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F i l m - P h i l o s o p h y
ISSN 1466-4615
http://www.film-philosophy.com
Volume 3 Number 26
June 1999
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Jeffrey T. Dean
Getting a Good View of Depiction
Robert Hopkins
_Picture, Image, and Experience_
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998
ISBN 0521-58259-8 (hbk)
205 pp.
'. . . it seems no accident that there are no spoken pictures, the way that
a description can be spoken as well as written; and that pictures seem
especially suited to representing the visible world. Thus in some way
depiction seems bound to the visual, although this thought certainly needs
clarifying' (14-15). [1]
With _Picture, Image and Experience_, Robert Hopkins attempts to clarify
the thought that depiction is bound to the visual, and does so in a concise
but densely argued book about the nature of pictorial representation and
mental visualization. Hopkins's style is clear and free from jargon, and
while his arguments are at times somewhat too compressed to be fully
persuasive, he handles a variety of difficult topics and divergent
philosophical traditions with acumen and sensitivity. Of course, I am
somewhat biased, since the kind of view that Hopkins defends -- namely,
that both depiction and visualization are best explained, in crucial
respects, by their relation to vision -- is one with which I am
sympathetic. But even (or especially) those who demur owe Hopkins's book
careful consideration, since it provides a sophisticated treatment of the
recent history of debate on these matters; much of the book's considerable
value lies in its cogent discussion of the influential views of others,
such as Nelson Goodman, Richard Wollheim, Kendall Walton, Flint Schier,
Christopher Peacocke, Wittgenstein, and Sartre. Some may be disappointed
that outside of a few brief discussions of Goodman, Hopkins spends little
time on views which favor some kind of conventionalist account of
depiction. However, the lack of sustained attention to alternatives does
not seem to me particularly remiss in this case, given that Hopkins's main
goal is to provide us with reasons to believe that some kind of resemblance
view of depiction (whether it be his own or some other permutation) may
well have the resources to overcome what have appeared to many to be
devastating objections and internal problems. [2]
By far the greater part of Hopkins's book is spent discussing depiction,
with discussion of visualization left to the final chapter. Due to its
brevity, and to a further reason addressed below, Hopkins's treatment of
visualization is somewhat less satisfying than his work on depiction.
Because of this, and because the discussion of depiction is more directly
relevant to the interests of _Film-Philosophy_, I spend the great majority
of this review article on Hopkins's treatment of depiction, with only a few
remarks on visualization at the close.
Hopkins begins chapter one by considering a painting (in this case,
Picasso's _Guernica_), noting that: 'there are two aspects to the picture's
nature. It is on the one hand a material object, on the other a
representation. One way to present our problem is to ask how one thing can
fill both these roles. How can a paint-covered surface represent other
objects and scenes at all?' (7) Of course, as Hopkins notes, the same
question can be asked about written linguistic representation, which also
involves marks on a surface that represent other objects and events. But
there are important differences (in case there were any doubt). For
instance, 'a written description has to be read in a certain order, but the
eye is free to roam over a picture without confusing the viewer. The colour
of the marks rarely matter to what a description says, but often affects
what a picture represents. The relative location of different bits of the
picture dictates the spatial relations between the objects they stand for,
but the same does not seem true for the words in the description, not at
least in any very direct way' (7). By this Hopkins does not mean to suggest
that pictures can represent only through depiction; this is clearly not the
case. For example, the idea of unity may be represented in a painting by
the depiction of a ring; both a ring and unity are represented in the
painting, but only the former is represented via depiction. Thus Hopkins is
interested in explaining what is normally taken as being unique to
pictures, i.e. their ability to depict their objects.
The most immediately obvious answer to this question -- namely, that
pictures depict their objects by resembling them -- is widely believed to
fail due to three central objections (I think there are only two objections
here, but Hopkins presents them as three). The first is that while
resemblance is a relation between two particulars, not all pictures
represent particular objects, persons, or events. So, while it is at least
prima facie plausible to say that a portrait of Bob Dole depicts Bob Dole
by resembling him, it makes no sense at all to say that the mother weeping
over her child in _Guernica_ is depicted by her resemblance to a particular
weeping mother, since no particular weeping mother is depicted. And even
the prima facie plausibility of resemblance in the case of representations
of particulars appears to evaporate in the face of the second objection to
the resemblance view, which is that there are many more respects in which
pictures *differ* from their objects than resemble them. A portrait of Bob
Dole is flat, made of canvass and paint, encompassed in a frame, incapable
of speech, and so on, while Bob Dole is none of these things. Indeed, for
any point of resemblance between a depiction and its object, there is
almost always a greater number of points of difference. And this is so even
in 'realistic' or 'naturalistic' paintings and photographs, to say nothing
of paintings like Picasso's _Guernica_. This brings us to the third
objection (really an extension of the second), which is that many pictures
which depict their objects do not even remotely resemble them, as is the
case with the weeping mother in _Guernica_, as well as caricatures,
stick-figure drawings, and so on. So, even if we could make out a way in
which certain depictions can be said to resemble their objects (when such
objects are particulars), this would hold true for only a subset of
depictive representations, and not for all of them.
