The artifactual theory of depiction
From paintings and sculptures to virtual reality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10808210 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Enrico Terrone (0000-0002-1975-8319, University of Genoa, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 205 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Publication date | 2025-03-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Synthese (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0039-7857 • E-ISSN: 1573-0964 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11229-025-04988-7 |
| OpenAlex | W4408981684 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 57 |
This paper proposes a new account of depiction, namely the ‘artifactual theory’, which aims to supplement the so-called “experiential accounts”. The latter characterize pictures as eliciting a perceptual experience of what is represented. Drawing on philosophical accounts of technical artifacts and on their notions of structure and function, the artifactual theory casts the generation of a peculiar perceptual experience as the function that pictures perform in virtue of their structure. The paper argues that the artifactual theory leads us to a compelling taxonomy of pictorial kinds that accounts for not only paradigmatic two-dimensional pictures such as paintings but also “threedimensional pictures” such as statues, and even “immaterial pictures” such as those of virtual reality. Specifically, the artifactual theory enables us to individuate the three basic pictorial kinds thereby situating virtual reality, statues and paintings in the pictorial realm in an effective and insightful way that captures both what they have in common and what makes each of them special
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Depiction · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Painting · Philosophy of language · Philosophy of science · Sculpture · Visual arts · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Philosophy · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory
Deeper into Pictures
A Philosophy of Cinematic Art
A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction
Image and Mind
Making Objects and Events
Cognition does not affect perception
The Philosophy of Perception
A Study of Concepts
Subjectivity in Film
Semantics of Pictorial Space
The cognitive penetrability of perception
The logical structure of pictorial representation
A Philosophy of Material Culture
Artifacts and mind-dependence
Deep learning and synthetic media
Deepfakes and depiction
The Iconic-Symbolic Spectrum
Precis of Mimesis as Make-Believe
Pictorial Perception as Illusion
Art Media and the Sense Modalities
Touching pictures
Vision, Touch, and the Value of Pictures
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |