of the dis-

cussionwill allow us to returnto this ssue with clearer heads.The fourth xplanandum also exploits the distinction etween

how a depicted itemreally s and how it is depicted as being:

(x4) Pictorialmisrepresentations possible, but has its imits.

Picturesmayascribe to itemsproperties heydo not actually njoy,and when theydo we have pictorialmisrepresentation-as in a

picture thatdepictsthe EiffelToweras blue, or as standingon thebanks of the Ganges. But althoughmisrepresentations possible,and itsbeing so is a centralfeatureof depiction,thereare limita-tions on whatpictorialmisrepresentations possible.We maymis-represent he EiffelTowerin infinitelymanyways,but it does notfollow thatwe can depict it as having ust any propertiesat all.Suppose, forexample, we tried to depict it as having onlyprop-

erties n factenjoyed by Big Ben. The resultmightrepresenttheTower in some way, nd it would certainlydepict something-a

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ROBERT HOPKINS

building of a certain shape, color and the like. However,the pic-ture would not depict theTower.11

I will considerthe mostserious objectionto thisonlyafter ntro-ducing thelast twoexplananda,since theobjection applies to themas well. These last two concern the epistemicresourcesdeployedin understandingdepiction.Several writers ave noted the factof"transfer," hat s that once one knows how to understandsomepictures, he only thing one needs to understandothers s knowl-edge of the appearance of the thingsthey depict. Thus, if I can

see that photographdepictsyou, and I knowwhatyournext doorneighbor ooks like, can tell that photographdepictsher. Trans-fer concerns the resourcessufficientor understanding, ut thereis an equallyplausible claim about those necessaryforit. For ifIdo not knowwhatyourneighbor ooks like, cannot see the photoas depictingher.This is not to saythat cannot understand t atall-I maybe able to tell that tdepictsa woman,withblond hair,

a nose of a certain shape, and so forth.But insofaras I can tellthatit depicts thisor that, must know whatsuch a thing ookslike. And ifI learn thatthe picture depicts that particularwoman(perhaps it is on a Wanted poster), I ipsofacto acquire knowledgeof what she looks like.12

The co-varianceofknowledgeof appearance withability o un-derstanddepictioncan be capturedin the following woclaims:

(x5) General competencewithdepictionand knowledgeof theappearance of 0 (be it a particulara or merely ome F-thing) suffice orthe ability o understanddepictionof0.

(x6) General competencewithdepictionand knowledgeof theappearance of0 are necessary ortheability ounderstanddepictionof 0.

We can now consider the mostprominentobjection to the claimabout misrepresentation,x4). Consider the representation fhis-

"1The example here concernsthe misrepresentationfa particular, utanalogous pointscould have been made concerninga picture'sability omisrepresentfor example) a Blackbird,whereno particularBlackbird sdepicted. For further efenseof my claims here see Hopkins 1994.

2For transfer,ee Wollheim 1987, 77; Budd 1993, 170. The definitivediscussion of these issues is Schier 1986, where they re used to providean account of depiction itself. chier, however, ocuseson recognitionalability, ot knowledgeof appearance.

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

torically istantpersonages,such as the Saints. Often such pictures

contain clues as to which Saint they epresent, ut this s not alwaysso. A typical Leonardo drawing of St. Anne, for example, maymerely how a woman from he front. his pictureascribesvariousproperties o Anne, but there s no reason to believe that he reallyenjoyed anyof these; quite possibly he looked completelydiffer-ent. So ifthis picture depictsSt.Anne, (x4) must be wrong.

It is a notable featureof this example thatwe are, as Leonardowas, gnorantof Anne's appearance. Since this s so, it is clear thatthe example threatens x5) and (x6) as well. Contra (x6), under-standing the pictureas representingAnne cannot require knowl-edge of herappearance, on pain ofdenying hatLeonardo himselfcan tellwhathis work depicts. Contra (x5), knowledgeof her ap-pearance would not, along with the abilityto understand otherpictures, uffice or understanding he picture. One must also beable to read the picture's title,or have some other access to the

identity f the person portrayed.Should we accept thatthe drawingdepictsSt.Anne, and aban-

don the threeexplananda? The alternative s to preservethe ex-plananda by claimingthatthe picturedepictsa woman with ertainproperties, nd representsAnne in some nonpictorialmanner.Mypreference s for this second course,forthe following easons.

First, lthough there is certainly ome appeal in the idea that

Anne isdepicted,thiscan hardly onstitute knockdown rgumentagainst the claims above. For the intuition the objection reliesupon is no firmerthan others we have had reason to doubt.Against tmustbe settheattractionsf thethreeexplananda. Eachof thesegeneral claimshas a certainplausibility, think, nd sincethe view thatAnne is depictedcontradicts ll three, tsappeal mustoutweighthat of the trio as a whole.

Second, there is somethingunstable in the positionwe wouldoccupy fwe accepted the intuition.To see this,first onsider (x5)and (x6) alone. The St. Anne case in no waycasts doubt on theidea that some depiction is understood using ust the resourcestheymention.Everything said about'thephotographofyournextdoor neighbor stands; it is merelythe generalization of theseclaims to all depictionthat the Leonardo is intendedto block. So

ifwe accept the counterexample we are leftclaiming that under-standing ome depiction requires nothingmore thangeneralcom-

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petence and knowledge ofappearance, while understanding ther

depiction requires ratherdifferent esources.What is odd about this s that one might xpect the nature of aformof representation o be closelyrelated to the resourcesneed-ed to understand t. For example,what one needs to know to un-derstanda spoken sentence of a natural language is dictatedbywhat establishes the contentfor that sentence in that language.Crudely, ince the content s fixed n key part byvariousconven-tions governingthe component terms and ways of combining

them, understanding he sentence requires (implicit) knowledgeof those conventions.Since accepting the St. Anne counterexam-ple would leave different ictorial ontentsrequiringverydifferentresources forunderstanding hem,we would be under pressuretosee twodistinct ortsofrepresentation ere.

