TY - JOUR
AU - Voltolini, Alberto
AB - Abstract Notwithstanding Plato’s venerable opinion, many people nowadays claim either that mirrors are not pictures, or that, if they are such, they are just transparent pictures in Kendall Walton’s sense of a particular kind of picture (causally based representations, Peircean indexes, namely, natural signs, which are grasped by means of a perceptual experience of transparency—seeing-through—that lets one literally see the object perceived through the picture). In this article, however, I want to argue that mirrors are bona fide pictures. For they are grasped via what, as I assume in the article, makes a picture a picture, that is, a representation with a figurative value, namely, a depiction; namely, a certain seeing-in experience. This is the sui generis perceptual experience that Richard Wollheim originally appealed to. Once this experience is suitably reconceived, one can show how it successfully applies to mirrors as well, in order to prove that they are bona fide pictures. From an aesthetical point of view, this is an important result. For it shows that the class of pictures is broader than what people nowadays think and is closer to the original intuition sustaining Plato’s opinion. I. HOW TO COUNTER THE MAJOR OBJECTIONS TO THE PICTORIAL CHARACTER OF MIRRORS Notwithstanding Plato’s venerable opinion, many people nowadays claim either that mirrors are not pictures, or that, if they are such, they are just transparent pictures in Kendall Walton’s sense of a particular kind of picture (causally based representations, Peircean indexes, namely, natural signs, which are grasped by means of a perceptual experience of transparency—seeing-through—that lets one literally see the object perceived through the picture). In this article, however, I want to argue that mirrors are bona fide pictures. For they are grasped via what, as I assume in the article, makes a picture a picture, that is, a representation with a figurative value, namely, a depiction; namely, a certain seeing-in experience. This is the sui generis perceptual experience that Richard Wollheim originally appealed to. Once this experience is suitably reconceived, one can show how it successfully applies to mirrors as well, in order to prove that they are bona fide pictures. From an aesthetical point of view, this is an important result. For it shows that the class of pictures is broader than what people nowadays think and is closer to the original intuition sustaining Plato’s opinion. The architecture of this article is the following. In Section I, I counter the most relevant objections that have been raised against the pictorial character of mirrors. In the two subsections of Section II, I show how, once suitably reconceived, the kind of perceptual experience that for Richard Wollheim makes something pictorial, seeing-in, successfully applies to mirrors as well. Pretheoretically speaking, it seems intuitively plausible to take mirrors as pictures, in the traditional sense of figurative representations, namely, depictions. In facing mirrors, one is typically not interested in mirrors per se, as physical objects among others, but in what they reflect—the individuals, or better the scenes, they present, which some take (erroneously, as we will see) to be the same as the scenes facing mirrors themselves. As Giorgio Vasari reports, in Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, Francesco Parmigianino mimicked the self-image he saw in a barber’s mirror, in order to roughly show in that painting what that mirror presented. In despising mirrors for their illusionistic powers, Plato espoused this shared intuition. In this article, I want to better support this intuition. For me, mirrors are legitimate pictures like any other, provided that one can apply to them what for Richard Wollheim makes a picture a picture; namely, the experience of seeing-in, once this is in general suitably reconceived. I will indeed assume that by defending the above idea, Wollheim provides the right account of depiction, provided that one suitably reconceives what a seeing-in experience amounts to, in order to apply that idea to mirrors as well. In a nutshell, mirrors are pictures insofar as also in them one can see what they present, provided that one can better explain what the sui generis perceptual experience of seeing-in really amounts to. Yet before doing that, I want to take into account the fact that after Plato, the above intuition has generally been dismissed. For I take that my pars construens can suitably emerge only after having arranged a part destruens against the main objections that have allowed that intuition’s dismissal. In the contemporary debate about mirrors, various objections have been raised against their alleged pictorial character. Some of these objections, which are not ascribable to an author in particular but are widely circulating, are moderate. For they put mirrors in an ample basket containing not only reflections in general, but also static and dynamic photographs. For these objections, mirrors can be seen as pictures, yet of a sui generis kind. Other such objections, which have been defended by particular authors, are more radical. For