Glossar-English:Effects of Pictoriality
Main-Item to: Pictoriality: Conditions and Consequences
Original: Auswirkungen der Bildlichkeit
Image competence in concept-genetic considerationsThe pictorial quality of an object and, thus, the image competence of the person who deals with that part of their environment (the object) as an image is not a property that can simply be regarded as additively placed next to others. It is interrelated with other properties or competencies in multiple ways, and its conceptual constitution consequently affects the concepts we should make of them. These effects are now in the focus. Generally, a concept-genetic consideration is based on using the composition of a questionable conceptual field from simpler, already jointly established conceptual fields as a suggestion to show a skeptical counterpart a rational way to adopt that questionable conceptual field: Namely, that the reference points we use to communicate about joint divisions of the world can be extended by certain combinations in such a way that, with the concepts thus obtained, an interesting group of phenomena can be conceived of as systematically connected in the first place. A concept-genetic reconstruction of an introductory situation of the image concept may, for example, refer to different developmental stages of sign behavior or, more precisely, to a sequence of conceptual fields that allow us to conceive of something in the world as a being with sign behavior of a certain degree of complexity – that is, as something capable of behaving in a certain more or less complex way simultaneously to itself, its conspecifics, and its environment. It may play a role in one of the transitions, for instance, that beings of the level just considered sometimes include an actually erroneous perception of their environment in one of their sign acts. Suppose such behavior is seen not only as a contingent coincidence of two intrinsically independent behavioral instances but as an indication of a possible systematic combination of behaviors. In that case, a bridge is built for a correspondingly combined notion of a more complex type of behavior. However, the agent of such behavior is then not simply a being of the same kind as the beings considered before: As a result of the systematic interrelations of concepts in a conceptual field, such a conceptual combination also changes the concept of the entity that is capable of that more complex behavior ([Ros 1979a]Ros, Arno (1979): Objektkonstitution und elementare Sprachhandlungsbegriffe. Hain, Königstein/Ts.
Types of effects of concept synthesisIn addition to the central concept here, i.e., the concept of image competence, a concept-genetic constitution may also determine a whole series of other concepts that initially do not seem readily related to it but belong to the same conceptual field. These are not the only effects. Other concepts from the same conceptual fieldThese “side-effects” of conceptual synthesis concern not only the actual bearer of image competence, negotiated here under the heading ‘homo pictor’, but above all, the concepts of resemblance and propositional language, considered here under the heading ‘deceptive and immersive mode’. Also affected is the concept of objects in the narrower sense, which, at least for an essential subclass of images, provides precisely the image content, as well as the ability to free oneself from the respective here and now and thus to be able to enter (in Plessner's words) into an eccentric relation to oneself and one's environment ([Plessner 1928a]Plessner, Helmuth (1928): Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. W. de Gruyter, Berlin. Elementary image concepts and image concepts of a higher orderAnother consequence of a concept-genetic consideration of pictoriality understood as image competence is that further, more complex levels can be built (via continued concept-genetic reconstructions) on the elementary concept of pictoriality thus obtained. Between which levels of the pictorial would we have to differentiate? Candidates for higher-level image concepts are, for instance, structural images, reflexively used images, but also moving or interactive images. Is there even a single elementary image function? The answer to the question of the actual elementary image function, which ultimately underlies every single image use,[1] can thereby be motivated via the concept-genetic relations: The usages that are possible according to the simplest conceptual field reconstructed concept-genetically for beings to whom image competence is rightly attributed will also underlie all higher-level image concepts in a more or less differentiated form. Partial transfer of structure to other conceptual fieldsSo far, it remains an open question whether concepts such as intuition, mental models, or mental images are also to be understood as higher-level image concepts. It would also be very well possible that they are a consequence of the conceptual synthesis of the image concept of a completely different kind: namely, a partial structural transfer to conceptual fields for completely different phenomenal areas, i.e., a metaphor in the sense of cognitive linguistics ([Lakoff 1987a]Lakoff, George (1987): Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things – What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago University Press, Chicago. Whoever calls a metaphor a verbal image will usually concede that this does not mean an image in the usual sense. Instead, the expression itself is commonly understood as a verbal image. However, the designation is not equivocal by pure chance, as is the case with ‘bank’ as garden furniture and as a financial institution. Rather, the similarity of expression is motivated by certain similarities in the appearance of the two phenomenal domains under consideration – or, more precisely, our reasoning about those domains. The fact that part of the conceptual structure, i.e., the argumentative relations between closely related concepts of one of our conceptual fields, is in a more or less broad but always incomplete isomorphism relation with the conceptual structure of a completely different conceptual field used by us enables us, within certain limits, to talk and argue about the phenomena that fall under the first conceptual field as if they were about phenomena under the second conceptual field Thus, we are dealing with phenomena we can understand as improper images, provided only that the image concept is available. For example, we can talk in German about a ‘way of life’ as a ‘Weltbild’ (‘world view’, but literally ‘world image’) as long as the concept of ways of life is understood as structurally identical in part to that of the image concept under consideration. However, one can also talk about the same phenomenon without using the image concept at all, provided there is no claim that it would be a real kind of image. Finally, whether and in what sense the expression 'mental image' articulates a metaphor is the subject of the sub-item «Logical context-building acts and mental images», which at the same time refers back to the discussion of the effects of conceptual genetic considerations of pictoriality on the concepts of resemblance and language. |
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Literature
[Lakoff 1987a]Lakoff, George (1987): Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things – What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago University Press, Chicago.[Plessner 1928a]Plessner, Helmuth (1928): Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. W. de Gruyter, Berlin.[Ros 1979a]Ros, Arno (1979): Objektkonstitution und elementare Sprachhandlungsbegriffe. Hain, Königstein/Ts. Version 1: 2013 Responsible: Seitenbearbeitungen durch: Joerg R.J. Schirra — (Hinweis) Zitierhinweis: |