Abstract
This paper uses structure-mapping to bridge the divide between the analytical and visual culture traditions of image interpretation. Wittgenstein’s analytic ‘picture theory of meaning’ from his early period, and his cultural theory of ‘meaning as use’ from his later period are used to show that the terms similarity, analogy and metaphor can be applied to both image and linguistic interpretation. As a result, by the mapping of similarity and analogy onto the analytic approach, and by the mapping of metaphor onto the visual culture approach, a common linguistic ground for the comparison of these two approaches to image interpretation can be established.
Highlights
Wittgenstein was brought up in an aesthetically educated household
That as he extends the logical complexity of the relationship to include nonvisual representations such as gramophone records, the visual relationship of similarity is better replaced by the structural relationship of analogy
That owing to its genealogy in visual representation, this structural relationship of analogy shares features with the analytical model of image interpretation
Summary
This paper makes six claims, of which the last is original. First, that Wittgenstein’s early model for how we represent the world to ourselves is based on a type of visual ‘picturing’ exemplified by orthographic projection engineering drawing. According to [structure-mapping theory], the contrast between analogy and literal similarity is a continuum, not a dichotomy (Gentner 1983, 161) As a result, it would be in accord with recent scholarship about Wittgenstein’s early period to avoid using the term ‘picture theory of meaning’ – which he himself did not use – in favour of a ‘theory of representation by analogy’. It would be in accord with recent scholarship about Wittgenstein’s early period to avoid using the term ‘picture theory of meaning’ – which he himself did not use – in favour of a ‘theory of representation by analogy’ In his later period he rejects the adequacy of such a correspondence relationship owing to the lack of both the attribute and the relationship mappings regarding the way that images and words function as representations. There is, a continuity in the representational relationship between the analytic and visual culture approaches to image interpretation that can be investigated in terms of the relationship between analogy and metaphor in structural linguistics, and as a result this method can offer a bridge between the apparent incommensurability of the analytic and visual culture approaches to image interpretation
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