they take that mirrors are not pictures at all. Let me focus on three objections: Mirrors are not opaque pictures of their objects, for, as Kendall Walton (1984) claims, the reflections appearing on their surface simply covary with the objects causing such reflections; in particular, unlike the object of a standard representation (just as opaque pictures are), as regards a mirror its cause is always out there, in front of the mirror. Mirrors are in no way pictures of their objects, for unlike pictures, their experience exhibits no constancy (Nanay 2011; Wollheim 1980) as regards the perspective from which one sees their putative objects, that is, their causal sources: “what is seen within a mirror changes in a way regulated by adjustments of point of view” (Casati 2012, 194). Mirrors are in no way pictures of their objects, for a mirror is a mere transparent yet invisible medium that allows one merely to see a further object (which in this case does not lie behind the medium, as is standardly the case with transparent media, but is in front of it: the causal source of the reflection) (Mizrahi 2018, 2019). Let me address these objections in turn. As I hinted at, objection (1) is moderate. For it merely points out that mirrors are to be ranked, along with reflections in general and photographs, either static or dynamic, as transparent pictures, in Walton’s (1984) sense; namely, pictures of a sui generis kind, whose objects are given to them by means of a causal relation sustaining a counterfactual natural dependence, just as Peircean indexes, namely natural signs. Yet unlike other natural signs (e.g., footprints), in the case of transparent pictures their objects are given to one by means of a perceptual experience of transparency affecting those pictures as well, that is, seeing-through. Indeed, by perceiving a transparent picture, one also perceives the object that is seen through it. By causing that picture itself, this “background” object is what the picture is about. Granted, mirrors are a specific kind of transparent picture. For unlike photos, the objects of mirrors not only exist, but are also present: the object of a mirror is the individual facing it. Now, the objection works only if one can prove that there is a difference in kind between transparent and opaque pictures, which have paintings as their paradigmatic examples; namely, pictures whose object is assigned to them in terms of an intentional rather than of a causal relation. Yet many have denied that that typological difference subsists, either because also opaque pictures sustain an experience of transparency (Lopes 1996), or because there are no properly transparent pictures (Currie 1991). I think that such denial is correct. At most, one may claim that the difference between transparent and opaque pictures is one of degree, which relies on the mere fact that the objects they are about are fixed in a different way, that is, a causal versus an intentional one (Currie 1991; Newall 2011; Voltolini 2015). Put more specifically, over and above the content that makes it a figurative representation, its figurative content, a picture also has what John Kulvicki (2009) calls its fleshed out content, its representational content involving the object it is about, independently of how this aboutness is determined, either via a causal or an intentional route.1 Many arguments support this claim. First, an epistemological argument: in its being the picture it is, for it being opaque may be indistinguishable from being transparent (in the non-Waltonian sense; from now on, I will take this specification for granted). If it turns out that the object of a picture is given to it intentionally rather than causally, this discovery does not alter the picture’s pictorial character. For example, for many centuries, people have believed that the Holy Shroud kept in Turin is a sort of photographic replica of Jesus, whose body was reflected on the shroud’s linen by means of a (weird) causal process. Yet nowadays various people believe that the Shroud is a medieval painting of Jesus. Whoever is right in this controversy, this does not alter one iota the fact that the picture is the picture it is; precisely, that picture of Jesus. Second, a phenomenological argument: an opaque interpretation of an ambiguous picture makes no difference in pictorial appearance from a transparent interpretation of it. Many pictures are ambiguous, either in a mere representational sense—the object of a picture may contextually vary, even if there is no perceptual switch in seeing it—or in a perceptual sense—the object of a picture may contextually vary, depending on the different ways in which one sees the picture. As regards opaque pictures, an example of the first kind concerns one of the main characters in Raphael’s The School of Athens. In depicting it, Raphael had Leonardo in mind. But notoriously, while making no perceptual change as regards the painting, he successfully wanted it to be a picture of Plato. Again as regards opaque pictures, drawings involving Gestalt shifts are paradigmatic examples of the second kind. In order to take the duck-rabbit figure either as a picture of a duck or as a picture of a rabbit, one