An Analysis Of Resemblance
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An Analysis of Resemblance
First published in 1952, An Analysis of Resemblance has two-fold aims. The opening chapters seek to present what it is not about. It is not concerned with any sense of resemblance in which that term is used by thinkers generally and widely called Hegelian Idealists. The several subsequent chapters of the work advance an analysis of four senses of resemblance. Two of these four senses would seem to be radical – in the etymological sense of the term. The other two senses are derivative. The concluding chapter advances some considerations as to the bearing of an analysis of resemblance on the matters of universals and taxonomy. Professor Church’s clearly stated ideas will arouse much discussion among students of philosophy. This book helps to round off his studies in this field and is a worthy successor to his earlier works.
Resemblance and Representation
It’s a platitude – which only a philosopher would dream of denying – that whereas words are connected to what they represent merely by arbitrary conventions, pictures are connected to what they represent by resemblance. The most important difference between my portrait and my name, for example, is that whereas my portrait and I are connected by my portrait’s resemblance to me, my name and I are connected merely by an arbitrary convention. The first aim of this book is to defend this platitude from the apparently compelling objections raised against it, by analysing depiction in a way which reveals how it is mediated by resemblance. It’s natural to contrast the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance, which emphasises the differences between depictive and descriptive representation, with an extremely close analogy between depiction and description, which emphasises the similarities between depictive and descriptive representation. Whereas the platitude emphasises that the connection between my portrait and me is natural in a way the connection between my name and me is not, the analogy emphasises the contingency of the connection between my portrait and me. Nevertheless, the second aim of this book is to defend an extremely close analogy between depiction and description. The strategy of the book is to argue that the apparently compelling objections raised against the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance are manifestations of more general problems, which are familiar from the philosophy of language. These problems, it argues, can be resolved by answers analogous to their counterparts in the philosophy of language, without rejecting the platitude. So the combination of the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance with a close analogy between depiction and description turns out to be a compelling theory of depiction, which combines the virtues of common sense with the insights of its detractors.
A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction
What is depiction? A new answer is given to this venerable question by providing a syncretistic theory of depiction that tries to combine the merits of the previous theories on the matter while dropping their defects. Thus, not only perceptual, but also both conventional and causal factors contribute in making something a picture of something else.