Such objections have been enough for many, in concert with Nelson Goodman,
to conclude that the resemblance view is hopeless. Hopkins, however, sets
himself the task of not only rescuing the resemblance view of depiction
from these well-known objections, but of giving a detailed explanation of
why such a view has the appeal and power it does. Indeed, part of what
Hopkins finds troublesome with Goodman's alternative to the resemblance
view -- aside from the fact that Goodman's conditions for depiction are
insufficient to distinguish it from other kinds of (non-depictive)
representation -- is that Goodman's view does little to explain the nature
of depiction, and why we are so powerfully drawn to think of it as being
closely related to vision.
Hopkins's basic view is that depiction involves a special visual
experience, one which, along with Richard Wollheim, he calls 'seeing-in'.
In essence, Hopkins takes seeing-in to be a matter of experienced
resemblance. Thus, for example, when I see a painting of a tractor, my
seeing a tractor in the painting is a matter of experiencing (some aspect
of) the painting as resembling a tractor. What this requires is not that a
picture resemble its object, but that it is experienced as resembling its
object (to say that a picture 'looks like' its object is ambiguous between
these options; Hopkins's experienced resemblance view allows us to retain
such terminology without falling into the difficulties generated by claims
about actual resemblance). Notice that because seeing-in involves only the
experience of resemblance between a depiction and its object, it is not
subject to the first objection to the (actual) resemblance view. Just as
the sound of rain can be heard to resemble the sound of applause (but not
necessarily any particular applause), so a picture can be seen to resemble
a woman (even if not any particular woman). Experienced resemblance, unlike
actual resemblance, is not necessarily a two-place relation between
particulars. Moreover, my experiencing one object as resembling another
does not depend on their having a certain percentage of shared properties.
Rather, it requires only that they share certain features salient to
producing the experience of resemblance (see below for a discussion of what
these features are). [3]
On Hopkins's characterization, seeing-in includes four essential elements:
i) a distinctive phenomenology; ii) an experience whose content includes
the picture's object; iii) a way of seeing the picture; and iv) the
integration of the thought of an absent object and seeing marks on a
surface (15). According to Hopkins, these are among the most central
general elements of depiction any account must preserve and explain.
Hopkins rejects three influential positions which do preserve these
elements. These include: 'illusionism' (which involves the claim that
regardless of what belief states are or are not induced by our experience
of depictive representations, the experience of seeing a depiction of X is
phenomenologically indistinguishable from the experience of seeing X);
Wollheim's own account of seeing-in; and Kendall Walton's account of
pictorial representation. Hopkins argues that illusionism is simply false,
and maintains that while the accounts offered by Wollheim and Walton are
broadly promising, each suffers from deficiencies in their formulation and
ability to explain how depiction is related to, but different from, both
vision and visualization. Hopkins assessment of these views is brief, but
lucid. And while I expect that Walton would be able to shore up the
weakness revealed by Hopkins analysis, his doing so would probably leave
him with a view much like the one defended by Hopkins. Indeed, the view
Hopkins defends is very much like Walton's, though couched in somewhat
different language, and certainly more fully developed (no surprise,
perhaps, given that Walton's account of depiction is embedded in a more
general account of representation).
Part of what leads Hopkins to reject the accounts offered by Goodman,
Wollheim and Walton is his further specification of what any adequate
account of depiction must explain. After motivating the inclusion of each
item, Hopkins lists the explananda as follows:
(X1) There is a significant minimum pictorial content. (X2) Everything is
depicted from some point of view. (X3) Whatever can be depicted can be
seen. (X4) Pictorial misrepresentation is possible, but has its limits.
(X5) General competence with depiction and knowledge of the appearance of O
(be it a particular *a* or merely a, but no particular, F-thing) suffice
for the ability to interpret depiction of O. (X6) General competence with
depiction and knowledge of the appearance of O are necessary for the
ability to interpret depiction of O. (27-31)
Hopkins argues that none of the above-mentioned accounts is successful in
explaining each and every member of X1-X6. Thus any adequate experiential
view of depiction will have to improve on these accounts. It is worth
noting that Hopkins also rejects Flint Schier's influential view, which
holds that what is essential to pictorial representation is that it engages
the same capacities to recognize the depictions of objects as are required
to recognize the objects themselves. The thrust of the objection is that
Schier's view cannot adequately account for X1, and that this failure gives
his view trouble with X3 and X4 as well. Because Hopkins does a nice job of
motivating the importance of each of the six explananda, and of
articulating their interconnectedness, I believe the failure of other views
to adequately explain them does tell against these views. At the same time,
it is open to others to disagree, and to argue, perhaps, that the inability
to deal with the explananda is not due to problems with the other views,
but with the nature or formulation of the explananda themselves. A defender
of Schier's view, for example, might argue that the view can in fact
explain X1; but she might also argue that even if Schier's view cannot
explain X1, this is not due to a flaw in the view, but in X1 itself.