must see it in a different way, by differently arranging its elements. Now, one can have further examples of both merely representational and perceptually ambiguous pictures whose readings are respectively opaque and transparent, without however any difference to be noted between these examples and the previous ones merely involving opaque pictures. As an example of the first kind, consider a still from a movie, for example, one from Woody Allen’s Zelig. Without making any perceptual change as regards it, this still can be interpreted either as a picture of the movie’s main character—Zelig—or as a shot of the actor impersonating it—Allen himself (see Wiesing 2010, 46–7). As an example of the second kind, consider what in its lectio facilior counts as a painting of a rocky desert, but once it is properly perceptually rearranged, in its lectio difficilior also reveals itself to be a photo of a tree bark. (figure 1) Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide (Image courtesy of the author) Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide (Image courtesy of the author) Thus, being opaque vs. being transparent is irrelevant either as regards the distinction in fleshed out content of a merely representationally ambiguous picture or as regards the distinction in figurative content of a perceptually ambiguous picture. Third, an ontological argument: the overall pictorial character of a picture may indifferently depend on both its opaque and its transparent elements. If one shades some patches onto a photo, one does not have a pictorial collage of different independent pictures, as happens, for example, in a postcard made by juxtaposing a transparent picture of a location with an opaque picture of a cartoon character. Instead, one has just a hybrid picture whose front part is opaque and whose back part is transparent. For the overall scene it presents consists of both opaque and transparent elements. Indeed in the scene a character, what is presented in its opaque front part, lies against the background, what is instead presented in its transparent back part. So, both the opaque and the transparent element of the photo contribute to determine just one picture: were such an element replaced, one would have an utterly different picture. Now, it is easy to obtain this pictorial effect with mirrors themselves, as in this picture that presents a (painted) stair hanging on a (reflected) wall lying yet against the background of a (painted) sky.2 (figure 2) Figure 2 Open in new tabDownload slide (Image courtesy of Paola Tosti) Figure 2 Open in new tabDownload slide (Image courtesy of Paola Tosti) Once objection (1) is dispensed with by showing that, as regards pictures, the opaque-transparent distinction is merely of degree and not of kind, the other more radical objections can also be countered by appealing to the various features that make mirrors transparent pictures in this sense. Objection (2) is certainly more radical. For it points out a feature of mirrors that allegedly prevents them from being ranked either as pictures in general, or even as transparent pictures. Indeed unlike not only paintings, but even photos themselves, mirrors exhibit no perspectival constancy as regards the scene they present. Unlike all such pictures, once one changes one’s position as regards a mirror, one no longer grasps the very same scene though from the very same perspective. Instead, one grasps an altogether different scene. Yet one may notice that that peculiarity of mirrors depends not on their being transparent pictures, but rather on their being transparent pictures of a specific kind. For it simply depends on what makes it physically the case that the objects they are about not merely exist, but are also present. Physically speaking, mirrors are kinds of surfaces reflecting the light incident that impacts on them. If that light changes, then, as a matter of physical laws, the scene a mirror presents, hence the object it is about, changes as well. This happens if one changes one’s position as regards a mirror. For example, the movement of a subject facing the mirror suffices in order for the mirror to present an utterly different scene from what it presented before that movement. So, a lamp lying on a table that the subject previously occluded enters into the different object of that mirror. Thus, as soon as one changes one’s point of view as regards a mirror, since the presented scene changes, a new picture arises. Hence, no perspectival constancy occurs with mirrors. But this does not prevent them from being pictures (This is a contingent fact due to human physiology.). For this phenomenon occurs also with other cases of pictures, both transparent and opaque. First, consider your smartphone when you are going to take a picture of something with it. Before clicking, a sequence of different scenes presents itself to the phone depending on how you move it; hence, each of your movements potentially selects a new picture of a different object. Second, consider double reflection figures, in which, depending again on physical laws, the fact that one’s movement captures a different light impact on a filter located in front of a striped design