This pressure increases considerably f we now widen our viewto include the other explananda. Taken as a group, the six seem

to lock together o as to trace theboundaries of a unified field ofinquiry.They describe a form of representation hat s deeply vi-sual. It is representation hat must have a minimumcontent,acontentthatrepresents omething s havinga visual appearance,and represents tfroma point of view [(xl) to (x3) ]. It is a formrestricted o representingtems n, and features f,the world thatcan themselves e seen [(x3)]. Moreover, hese twovisualappear-

ances, that of the represented tem and that it is representedashaving,are linked. The representationsneed not show thingsastheyare-misrepresentationis possible. But theyare able to rep-resentaspects of theworldonly by maintaining ome connectionbetweenhow theyrepresent t as being and how itreally s [ x4) ].In short, s itis tempting o put all this, hissort of representationrepresents things via representingtheir appearances. In conse-

quence, understandingtessentially equires

a knowledgeof howthings ook; and, given a general competence with the form ofrepresentation,ittle lse [(x5) and (x6)].

We can sharpenour sense of theexplananda's unity ycontrast-ing itwithrepresentationn language.'The latterdoes not exhibitany of the six features isted above. A descriptionof somethingmaybe from pointofview,but itcertainly eed not be. No moreneed it describe the visible,or describe it as visible. Thanks to

various referential evices,such as the proper name, misdescrip-tion is able to run rampantwithoutceasing to be descriptionof

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the particular n question.Evenwhen wordsdo refer o itemswith

visual appearances, understanding hem is not alwaysdependent

on knowingwhatthoseappearances are, and always equiressome-thingmore. In short,the contrastshere are unrelenting.Theyshould provokeus into a stronger warenessof the unity he ex-plananda exhibit.13

Thus thereis good reason to see the explananda as describinga distinctiveormof representation.Why, owever,houldwe iden-tify hatform withdepiction?Whynot instead take depiction to

fragmentntotwosorts, hatwhichthe explananda cover, nd that,such as the representation f St.Anne,which theydo not?

Ifthethoughthere is thatthereare twocompletely istinct ortsof representation, oth named "depiction," thatthought s harm-less. For we would then have to offer eparate accounts of thosedistinct ormsof representation,nd the restof thispaper couldbe seen as providingone of those twoaccounts. So the idea must

ratherbe thatthe representation overedby the explananda andthatto whichtheydo not applyare interestinglyelated,so thatasatisfactoryccount of either should bringout what t has in com-monwiththe other.Whatreason, however,s there to accept this?We have seen that the explananda describe a coherent and dis-tinctive ormof representation. f anyonewishes to saythatthatform s closelyrelatedto some other, o which the explananda do

not apply, he onus is now on her tomake good thatclaim. Sinceit is hard to see how thatcould be done simplyby makingclaimsabout what ndividualpicturesdo or do not depict,thisbringsusback to the challenge, made at the startof the paper, for thosewho disagree with my explananda and explanation to providesomethingbetterthemselves.

There is a less defensivepoint to make too. The contentthatthe explananda do not coverwould seem to be very imited. t ismerelyone aspect of what picturessuch as the St. Anne drawingrepresent,namely, he particular n question. Furthermore, heseexamples are ratherspecial, since they eem to trade offthe factthat the representedparticular s one whose appearance we are

131have not here spoken xplicitlyf (xl). Although do think hat

linguisticepresentationontrastsith ictorialnthis espect, akinghatcontrastlearwouldrequiremoredetailed iscussionf anguage han spossible ere.

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ignorantof. Thus the range of putativedepiction that the explan-

anda do not cover svery mall ndeed. This surelymakes it tempt-ing simply o abandon the idea that such contents are depicted.We have succeeded in extracting,romour complex and extensivelinguistic ractices nvolving heterm depiction',a core usage thatthe explananda both delineate and revealto have a powerful o-herence. For the few aspects of our usage that are not so accom-modated, it does not seem arbitraryo consider them misapplica-tions,albeit understandableones,14 of a termthatreflects,n its

otheruses, a distinct nd interestingoncept.Thus the six explananda combine so that their plausibility s a

group outstrips he plausibility heyenjoyas individuals.And thisis as well, forviewsunable to explain whydepictionhas these fea-tures will be temptedto denythat t does have them.I have sug-gested that one penaltysuch a denial would incurwould be theloss of a coherent setof claims,a set embodying distinctive iew

ofpictorialrepresentationnd inviting s to show thattheexplan-anda's striking nityhas a deep source.

3.

It willbe usefulto demonstrate hattheexplananda do notidentifytrivial eaturesof depiction,thatproviding xplanationsforthem

is not a taskeverytheory an perform.To thisend, I shallbrieflyconsider two accounts that seem to me to embodythe most nflu-ential and interesting pproaches to depiction.The sixexplanandaprovidean incisive nd informative ayto assess them.

3.1 Goodman

One influential pproach attempts o understanddepictionas es-sentially onventional, ust as linguisticrepresentation nd manyotherforms re. Its most successful xponent is Nelson Goodman.

Goodman tacklesdepictionin the context of a general account

14Howmight e understandhesemisapplications?amsuggestinghatthetermdepiction' ames formfrepresentationhatsdistinctivendunified,nd that nly omerepresentations-thats, pictures-representin thatway. he mistake hemisapplicationsnvolves a simple ne: ex-tendingheterm o other orts frepresentationypictures.

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of thevariety f symbol ystems.What is special about symbol ys-tems thatare pictorial?Goodman identifies hree importantfea-tures:syntactic ensity, emanticdensity, nd relativerepleteness.We need not worryabout the details here. Roughlystated,theupshot is thatfor Goodman pictorialsystems re ones in which,for a wide range of propertiesof the mark on the surface,thetiniestdifferencesn thatpropertymatterto whatis represented.He does not claim thatthis providesa condition sufficient or asystem's eing pictorial,but that t is necessary, nd that t serves

to distinguish ictorialsystems rom inguistic nes.15AlthoughGoodman does not claim to have defined depiction,

it is stillreasonable to askwhetherhe has said enough about it toexplain its centralfeatures.The following xample suggeststhathe has not.16

We mightuse a graphto trackthe temperature f a quantity fcolorless gas over time.With timeelapsed along thex-axis, arious

features f the plotted ine mightfeed, n a weightedmanner, ntothe temperaturerepresented.These featuresmightinclude theline's heightagainst they-axis,ts thickness,tshue, its saturation,its brightness,nd so on. The graphwouldbe a symbol n a systemthat s both syntacticallynd semantically ense, and relatively e-plete. Yet,as has been noted bythosewho offer uch examples, twould notdepictanything. his observation sby tself f ittleuse,

since Goodman does not claim thathis conditionsare sufficientfordepiction.But in the context of the explananda, we can artic-ulate the force of the example. The inchoate thought s that thesystem escribed shopelesslydistant romdepiction.That thoughtcan be given precisionby notingthatof the six features bove only(xl) is exhibitedby the graph.17 It represents omethingthat,asperfectlyransparent, as no visualappearance and that s notrep-

15For syntactic ensity, ee Goodman 1976, chap. 4, sec. 2; forsemanticdensity,ec. 5; for relativerepleteness, hap. 6, sec. 1; and for the denialof sufficiency,988, chap. 8, sec. 5.

