[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Rather, as we have seen, information is derived from pictures, whileit is extracted from books and data bases.One might think that the claim that pictures cannot contain information isinconsistent with my admission that pictures can sometimes function asstatements.Recall that I earlier allowed that a picture of a digging worker and apicture of a foot can be used to make a statement.In fact, however, noinconsistency exists.Consider first the case where context makes it possible forpictures to function as statements.In the case I described, the picture of the footdoes not contain the information that the foot is sore.Shown the picture incontext, I would come to the conclusion that a foot is hurt.I would do so,however, in much the same way as I would if a person pointed to her foot whilegrimacing.In neither case do I extract information from a vehicle of information.This conclusion is reinforced by the following reflection.Imagine that I see thepicture of the foot in a context other than the one described, say, in a gallery.Inthis context, it does not contain the information that someone s foot is sore.Sincethe picture is the same in both contexts, it does not contain this informationin either.The street sign with the digging worker may be said to contain the informationthat roadwork is in progress.However, the sign does not contain this informationqua picture.Rather, it contains the information qua conventional sign.Given theright convention, a sign marked with a purple circle would serve just as well tostate that roadwork is in progress.A simple consideration shows that the streetsign is not functioning as a picture.The picture of the digging worker differssomewhat from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.The signs in each jurisdiction,however, contain precisely the same information.If the signs were functioningqua pictures, they would have somewhat different content.This is the case sincepictorial modes of representation are syntactically replete.To say that a mode ofrepresentation is syntactically replete is to say that every variation in arepresentation is significant.Drawing, for example, is syntactically replete.Everyvariation in the contour, thickness, and length of a line affects what is represented.By way of contrast, the mode of representation employed by anelectrocardiogram is not replete.Here, the colour and thickness of lines areinsignificant.Consequently, if the various pictures on the street signs were43 ART AND KNOWLEDGEfunctioning qua pictures, they would represent different objects.On the contrary,however, they represent precisely the same state of affairs.Hence, they arefunctioning qua conventional signs.Since statements are vehicles of information, and pictures are not, pictures arenot statements.Since pictures in general are not statements, works of pictorial artin particular are not statements.A painting by Canaletto of San Marco, forexample, represents San Marco, but it does not make any statements about theVenetian cathedral.In other words, the picture is not a semantic representation.Ifit represents at all, it is an illustrative representation.This point is quite general.Many paintings, drawings and other works of visual art are clearlyrepresentational.Since they are not semantic representations, they must beillustrations.Even if works of visual art are illustrations, however, one mightthink that the other arts do not employ illustrative representation.The comingsections are designed to show that they do.Representation in literatureOf all the arts, the literary arts seem most likely to yield examples of semanticrepresentation.Their medium is language, and language is the medium ofsemantic representation par excellence.Counting against this consideration is thefact that most of the sentences in most works of literature are false and falsehoodscannot be semantic representations.Although most sentences in works ofliterature are false, perhaps they nevertheless state truths.According to oneproposal, works of literature, including novels, poems and short stories, obliquelymake statements.That is, the falsehoods of which they are composed somehowimply true statements.An alternative proposal suggests that literal falsehoods canbe true in another, non-literal sense.If so, a collection of false sentences mightstill amount to a semantic representation.Neither of these proposals is acceptable
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]