suffices in order for the different scenes one sees to mobilize different pictures. Objection (3) is the most radical. Like (2), (3) aims at rejecting the idea that mirrors are pictures, even transparent ones. For, by acknowledging that they are transparent media, it denies that they are objects of perception. A perception of transparency does involve a mirror, yet merely as an invisible medium, just like air, which allows one to see the object one sees through it, although this object does not literally stand behind the mirror but faces it. For in the case of mirrors, this latter object is the causal source of the mirror’s reflections. Thus, although a mirror admittedly is a physically opaque object, hence, unlike a standard medium, nothing can be seen behind it, it may allow for the frontal source to be seen through it. And one may learn to use it as a prosthetic perceptual device (see Steenhagen 2017). Yet to begin with, that mirrors are invisible is hardly credible. If this were the case, one might risk to bumping on them, which is normally not the case when there is light, as with any other visible object. Instead first, we can single them out, just like any other object of direct perception: we figure-ground see them, as Mohan Matthen (2018, 318) labels this form of seeing. Second, our perceptual detection of them is directly caused by them: we Dretske-see them, still in Matthen’s sense: “(i) S experientially-sees O …, and (ii) S figure-ground sees O, and (iii) O is causally responsible for (i) and (ii)” (318). In a nutshell, we can see mirrors independently of the objects they reflect. Granted, Vivian Mizrahi (2018) acknowledges that there are cases in which mirrors are visible; namely, when they no longer work as perfect mirrors, for example, as mere invisible perceptual media, but merely as translucent objects, that is, objects whose overall physical condition does not allow them to perfectly transmit light, just like windows covered with mist. Yet moreover, it is hardly justifiable that there is a phenomenal principled distinction between invisible mere perceptual media and visible translucent objects. Like the idea of frictionless planes, taking mirrors as invisible mere perceptual media is an idealization that does not correspond to our actual transactions with them. For if mirrors were invisible, as I just said, we would bump into them. For we would move around as if there were no such things, as we unfortunately do with viruses, which are, for us at least, really invisible. Mizrahi possibly confuses the above distinction with another distinction that definitely applies to mirrors as well; namely, the distinction between being visible and being attended to. As she herself says (2018, 257), the mirrors’ reflective role can be neglected, at least until some physical disturbance affects them. But this does not mean that they were previously unseen. It merely means that they were unnoticed—to put it in Ned Block’s (1995) terms, they were seen with phenomenal awareness yet with no report awareness. In this respect, other pictorial devices are in the same situation as mirrors. Consider movie screens. The fact that while attending a movie, one does not realize the screen’s presence unless cracks or patches are scattered across it does not mean that it was not perceived before. Instead, it simply means that before it went unnoticed. This consideration is not accidental. For cinema screens may work as transparent pictures. Hence, the idea that in seeing mirrors one actually sees the objects that are the causal sources of their reflections is implausible. As I said before, if there is a direct causal source of one’s perception with mirrors, it is the mirror itself qua physical object. This is indeed what is primarily seen. On behalf of sustainers of objection (3), this result might be questioned if one were able to show that mirror perception is a case of perception of transparency, as (3) maintains. But, as we will immediately see, this is not the case. On behalf of Mizrahi, a friend of the idea that mirrors are not pictures of any kind might indeed remark that, in order for mirrors to work as transparent media but not as transparent pictures, their invisibility is not required. It is enough for them to elicit a perception of transparency in which, when vision is suitably adjusted, through seeing them, one also sees the causal sources of their reflections (Steenhagen 2017). Yet, as I hinted, mirrors are not affected at all by a perception of transparency. In order for that perception to hold, the object one sees through the medium must be seen at a distance from one’s point of view that differs from the distance from that point at which the medium is seen to be. Quoting Robert Hopkins: “[the visual experience of P] represents P [the medium] as at distance δ1 from my point of view, [the visual experience as of O] represents O [the object seen through the medium] as at distance δ2 from my point of view, and δ1≠δ2.” (2012b, 656). Now, let me put aside the issue that the object allegedly seen through the mirror lies just where one’s point of view is rather than far away from it. For as we saw, on behalf of the supporters of this objection, the