161 have adapted the example fromPeacocke 1987, 405.171seven (xl) problematichere? Is thecontentof the graphrich n the

way thatthe contentof a picturemust be? The graph certainly itsthemore precise account of richnessoffered bove. It ascribesa property othe particular t represents, nd thatpropertywill be highlydeterminate,

providedthe system eally s a dense one. If this s not enough, we havenot yetcapturedeverythingn the intuitive otionofrichness.However,do not see how to captureanything lse that notion contains.

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ROBERTHOPKINS

resentedas havingone [ x3) ]. There is thusno appearance knowl-

edge of which might guide understanding of the symbol[(x5), (x6)]. Further, he graph does not representthe gas fromanypointofview[ x2) ], and thereseems no reasonwhy tshouldnot continue to represent t even though attributing uite erro-neous temperatures o it [ x4) ]. Since thegraphmeetsGoodman'scondition, but failsto exhibit these features,Goodman's accountcannot explain whydepictionmustexhibit them.It is this,ratherthan itsexposure to counterexamples, hatconstitutes ts real fail-ure.

3.2 Wollheim

Goodman's difficulties,t mayappear, lay in ignoringthe deeplyvisualnatureofdepiction.One wayto attempt o remedy his s to

appeal to the idea that t is our (visual) experienceofdepictionthatis essentialto thatformofrepresentation. he problemthusposedis to characterize hatexperience,seeing-in, n an illuminatingway.This approach to depictionhas become dominant n recentyears,and manydiffering haracterizations f seeing-inhave been of-fered.18The most nfluential roponentofthe experientialview sRichard Wollheim.

Wollheim takesseeing-in o be a singleexperiencewith "two-fold" nature.19t involvestwo "distinguishablebut also insepara-

ble" aspectsor "folds" (1987, 46). One aspect,theconfigurational,is analogous to theexperience ofseeing thepicturewithout eeinganythingn it.The other,recognitional, spect is analogous to see-ing the picture's object face-to-face. ut it is a mistake to ask inwhatwayeitherfold s analogous to thecorresponding xperience:

Weget ostonce we start omparinghephenomenologyf ourper-ception ftheboywhenwe see him nthewall, rthephenomenologyofourperceptionfthewallwhenwesee theboy n it,with hat fourperceptionfboy r wall eenfacq-to-face....heparticularom-

18Examples includeWalton1973 and 1990; Schier 1986, chap. 10; Pea-cocke 1987; Budd 1993.

19Wollheim's recise positionhas shifted ignificantlyetween,for in-stance, his 1980 and his 1987. I restrictmyself o the laterviewhere, al-thoughrelatedcriticismspply to the earlieraccount.

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

plexity hatone kind of experience as and the other acksmakestheir henomenologyncommensurate1987,46-47).

Wollheim'saccount does have some chance of explainingthe sixfeatures.By connecting our experience of a picture to face-to-facevisual experience of the picture's object, itmanages to introducethe linksto, and involvement f,visual appearances on which somany of the explananda turn. This should enable him to make astartwitheveryone of the six. Consider,for example, (x2)-the

claim that all depiction is perspectival. f a picture depicts some-thing, t must be possible to see thatthing n the picture,and todo that s to have an experience analogous, in one fold,to seeingthatthingface-to-face. ut all seeingface-to-faces from pointofview.This point ofviewfeatures n the fold of seeing-in nalogousto face-to-faceeeing, therebyentering nto what is seen in thepicture, nd thus nto what t depicts.

However, ll thisconcedes is thatWollheimcan begin to explain(x2). Until we know more about the crucialanalogy between see-ing-inn its recognitional spect and face-to-faceeeing, t swhollyunclear howto completethe explanation.Forwhy hould theper-spectivalnature of ordinaryvision be preserved in the recogni-tional fold of pictorial experience?Why sn't it "filteredout" as,for nstance, s any mpression fstereopsis?While the formulaforrelatingordinary eeing to seeing-inremainsthe blank "in someway analogous," it is impossibleto answer these questions.

In the face of thisdifficultyhat Wollheimshoulddo is furtherdevelophis characterization fseeing-in.He should attempt o elu-cidate the crucial analogy, akingtheneed to explain (xl) to (x6)as constrainingwhatever ccount he finally ettlesupon. What heactuallydoes is to resign,fallingback on the conviction hat noth-ing more illuminating bout seeing-in an be said. We can now see

that this course is whollyunacceptable.

4.

How are we to do betterwith the six'explananda? What we needis an account of depiction that builds upon the limited successesabove. Approaching depiction throughour experience of it en-

abled Wollheimto make some progress, nd we should continueto work within he framework e established.What we wantis an

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ROBERTHOPKINS

account ofthatexperience thatenables more explanatoryworktobe done.

One wayto obtain such an account is to appeal to the old ideathatpicturesresembler look ikewhattheydepict.This at leastprom-ises tomake centraltheappearance ofwhat s depicted,somethingcentral to the explananda, as our discussion of their unity re-vealed.20The notion of resemblance can yield a characterizationof our experience of depiction ifwe suppose that a depiction ofsomething s seen s resemblingt.

