A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction

What is depiction? This is a venerable question that has received many different answers throughout the whole history of philosophy, especially in contemporary times. A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction elaborates a new account on this matter by providing a theory of depiction that tries to combine the merits of the previous theories while dropping their defects. It is argued that a picture is a representation in a pictorial or figurative mode, and its 'figurativity' is given by a special perception, perceiving-in, whose nature is reconceived. Such a perception inter alia grasps some properties which the picture's vehicle has in common with what is perceived in it; by so doing, that perception provides the picture with a figurative content. In contrast, the picture's representational value, its subject or its pictorial content, is given by a conventionally or causally based selection out of that figurative content.

Alberto Voltolini (PhD Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, 1989) is Professor on the Philosophy of the Mind at the University of Turin (Italy) and is a philosopher of language and mind whose works have focused mainly on fiction, intentionality, depiction and Wittgenstein. He has previously held scholarships at the Universities of Geneva (Switzerland) and Sussex (UK) and has been visiting professor at the Universities of California, Riverside, USA, Auckland in New Zealand and the Australian National University, Canberra and Barcelona in Spain. He has also been a member of the Steering Committee of the European Society for Analytic Philosophy (2002-08) and of the Board of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (2009-12). His publications include How Ficta Follow Fiction (2006) as well as the "Fiction" entry (with F. Kroon) in theStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.