issue might be accommodated by resorting to perceptual adjustments. Yet the transparency characterization Hopkins provides does not fit mirror perception. For the scene that the mirror presents is perceived as departing not at a further distance from where the mirror itself lies, but exactly from where it lies, as, apparently at least, extending backwards. In other terms, the mirror presents a 3D scene constituted by different items in different depth relations, whose apparent location starts where the mirror’s surface actually is and extends further back. Suppose one puts an object, say a rubber eraser, in contact with a mirror by letting the edge of one of its thinner sides stick to a corresponding part of the mirror’s surface. Then by means of the mirror, one sees a 3D scene with many objects in different depth relations between each other. In the scene, in fact, one sees at least three items one of which is perceived as located where the mirror’s surface actually is—the counterpart edge of the counterpart of the rubber eraser that actually lies in front of the mirror—while the two other items are perceived further back: the counterpart rubber itself, as apparently stretching behind that counterpart edge, and the background apparently lying behind it.3 (figure 3) Figure 3 Open in new tabDownload slide (Image courtesy of Costanza Sgarbi) Figure 3 Open in new tabDownload slide (Image courtesy of Costanza Sgarbi) This mirror-involving situation matches what happens with ordinary pictures, whether opaque or transparent, presenting a scene that apparently departs from where the picture itself lies and then extends further back. Consider this example of a gloomily comical picture in coronavirus times. The picture presents an Easter egg as lying both behind a prison grate and in front of a background. The grate’s bars apparently lie where the picture itself lies qua physical object, while the egg appears to lie behind the bars and the background appears to lie further back.4 (figure 4) Figure 4 Open in new tabDownload slide (Image courtesy of Paola Tosti) Figure 4 Open in new tabDownload slide (Image courtesy of Paola Tosti) All in all, we have found no decisive argument against the idea that mirrors are bona fide pictures like any other. Granted, this argumentative failure does not rule out the possibility that other more successful objections are raised. Yet it says at least that the original, Plato-like intuition is not so implausible as it has recently seemed to be. II. MIRRORS AS BONA FIDE PICTURES Obviously, dismantling negative arguments against the pictorial character of mirrors does not prove yet that mirrors are pictures. Positive arguments to this extent must be advanced in order to support what may hitherto seem an ungrounded intuition. In order to do so, one must go back to Wollheim. II.A. Wollheim’s Seeing-in Reconceived Suppose that, as Wollheim (1980, 1987, 1998, 2003a,b) originally theorized, the pictorial character of a picture, that is, what makes a picture a figurative representation, namely, a depiction, lies in the fact that the picture is grasped by an experience of seeing-in. If this idea is basically correct, then, in order to prove that mirrors are pictures, it is enough to show that they are also grasped in this way. For the purposes of this article, I do assume that Wollheim’s idea is basically correct, provided that what the seeing-in experience amounts to is suitably reconceived. For so meant, it may provide the mark of figurativity; namely, what makes a picture a picture. Hence, this reconception enables me to show that mirrors are pictures like any other. For mirror perception can also be understood in terms of a seeing-in experience. Let me recap what seeing-in amounts to for Wollheim. For him, a seeing-in experience is a sui generis twofold perceptual experience. For it is made out of two different folds, the configurational fold, in which one perceptually grasps the picture’s vehicle, the physical basis of a picture, and the recognitional fold, in which one perceptually grasps the scene that a picture presents, which for Wollheim (improperly, as we will immediately see) coincides with the picture’s subject. Entertaining this experience amounts to entertaining a proper fusion experience, in which the two folds are interpenetrated (Voltolini 2020a). For, says Wollheim (1987, 46), neither fold coincides with the corresponding perceptual experience, either of the picture’s vehicle or of the picture’s scene, taken in isolation. Wollheim’s characterization of seeing-in is admittedly elusive. One may certainly add that the recognitional fold depends on the configurational fold: if the latter did not exist, the former would not exist either (Hopkins 2008). But one may even go further in order to justify that dependence, by trying to understand what the above interpenetrability amounts to. First, the configurational fold of a seeing-in experience must be an enriched perception of the picture’s vehicle that grasps how the vehicle’s elements are perceptually arranged. Second, by so doing, the configurational fold enables the recognitional fold of that very experience to emerge as a knowingly illusory perception of the scene