The centralproblem this immediatelyposes is to say in whatrespect we see picturesas resemblingwhat theydepict. It is nottrue, for nstance,that we see a depiction of something s resem-bling it in the complex overallwayin which identical twins realike. Ifpictureand object look alike theymustdo so is some moreparticularrespect. Yet foranyrespect on whichwe fasten,differ-ence is more apparent than likeness.We do not see all pictures s

sharingthe colors of whattheydepict,nor theirtextures, nd cer-tainlynot their shapes. How, then, do picture and object lookalike?

To findthe answer, et us consider a particularcase. Suppose Iam looking at one of the Pyramids hrougha mistywindow, ndthat on the glass I trace themonument's contourswithmyfinger.The result s a picture, fsorts.How does itresemblethepyramid?

Since the tracing s colorlessand without nteresting exture, nlysome form of shape property s likelyto be relevanthere. But ifshape is the key, t is clearlynot 3-D shape-the tracing s a flatcollection of 2-D shapes, the pyramiddistinctivelyxtended inthreedimensions.What we need is some shape property hat thetwononetheless share.

To discover thisproperty, e need to do a littlegeometry. on-sider the base and the apex of one face of the pyramid.At thepointfromwhichthetracing sdrawn,both base and apex subtendan angle-the base a largeone, theapex one close to zero degrees(figure1). As we move up the face of the pyramidbetweenbaseand apex, the angle subtendedby the face gradually educes from

201ndescribingheunity, discussed heconnection etween heap-pearance fthedepictedtem ndthe ppearancet sdepicted shaving.

Resemblancenvolves very ifferentonnection:hatbetween heap-pearanceof thepicturend thatofwhat s depicted.However,he oneconnection anexplain heother,s I argue nsection .

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

the large to the small. In fact,the pyramid'sface subtends a dis-

tinctive olid angle at the point.This solid angle is simply he com-bination, n threedimensions, f all the individual ngles subtend-ed by the face in particularplanes. Now,as figure1 demonstrates,exactlythe same individualangles will be subtended by the cor-respondingpartsof the tracing.The line tracing he base subtendsthe same large angle as thebase itself, he point representing heapex subtends the same verysmall one, and so on. Thus takentogether hemarkson the glasswill subtendthe same solid angleas theface of the pyramid heytrace.

Ifthe pyramid s oriented as in figure1, another of its faceswillalso subtend a solidangle at the point, lthoughone different romthat subtendedbythe first ace. The pyramid s a whole will sub-tend the solid angle formed from those its two faces subtend.Again, this featureof the pyramidwill be matched bythe tracing.It will subtend the same solid angle as the whole pyramid, nd

within thatangle it will subtend two smallersolid angles,whichmatch those subtended by the two faces.

Let us call thesolid angle an object subtends t a point tsoutlineshape t that point. Two items will resembleeach otherin outlineshape to the extentthat, t some point,one subtendsa solid anglesimilar to that subtended,at some point, by the other.Note thatthe twopointshere need not be the same. The tracing nd pyra-

mid subtend matching olid angles at the same point,but that san accidental feature of the case. The tracingwould share theproperty f the pyramid hat nterests s even ifwe took it out ofEgypt ltogether.Note also that, s the discussion of the two facesof thepyramid howed,the outlineshape ofthewhole can includethe nested outlineshapesof tsparts.What propose is thatoutlineshape providesthe respectin whichpictures ook like what theydepict.

One concern might suggest itself mmediately. urely experi-enced resemblance in a given respect requires the resemblingproperty o be experienced in the first lace. If, for instance,wedid not perceive color,we would hardly ee thingsas resemblingeach otherin color.Yet it is not at all' obvious that we experiencesomething s esoteric as outlineshape. Do we really ee objectsassubtending olid angles at points?

Fortunately,here are familiarphenomena thatsuggestwe do.Asvarious thinkers romEuclid onwardshave noted,a roundwag-

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ROBERT HOPKINS

B

. I

Figure 1. AngleAPB = aPb > angle CPD = angle cPd.

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

on wheel seen obliquely ooks elliptical, nd parallel inesrecedingtowards he horizon seem to converge.21 ur experience does notmisrepresent he 3-D shape of these things-we are not for a mo-ment temptedto believe thatthe wheel has deformed, or that astraight oad tapers s itrecedes.Nor need we take the phenomenato show that our experiences have nonrepresentationalproper-ties.22We can avoid both these waysof misdescribing he phenom-ena if we suppose thatwhat we are seeing is outline shapes of theobjects in question. For example,when the wheel looks elliptical

to us we are seeing itsoutline shape at the point fromwhichweare looking,an outline shape thatdiffers rom he one it haswhennot seen obliquely. We do not, of course, thinkof the ellipticalappearance ofthewheel in theseterms;butthen we do notusuallyconceptualize thisaspect of our experience at all-any more thanwe do manyotherpropertieswe experience,such as theprecise3-D shape we see a lump of rockas having.

So the thought s that to see something0 in some partP of asurfaceS is to see P as resembling in outlineshape. Now,a littlemore is needed fora completeaccount of seeing-in. or depictionoftenexploitscolor as well as shape, and when it does the expe-rience of seeing something n the picture also involvescolor-aswhen I see a red-breasted obinin a picture.This is not always o:some picturesare simplyneutralwithrespectto the color of theobjects theydepict-charcoal drawings, orexample.We see things

in these pictures,but not colored things.We can accommodateboth sortsofcase ifwe saythatseeing-inmust nvolve een resem-blance in outlineshape, and may nvolve een resemblance n col-or.23

21See Euclid 1945, especiallyhis sixth and forty-secondropositions(358, 367). A typical xample ofmodernpsychological iscussionoftheseissues can be found in Rock 1977, 339-42, and Rock 1984, 16ff.For a

discussion that clears awaymany potential confusions, ee Hyman 1989,chaps. 1-3. For skepticismbout the significance f the phenomena hereadduced, see Gibson 1950, chap. 3.

22This s the conclusiondrawn n Peacocke 1983, chap. 1. It leads himto develop an account of depiction related to, but significantlyifferentfrom,mine (Peacocke 1987). For some other differences etween us seeHopkins 1994, notes 8 and 15. For another related but distinct ccount,see Budd 1993.

