Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Things can resemble one another because they share the same or similar properties. They can also resemble one another due to various effects. A 3D effect is obviously not a 3D property and a shading effect is not a shadow. Ordinary language enables us to distinguish between properties and effects with remarkable subtlety and sophistication. In much philosophy however, this distinction is widely overlooked, often with muddled or misleading consequences. This paper examines a variety of these consequences. Do we need to construct any theories of resemblance in order to get clear about the ways that images work? The above distinction is not a theory but merely an observation about the ways that we discuss resemblances. If pictorial effects can be used to produce illusions, as numerous tricks and psychology experiments show, then these effects must play a part in our perception of many pictures, sometimes leading us to remark that pictures bear a strong resemblance to the things they represent. This is surely why we prefer to view pictures perpendicular to our line of sight: to maximize the effect. There is no mystery here, so long as we are clear about the differences between properties and effects.