Cogency v2 n2

COGENCY Vol. 2, N0. 2, Spring 2010
of incompetence were he to draw a different interpretation than theirs from
the visual image. By Wittgensteinian lights, they need an account of what it
is to misunderstand an image that compares perspicuously with what it is
to misunderstand a linguistic utterance. If there is no such account to be
found, as I suspect there is not, then visual images are like Wittgenstein’s
pictures. By themselves images may spur cognitive feelings or associations–
and so may be persuasive–but they lack an internal pattern, the recognition
of which would allow them to be the presentation of an illative move from
premises to conclusion. Hence they do not seem to carry propositional content
other than that which is assigned to them or framed by the caption
(and what is a caption, but set of directions for how to interpret the image).
12 And if images on their own are not propositional, then visual images
cannot be arguments of the sort that Birdsell and Groarke contend.
Smith (2007) has suggested a path that seems as if it might avoid this
objection. According to Smith, the ability to draw at least one possible reading
of the image that qualities as an argument is enough to say that the
image contains an argument. Quoting Birdsell and Groarke’s (1996: 8) example
of holding cake under a dieter’s nose as a way of arguing that he should
eat it she says: “This example illustrates enthymematic argument as I conceive
it. Multiple interpretations are possible, some of which can be considered
arguments for the dieter to consider.” (Smith 2007: 119) Birdsell and
Groarke might wish to say something like this as well. As long as one interpretation
of the image reads it as a proposition then they are safe. However,
this move does not succeed. For, Birdsell and Groarke must now hold that
every picture admits of a set of interpretations some one of which is propositional
in the way required for their to be an argument. The 139b problem
remains: which interpretation is it and why should we treat with it rather
than any of the others at any given instance. Why would we be wrong if we
did not do so? And if, as I suggest in the next section, the propositional
12
An appreciation of the significance of this problem of relating the sign to the signified
in Wittgenstein’s works in both its logical and phenomenological dimensions can be found
in Munson (1962).
122