23Hereafter largely gnore resemblance in color, since outline shapesuffices or the explanations need, and the interested eader should beable to extend the argument o color. However, nlythe need to focus onexplainingthe six features ustifiesthisexclusion,and I do not wish to

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ROBERTHOPKINS

This, like any other characterization f seeing-in, an provide

the basis fora theoryof depiction.However,beforewe can offerthattheory,we mustacknowledgethatthereis more to depiction

thanseeing-in.Two lacunae in particular onfront s.

First, s Wollheimhas stressed,24t is not sufficientor a surface

to depict an itemthatwe see the item n it.Forwe sometimes ee

things n naturally ormedsurfaces uch as frostedwindowpanes,

and these surfacesdo not depict at all. Theyno more depict than

naturally ormedmarks n the shape ofwordswould describe ny-

thing.Moreover,even when a surfacedoes depict somethingaviewermaysee something lse in it-as when I see JohnMcEnroe

in a photographofmybrother.To fillthisgap we need to appeal to the history f the surface.

Often the relevantaspect of its historywill be the intentionsof

thosewho are responsibleforitsbeing as it is. Thus when an oil

paintingdepictsa horse it does so bothbecause we see a horse in

it,and because the artist ntendedthat a horse be seen there.Nosuch intentions pplyto frostedwindowpanes, and that swhy hey

do not depict.However, ntentioncannot alone fillthe gap. For mechanical

means ofmakingpictures, uchas photography,llowfordepiction

that s to a highdegree independentof anyone's intentions.Con-

sider a photographtakenbya spysatellitefloatingover a hostile

country.Back at base we see a new formof weapon in the photo-graph,and that swhatthephoto depicts.However,we mayup to

then have had no conception of such a weapon, and our enemies

presumablyhoped to hide it fromthe satellite'spryingeye. So

while thispicture s a productof a systemntended to do certain

things,no one intended that we see in it quite whatwe do. The

surfacedepictsthe weapon not because anyoneintendeditto,but

because the weapon is causallyresponsibleforitsbeing as it is-

in particularfor ts being so markedthatwe see the weapon in it.

Now, t is clear thatthe important ausal relationhere is special.

underplaythe importanceof color in the overalldefenseof the account.To giveustone example, tmaywellbe thatwe sometimes ee resemblancein outline shape in partbecause we see resemblancein color-as whenthe color of a crude sketchof a robin helps me to understand t despite

the factthat ts outline shape is ratherdifferentromthatof a (suitablypositioned) robin.24Wollheim 980, 205; 1987,42-51.

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

If the new weapon is turned on our satellitebefore a photographis taken,the blast maydamage the photographicfilm,miraculouslyproducing a surface n which the weapon itself an be seen. Thissurface does not depict the weapon, even though the weapon ispartially esponsible forthe marks,for the causal relation here isnot appropriate. The rightcausal relation is, rather,whateverre-lation it is that s centrally nvolved n all photography. his is notthe place to investigate hat relation. Whatever t turnsout to be,we will need to appeal to it in a full account of depiction,to ex-

plain, for instance, whythe photographof my brotherdoes notdepict McEnroe. The answer is that McEnroe is not causallyre-sponsible in this special way for my seeing him in the surface.25

Thus depiction requiresboth seeing-in nd some intentional rcausal link to whatis seen in the surface.But whatexactly s thefirst equirementhere? What does the demand thatthe object beseen in the surfaceamount to? This is the second lacuna in our

account, and it is not obvious how to fill t.For on the one handit is too much to ask that someone really ees the relevantobjectin the surface. Even ifa Polaroid photograph is permanently ostbefore anyone has set eyes on it, it may depict what the camerawas pointed at when the shutter pened. On the otherhand, it istoo little to demand merelythatsomeone would in some ircum-stancessee the object in the surface. For surely nyone could see

just about anythingn a surface,givensufficienthanges to theirconstitution nd the conditionsunder whichthey ee that urface.To respond to thischallengewe need to show that t is at least

possible to steerbetweenthetwoextremesust presented.We needto restrict hose possible situations n which we require that theobject be seen in the surface,without imiting hem to situationsthat are actual. One such restrictionwould be to consider onlysituations n which we are constituted physicallynd psychologi-cally) as we really re. Anotherwould be to concentrate on situa-tions in which we see the surface under its intendediewingcon-ditions. For paintingsand other nonmechanicallyproduced pic-tures,these are simplythe conditions under which the artist n-tended thatwhatever he wanted to be seen in the surfacebe seen

251f hotographys not theonlymechanicalmeansforproducing e-pictions,hephotographicelationmaynot be theonly ne to whichwemust ppeal.

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ROBERT HOPKINS

there. For mechanicallyproduced surfaces, he intended viewingconditionsare those inwhich whoeverestablished the mechanismintended that its output be seen.26Using both these restrictions,we mightclaim that for a surface to depict there mustactuallybesomeone so constitutedthat, were she to see the surface in itsintended viewing onditions, he would see in itwhat is intendedto be seen there.

This way to refinethe requirementthat the depicted itembeseen in the surface retainssome unclarities.More importantly,

have not argued that it is the rightrefinement or us to adopt.However, think t has sufficient ppeal to suggestthatsome wayto fillthe second lacuna willbe acceptable. Moreover, think hatthat s all we need to demonstratehere. For the two acunae faceany seeing-inbased account ofdepiction,and that means most ofthe prominent candidates. Further, ur main interesthere is inexplaining (xl) to (x6), and it is the analysisof seeing-in,not the

waywe fill he lacunae, thatwill enable us to do that.Provided thatsome such filling s available,we may go on to attempt hose ex-planations.

Putting ll this together, nd allowingthatsome unclaritiesre-main, I suggest thatfor our purposes here we assume that thefollowing onditions are necessaryand jointlysufficient ora sur-face S to depict something0: (1) thereis some partof S, P, andsome viewerV, such that,were V to see S under its ntendedview-

ing conditions,V would see 0 in P; (2) either (1) is true becausesomeone intendedthat t be true,or it s true because S is causallyrelated (in some special way)to 0. When oined to our character-izationof seeing-in, hese conditionsprovidea littletheoryof de-piction.This theory eavesmany ssues untouched,and manyques-tions unanswered.There is, however, nough here to providethebasic materials for the explanationswe seek. If those materials

need supplementing,we can do that as we proceed.5.

The easiestexplanandum to beginwith s (x2). Why s itnot pos-sible to represent something pictoriallywithoutrepresenting t

260f ourse, ormany icturesheir reators ill nlyhavethevaguestintentionsoncerningheir iewingonditions-perhapsustthat here eenough lightto see by,that the surface be seen roughlyfromthe front,and that tnot be verydistant r hopelessly lose.

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

from ome point ofview?Accordingto the little heory bove, ifa

surfacedepictssomething tmustbe possible to see thatthing n

it.Thus we willhave the answerto our question ifwe can under-

standwhythe onlythings een in surfaces re itemsorientedto a

certainpoint.To see an object in a surface s to see the surfaceas resembling

that object in outlineshape. This experiencemust nvolve woout-line shapes-that of the surfaceand thatof the object. It is the

latter utlineshape thatconcernsus here. Outline shape is relative

to a point; it is a matter fthe solid angle subtendedbytheobjectat some point. By involving he object's outline shape, our expe-riencemust nvolvethe correspondingpoint.This is thepointwe

see the object in the surfaceas oriented to, and the point from

whichit is depicted.If this explanationis to work, t is important o be clear on two

matters.First, he object the surface is seen as resemblingneed

notbe some particular. xperiencesofresemblance, ikemanyoth-er formsof experience (visualizing,hallucinating,ordinarysee-

ing), can have as part of their contentmerelysome thingwith

certainproperties.Thus the above talkof theobject'soutlineshape

is notto be takenas implyinghatthere s an objectwith n outline

shape; rather, t is shorthandfor the claim that the experiencemusthave as part of its contentboth the object and an outline

shape forthatobject.Werethisnot the case, theexplanationwouldapplyonlyto thedepictionofparticulars-and hence onlyto some

of the cases (x2) covers.Second, we must understandseen resemblance n outlineshape

correctly. he explanation exploits the factthat outline shape is

relative o a point,and this relativity ight eem enough byitself

to ensure thatour theory an explain (x2). Unfortunately,he fact

thatour theory ies the notion of outline shape to that of experi-enced resemblance complicates mattershere. For suppose thatthere is an object withan outline shape, that the picturehas a

similarone, and that as a resultthe viewerofthepicture s put in

mind of theobject. In such a case, the objecthas an outlineshape,

but there is no need for the viewed'sexperience to involvethat

shape, and thusthe above explanationcannot get started.So it is

important hat thisnot be a case of experienced resemblance in

outline shape. Instead whatwe have is at most an experience ofresemblance,whichexperience is in fact sustainedbysimilarityn

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ROBERT HOPKINS

outline shape. What seeing-in requires is rather stronger-an ex-

perience of resemblancen outline shape.27The viewer must see anitem before her, be aware of its outline shape, and see that thing

as similar in that respect to something withanother, similar,outline

shape. Thus two outline shapes enter the content of the experi-

ence-the second embedded in the content: similar to.... And

thus the explanation goes through.28

What of (xl)? Why is it not possible to depict a particular without

ascribing some properties to it, and whymust depicted properties

be reasonably determinate?

Let us consider particulars first.We have just seen, in discussing

(x2), that seeing-in requires an experience of resemblance with a

special content. That content must include an item that the surface

is seen as resembling, but it must also include an outline shape for

that item. This will be so even when the item is a particular. Thus

if a particular is seen in a picture, what is seen therein must be a

particular with at least one property-a certain outline shape.How determinate must this outline shape be? This question

brings us to the second part of (xl), the degree of determinacy

required in the depiction of properties.

Consider, first,experiences of resemblance in general. It is in

general quite possible to experience one item as resembling an-

other of a relatively ndeterminate nature. For example, when I see

a rock as resembling a face in three-dimensionalhape there neednot be some fullydeterminate shape of face I see it as resembling.

27That s,there s a respect, he one I have characterizedwithmynotionof outline shape, such thatthe subjectmust experience resemblanceinthatrespect.There is, of course,no need for the subject to conceive oftherespect n the terms use.

28Wehave explained why ll depiction s from pointof viewbyclaim-ing thatwhat s seen in a surface s always omething rom certainpoint

of view.One maywonder whether his s true. f merely limpsea picturewhy an't I see in it simply horse, ust as when I merelyglimpsea horseI may perceiveonlya horse,without aking n itsshape, orientation, olor,etc.?The answer s that thisproposal ignoresthe difference etween thephenomenologyof seeing-in nd thatofseeingface-to-face. othing n thephenomenologyof the putative ase ofseeing-inwould distinguisht from(really) glimpsing horse. In both cases the content of the experiencewould be very hin-simplya horse.eeing-inmust nvolvemore than this-it is necessarily wareness as of a patternedsurface before one. (For this

reason we would not see things n truly uccessful rompe'oeilpaintings.)Ifseeing-ins to involve hisfurtherlement, do notsee that t can involveperceptualcontactwith the surfaceas skimpy s the above case requires.

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

However, t is also true that n general onlya certain level of in-

determinacy s tolerable. I cannot,for instance,see resemblancein 3-D shape to an irregularpolyhedrontout court,the thingmustbe some more determinate hape than that f am to experienceresemblanceto it. These general pointsapply also to experiencedresemblance in outline shape: the outline shape resembledneednotbe fully eterminate, utmustbe reasonably o. This explainswhydepicted propertiesmustbe determinate, t least for one de-picted property: utline shape. The explanation leaves the requi-

sitedegree of determinacymprecise,but at least we can now seewhy here should be somesuch limit, nd why t lies roughlywhereitdoes.

However, nsofar s it only speaks of outline shape, thisexpla-nation is unacceptably ncomplete.Manyotherpropertiescan bedepicted-why must theybe reasonablydeterminate?The depic-tionof other properties spossiblebecause they re correlatedwith

outline shape.29The outline shape at a point of a horse,forex-ample, alterswiththepositionof its imbs,the lengthof itsmane,the donning of itssaddle, and so forth. ince this s so, if see apictureas resembling omethingof a certainhorsyoutline shape,I maywell see it as resemblingsomethingwithother propertiestoo-a standing, addled, tallmare,forexample. Now,the deter-minacyof the other propertiesseen in the picturewillbe deter-

mined bythat of the outline shape. So forthe reason that outlineshape must be reasonablydeterminate, o mustthose otherprop-ertiesbe. For example, suppose I see the pictureas resembling noutlineshape something uboid. This experiencerequiresthe out-line shape ofthe resembledcuboid to be determinate o a certaindegree. It is impossiblethatthisoutlineshape be so indeterminateas to be thatofsomething uboid,butnot ofanymoredeterminate3-Dshape.And thus t s notpossibleto depictsomething s cuboidwithoutdepicting tas some more determinate hape.