Of course, it will have occurred to some by now that a number of important
questions have yet to be answered. First, in virtue of *what* are we said
to experience resemblance between a depiction and its object? And second,
is there anything that determines whether a given experience of resemblance
is *warranted*? The former is a question about what it is about a depiction
P of an object O that encourages us to see O in P (where being able to see
O in P is *necessary* for P to depict O). The latter is a question about
what else is required for P to depict O, since clearly seeing O in P is not
*sufficient* for depiction (e.g., my seeing a bunny rabbit in the cloud
does not entail that the cloud depicts a bunny rabbit, since clouds do not
depict anything); it is a question about a standard of correctness. The
answer to the first question is 'outline shape'. Formally, as Hopkins
notes, we can 'define an object's outline shape at a point as the solid
angle it subtends at that point. Two items will resemble in outline shape
to the extent that, at some point, on subtends a solid angle similar to
that subtended, at some point, by the other' (55). We can think very
roughly of this outline shape as a silhouette, but one which admits of
differentiation within its boundaries (internal silhouettes, if you will).
For example, imagine seeing George Washington through a window at some
distance. There is a particular outline shape that he has from your
perspective. Now imagine tracing his figure and features onto the surface
of the window. What you wind up with, presuming you have done your tracing
accurately, is George Washington's outline shape, from your point of
observation, on the window as well (if he is facing your right, perhaps the
tracing will look roughly like the picture of George Washington on a dollar
bill). Thus when we experience a picture as looking like its object, what
we are experiencing is similarity in outline shape (that is, at the very
least; we may also be experiencing similarities in color, shading, and so
on, but these are not necessary similarities for depiction -- similarity in
outline shape is).
The answer to the second question, the question about a standard of
correctness, is disjunctive. With respect to pictures, the answer is
'intention'. What determines whether your seeing the Spice Girls in a
picture is warranted (assuming that you are able to see the Spice Girls in
the picture, i.e. that there are aspects of the picture whose outline shape
is similar to the outline shape of the Spice Girls) is a matter of whether
whoever produced the picture intended for the Spice Girls to be seen
therein. With respect to photographs, the standard is somewhat different,
owing to the fact that cameras are often set up with the intention that
they take a picture of *something*, without there being anything in
particular they are intended to take the picture of. The basic claim is
that a photograph depicts an object just in case the photograph is produced
by a system intended to produce pictures causally related to the object so
that the objects can be seen in the picture.
Hopkins formal formulation of depiction is thus as follows:
An item P depicts *a*/something F iff [if and only if]
(1) *a*/something F can be seen in P
and either
(2i) (1) because someone intended that a/something F be seen there or
(2c) P is the product of a system successfully intended to produce surfaces
causally related to objects in such a way that those objects can be seen in
those surfaces, and (1) because P is so related to *a*/something F. (77)
And, of course, part of what separates Hopkins's view from the views of
others is his characterization of what seeing-in amounts to: 'Something O
is seen in a surface P iff P is experienced as resembling O in outline
shape.' (77)
The remainder of the book (save the final chapter on visualization) tackles
the six explananda head-on, taking note along the way of how other
experienced resemblance views (especially Christopher Peacocke's) fare in
this regard. The discussion is clear and concise, though occasionally
leaving the sense that too much time is spent on minnows when there are
bigger fish to fry. The central topics here are the problem of pictorial
misrepresentation (i.e., the problem of how, given the experienced
resemblance view, pictures can depict objects which they misrepresent) and
the problem of indeterminacy and interpretation (i.e., of how it is, given
the experienced resemblance view, a picture can depict an object when the
marks on the surface are to some greater or lesser extent indeterminate
with respect to that object). Although questions remain (as Hopkins himself
acknowledges), the experienced resemblance view is shown to have
surprisingly deep resources, both in terms of its explanatory power, and
its ability to deflect or absorb objections without resorting to ad hoc
apologia.