(x3) claims that depicted particularsmust reallybe visible, ndthatonlyvisiblepropertiescan be depicted. Again, consider par-ticulars irst. or a surfaceto depicta particular,we mustsee somepartof that surfaceas resembling he particular n outline shape,

29What fproperties ot so correlated,uch as theburnednessf apieceof toast? uch propertiesorrelate ith olor, nd thus his s onepoint t which een resemblancencolor s important.

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ROBERT HOPKINS

and so the particularmustreallyhave an outline shape. The ex-planation we need here would now come easily,were having anoutline shape sufficient orsomething o be visible.Unfortunatelythis is not the case. For outline shape, as I have defined it, is ageometricalnotion,not a visual or optical one. It is not definedssomethingwe see, nor in termsof the passage of light. So thingsthatcannot be seen can have outlineshapes, and our explanationhas stalled.

To solve thisdifficulty,e mustfirst urnour attention o (x5)

and (x6). Once we see how to explain them, twill be clear whatwe should sayabout (x3).

(x5) and (x6) concern whatone needs to knowto understanddepiction.Anyviewmaking eeing-in entraltodepictionnaturallyyields n account ofour understanding fpictures:we understandthemby seeing in them whattheydepict. Thus the resources un-derstanding exploits are whatever resources seeing-in requires.

What are those resources, fseeing-in s seen resemblancein out-line shape? To takea concreteexample,what s needed forsome-one to see a horse in a picture?

One thingthatwillcertainly e requiredis thegeneral ability osee resemblances n outline shape. Were our subjectblind to theoutline shapes of things,blind to resemblances of any form,orspecificallyblind to resemblances in outline shape, she clearlycould not see the pictureas resemblinga horse in thatrespect.This general sensitivityo resemblances in outline shape is whatthe resemblanceviewtakes the general competence of (x5) and(x6) to be.30

However,thatgeneral competence will clearlynot suffice.Oursubjectmust also be able to see the pictureas resembling horse.This seems to require her to bringto bear something pecificallyrelatedto horses.Compare a related case. Someone maybe quite

capable of experiencingresemblances in color. Nonetheless shewill be unable to see a resemblance to a striking hade of blueunless she has some awareness or conception of thatshade. Anal-ogously, he ability o see resemblances n outline shape requires

30Note hat this bilitys not a trivial ne; acquiring tmaybe a genuineachievement.Outlineshape is a property hingshave independently four

perceptionofit.Coming to see itmay requiretraining,nd comingto seeresemblance n itmaydemand further raining till.

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EXPLAININGDEPICTION

an awarenessor conception of the things o which resemblance sexperienced.

This clearlyprovidesthe other ngredient x5) and (x6) require.For this warenessor conceptioncan correspondto theknowledge

ofsomething's ppearance of which they peak.The last paragraphargued thatsuch awareness s necessaryfor seeing resemblance noutline shape. It will also, togetherwiththe general ability o seethose resemblances, e sufficient.or whatmorecould be requiredforthe subjectto see the pictureas resembling horse in outline

shape? Thus both conditions on understandingdepiction havebeen explained.

However, hisexplanationworksonly f t is indeed fairto iden-tify he knowledgeof appearance of which (x5) and (x6) speakwiththe awarenessor conception that the experience of resem-blance mustexploit. Is this dentificationcceptable?

Some concessionsmaycalm those who are skepticalhere. First,

I do not denythat to identifyhe two s to interpretx5) and (x6)as one explains them.My retort s that the interpretations notimplausible.It is, after ll, unclear in just what sense 'knowledgeofappearance' should be takenforthepurposesof (x5) and (x6).Certainlytwould be a mistake o takeitas requiringtheability o

describe,recall,or imaginethe item n question.For a picturemaybringto lightknowledgethata subject s unable tomanifestn any

of these ways. I may see the murderer in a photograph, eventhoughthe traumaofwitnessinghe crime has preventedme fromrecalling,describing, r even imaginingwhathe looked like. Sec-

ond, I accept thatthenature of theawareness/conception emainsratherobscure. But its obscuritiesreflectthose in the notion ofknowledgeof appearance as it features n the explananda. Given

this, t seems best to make the identificationnd offer he expla-

nationsabove, leavingforanotherday the taskof clarifyingothnotions.There is,however, more seriousobstacle to this dentification.

Rather than focusingon myright o talk of knowledge, heskeptic

mightquestion how I am able to speak of appearance. For,as wenoted above, outline shape is not a visual notion.Thus an aware-ness or conception of something'soutline shape, whatever lse it

turnsout to be, need not be an awareness/conception f a visibleproperty f that tem.But ifnot,howcan that warenessconstitute

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knowledge of the appearance of the thing?One can have thatawareness even ifthe itemhas no appearance whatsoever.

To answerthisworry, e must fter ll explore thenature ofthisawareness or conception a littlefurther.ts role, you remember, sto enable our subject to see the pictureas resembling n outlineshape something lse-in our example, a horse. As the discussionof (x2) showed,the awarenessor conception must then concern,not merely horse, but also the outline shape in question. Thatis, itmust be an awareness or conception the contentofwhich is

a horse f uchand such an outlinehape.Moreover, s was noted indiscussing xl), the outline shape in question can onlybe so in-determinate.

If this s the nature of the awareness, think t is clear that wecan have such an awarenessonlyofthingsof whichwe have visualexperience.or it is only n seeing thatwe come to associatereason-ablydeterminateoutline shapes withthings.No othersenses give

us access to the outline shapes of the thingsaround us; and nononsensory means are available for forming reasonably deter-minate conception of theiroutline shapes.3' Thus the only itemswe mayhave a suitable awarenessof are visible, nd the objectionhas failed.

I should,however, ote a complication.Some blindpeople havebenefitedfromsystems hatgave theminformation bout thevis-ible worldbyexploitingtheirsense of touch.A television amerafeeds into a pad on the surfaceof the skin,producingthe tactileequivalentofthe image thecamera generates.With some practice,the person responds in a fairlymmediatewayto the informationthe pad delivers.Now,a relatedsystemmight ink the pad not toa camera but to a sonar device. It is at leastconceivable thatsome-one wiredup to such a systemould develop theability o perceivetheoutlineshapes ofinvisible hings.Further, hereseemsno con-

ceptual obstacle to her formingan awareness of outline shapesappropriateto inform xperiencesofresemblance. Such a personmightdevelop a formofrepresentation hat xploitedexperiencedresemblance in outline shape, but that was not limitedto repre-

31Mathematical easoning rovides way o conceive f outline hapes,butnotone we couldexploit n appreciatingepiction. or themathe-matics equired odescribe hedeterminate,rregularutline hapeswe

find n our worldwouldbe toocomplex ndunwieldyoprovide con-ception ble to informur visual xperience fsurfaces.

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sentingthe visible. Would this be depiction?There is, I suspect,no nonarbitrary ayto answerthisquestion.There is a continuumofpossibleways o representhere,and no principledwayto divideit up. We have located our practice of depiction on that continu-um, and on that basis we have explained the features thas. Thisshould satisfy s.

Now we are at last able to tackle (x3). It is true that nonvisiblethingsmayhave outlineshapes. But the experienceof resemblancein outline shape requiresmore than thatsomethinghave an out-

line shape-it also demands thatwe be able to form n awarenessof thatthing and its outline shape. Given our perceptual endow-ment,this s somethingwe can do onlyforparticulars nd prop-ertieswe can see. But then the only particulars r properties bleto feature n our experiencesofresemblance n outline shape willbe visible ones. So, at least for depiction as we practice it, onlyvisible things an be depicted.

This is a good point at which to return to the magnetic fielddiagramof section2. Does itdepict? n thelightof our little heoryof depiction,we can now see what to say.The diagram cannotrepresent ia the experiencefresemblance n outlineshape, forthemagneticfieldcannotbe seen. Since depictionessentially nvolvesthatexperience, the diagramdoes not representpictorially. ow-ever, tremainspossible that the diagramrepresents y exploitingresemblancen outline shape. If it does so, it clearlyrepresents n away closelyrelatedto depiction.This positionseems neatly o rec-oncile the conflictingntuitionswe have on this ssue.32

Mydiscussion of the resemblance view has not been complete.There has not been space to tackle all theproblemsthat confronttheview, r to apply t to every xplanandum-(x4) is the one leftout. Elsewhere have takenon whatseems to me the mostdaunt-ing of the otherproblems,and argued that the viewcan explain

at least the possibility f misrepresentation, hich is halfof (x4)(Hopkins 1994).3 What I have tried to show here is that, (x4)aside, the resemblanceviewpromisesto dischargetheprimary b-

32Parallelpointshold for other putativecounterexampleso (x3), in-cluding ime-lapse,igh-speed,ndmicroscopic hotography.

33In hat aper alsoformulatenddefend natural xtension f theview, orepresentation y sculptures nd thelike.Unsurprisingly,yclaim

is that sculptural representation ssentially nvolvesexperienced resem-blance in 3-D shape.

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ligation an account ofdepiction ncurs. t explainsthemost prom-inent featuresof that form of representation, nd so succeedswhere its rivals n section3 failed.This providesgood reason forthinking hat tcapturesat least thecore ofthetruth bout depic-tion.34

UniversityfBirmingham

References

Alberti, eon Battista.1966 [1435]. OnPainting. rans.J.R. Spencer.NewHaven: Yale Universityress.

Budd, M. 1993. "How PicturesLook." In Virtue nd Taste, d. DudleyKnowles andJohnSkorupski.Oxford:Blackwell.

Dennett, D. 1969. Contentnd Consciousness.ondon: RoutledgeEuclid. 1945. Optics.Trans. H. E. Burton.JournaloftheOpticalSociety f

America5.Gombrich,E. 1977. Art nd Illusion. thed. Oxford:Phaidon.Gibson,J. J. 1950. ThePerceptionftheVisual World. ambridge, Mass.:

RiversidePress.Goodman, N. 1976. LanguagesofArt.2d ed. Oxford:OxfordUniversity

Press.Goodman, N., and C. Elgin. 1988. Reconceptionsn Philosophy.ondon:

Routledge.

Hopkins, R. 1994. "Resemblanceand Misrepresentation."Mind 103: 421-38.

Hyman,J. 1989. The mitation fNature.Oxford:Blackwell.Kaplan, D. 1969. "Quantifyingn." In Words nd Objections,d. D. David-

son andJ.Hintikka.Dordrecht:Reidel.Peacocke, C. 1983. Senseand Content. xford: Oxford University ress,

Clarendon Press.1987 "Depiction." Philosophicaleview 6:383-410.

Rock, I. 1977. "In Defense of Unconscious Inference." In StabilityndConstancyn VisualPerception,d. W. Epstein.New York:Wiley.

34'Thanksre due toMalcolmBudd, BarrieFalk,Christel ricke,OswaldHanfling,Chris Hookway,Paul Noordhof,David Owens, Tom Pink, Mi-chael Tanner,threeanonymousrefereesfor the Philosophicaleview, ndall who commentedon earlierversionsof thispaper givenat the Univer-sities of Essex and Sheffield.Much of the researchwas undertakenwith

the financialsupportprovidedby a Research FellowshipfromChurchillCollege Cambridge.

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. 1984. Perception. ew York: ScientificAmerican.Schier, F. 1986. Deeper nto Pictures. ambridge: Cambridge University

Press.Walton,K. 1973. "Pictures nd Make-Believe."Philosophical eview 2:283-

319.. 1990. Mimesis s Make-Believe.arvard:Harvard University ress.

Wollheim,R. 1980. Art nd itsObjects.d ed. Cambridge: CambridgeUni-versity ress.

. 1987. Painting s an Art.London: Thames and Hudson.

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