I want to now close with a few comments on the last chapter of the book,
which addresses the issue of visualization. Those with an interest in
cognitive science and the philosophy of mind will be familiar with what is
often called the 'imagery debate', a debate about whether there are, in
addition to propositional mental representations, depictive mental
representations as well. What is in question is not whether we experience
mental imagery; it is widely agreed that we do. What is in question is
whether such imagery is adequately explained by propositional mental
representation alone, or whether it also relies on depictive mental
representations -- where the former can be thought of as a list of (mental)
sentences, and the latter an array of points in a space. [4] The questions
raised and addressed in this debate, which includes participants not only
from the philosophy of mind, but from psychology and cognitive science as
well, are numerous and difficult, and there is no need to elaborate on them
here. What is important for our purposes is that while Hopkins acknowledges
that the work done in his book may have some relevance to these debates,
when it comes to the central point of overlap between issues in theory of
mind, cognitive science, and pictorial representation -- namely, mental
visualization -- Hopkins remains mysteriously silent (save a single
footnote on page 195 to the effect that he is not going to address the
relation of his inquiry to these other disciplines). What is especially
peculiar is that Hopkins believes that at least part of what is essential
to visualizing has to be modeled on seeing, and he gives a number of nicely
nuanced reasons for why this should be so (he also argues that there are,
in addition, important respects in which our understanding of visualization
must rest on our understanding of depiction). The discussion here is again
subtle and perceptive, including compelling discussion of Sartre,
Wittgenstein, and Christopher Peacocke.
At the same time, he makes no mention at all of some of the recent work
done on precisely this issue, for example that of Stephen Kosslyn and his
associates in cognitive psychology. [5] Kosslyn uses compelling
neurological evidence to make the case that visualization uses the same
physiological resources as vision, that mental images are generated by the
triggering of elements of our visual system. Hopkins says that he is only
interested in philosophical explanations (by which he seems to mean
primarily conceptual and phenomenological analysis), but does concede that
'understanding the psychological and neurological mechanisms involved in
visualizing may indeed offer certain kinds of explanation for its
properties' (195). Given that Hopkins also concedes that there is a rather
severe limit to the extent to which philosophical inquiry (in his sense)
can illuminate the nature of visualization (unlike the case of depiction),
it is surprising that he does not say something more about the promising
work on the subject in cognitive science. For if Kosslyn and others who
share his view are right, then the connection between visualization and
vision goes significantly deeper than their phenomenology, and is rooted in
their emergence from an overlapping set of neural functions and cognitive
hardware (i.e. parts of the brain). Indeed, the phenomenological
similarities between seeing and visualizing are explained by reference to
their shared etiology. And this is surely a crucial part of any explanation
of how vision and visualization are related.
While I believe that failure to discuss any of the recent cognitive science
literature on visualization is an important omission (and that, indeed, if
I had any complaint about Hopkins's book it would have to be with respect
to what is *not* included in it), I do not wish to imply anything other
than great esteem and appreciation for the extent to which Hopkins has
succeeded in defending and vitalizing an experienced resemblance view of
depiction. This is no mean feat, and Hopkins is to be commended for it.
University of Wisconsin--Madison
April 1999
Footnotes
1. In this regard, Hopkins's view appears to lend support to the main
contention of James Elkins's book, _On Pictures and The Words That Fail
Them_ (Cambridge University Press, 1998), recently reviewed here by
Kathleen Johnson: ''To See or Not To See', That Is the Question',
_Film-Philosophy: Electronic Salon_, vol. 3 no. 1, January 1999
<http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy/files/kjohnson.html>.
2. As will become clear in the discussion below, Hopkins in fact defends an
experienced resemblance view, rather than a resemblance view *simpliciter*.
3. Of course, one *can* experience any object as resembling any other. The
respect in which such an experience is warranted, relevant to depiction, is
discussed below in relation to a standard of correctness for depiction.
4. As Stephen Kosslyn notes:
The space in which the points appear need not be physical, such as this
page, but can be like an array in a computer, which specifies spatial
relation purely functionally . . . In a depictive representation, each part
of an object is represented by a pattern of points, and the spatial
relations among these patterns in the functional space correspond to the
spatial relations among the parts themselves. Depictive representations
convey meaning via their resemblance to an object, with parts of the
representation corresponding to parts of the object. In this case, a 'part'
can be defined arbitrarily, cutting up the representation in any way; no
matter how you cut it, the part will still correspond to a part of the
object.
Of course, when Kosslyn speaks of depictive representations here he is
including both physical pictures and mental representations. See Stephen M.
Kosslyn, _Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate_
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994), p. 5.
5. Stephen M. Kosslyn, _Image and Brain_, op. cit.
Copyright © _Film-Philosophy_ 1999
Jeffrey T. Dean, 'Getting a Good View of Depiction', _Film-Philosophy_,
vol. 3 no. 26, June 1999
<http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy/files/dean.html>.
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