it presents; namely, a perception of the vehicle as that very scene (Levinson 1998), yet known not to be that scene. One has this knowledge in the recognitional fold because in the configurational fold one knowingly veridically sees the vehicle as being there. Alternatively put, in the recognitional fold, that scene is knowingly illusorily seen to be there for perceptual reasons; namely, because in the configurational fold one knowingly veridically sees the vehicle to be there. Let me show in the next two paragraphs how to justify these two points.5 First of all, so-called “aspect dawning” pictures clearly show why the configurational fold and the recognitional fold must be so reconceived. For they delay what normally occurs as soon as one sees a picture. Indeed, they split time t′, in which the picture is perceived as such, from a prior time t, in which the picture is not perceived as such. At t′, the picture’s vehicle is perceived, in what amounts to be the configurational fold of a certain seeing-in experience, as being arranged in a way it was not perceived at t. As a result of this arrangement, moreover, a further scene turns out to be perceived illusorily yet knowingly in what amounts to be the recognitional fold of the very same experience; indeed, that scene is not deceitful. Consider the picture of a Dalmatian. For a long while, in the mere physical vehicle of that picture one faces, one merely perceives black and white spots lying in front of one. Then all of sudden, one sees a particular way those spots are arranged, by seeing, in what amounts to be the configurational fold of a certain seeing-in experience, a contour that lets some of such spots recede as regards some other such spots. By so doing, in what amounts to be the recognitional fold of that experience, one illusorily yet knowingly sees the scene of a Dalmatian standing in front of a background. Clearly enough, indeed, not only is that scene not there, but it is also perceptually known not to be there. For in the configurational fold of that experience one knowingly veridically sees the vehicle to be there. Moreover, another pictorial situation shows again why the configurational fold and the recognitional fold must be so conceived, by again splitting a time t′ in which one sees a picture as such from a prior time t in which one mistakes that picture for an ordinary individual. This situation regards genuine trompe-l’oeils (if there are any); namely, those that really deceive their spectators. When at t′ one realizes that one has been facing a genuine trompe-l’oeil, one undergoes a perceptual shift. For one shifts to entertaining a seeing-in experience, indeed one of the paradigmatic cases of such experiences. For in it, what is grasped in what at t′ counts as the recognitional fold of that experience is illusorily seen to be there, just as it already was in the deceiving experience entertained at t. Yet unlike that experience, it is now knowingly seen so. For at t′ one also entertains the configurational fold of that experience in which one knowingly veridically sees that trompe-l’oeil’s vehicle as being there. For example, in mistaking a genuine trompe l’oeil of a violin hanging upon a door for that violin itself, one delusorily seems to see a violin hanging upon a door over there. Then all of a sudden, one realizes that one faces a picture, by shifting to entertaining a certain seeing-in experience. For then one sees, in what amounts to be the configurational fold of that experience, a certain pictorial vehicle, and then one goes on seeing, in what amounts to be the recognitional fold of that experience, a scene of a violin hanging upon a door over there, which however one now knows not to be there; one is no longer deceived by it. For one knowingly veridically sees, in the configurational fold, another object, that is, the vehicle, to be there. Furthermore, another consequence ensues from this characterization of the seeing-in experience. In accounting for the figurativity of a picture, its presenting something qua its figurative content, a seeing-in experience does not also account for the intentionality of a picture; namely, the fact that it has a representational value, determined by its being about something as constituting its fleshed out content. At most, the experience fixes a constraint for that value. For what the picture is about must be compatible with what the picture presents, that is, what turns out to be a generic item constituting its figurative content. This item is the scene grasped in the recognitional fold of that seeing-in experience.6 Hence, pace Wollheim, one must distinguish what the picture presents, that is, the generic item that is seen in the recognitional fold of the relevant seeing-in experience and constitutes its figurative content, from what that picture is about – typically, but not exclusively, a particular individual – its proper subject as I may label it (Husserl 2006; Nanay 2016, 2017; Voltolini 2015, 2018), as constituting its fleshed out content. Granted, Wollheim (1980) did not distinguish between the generic item that a picture presents and constitutes its figurative content and its proper subject constituting its fleshed out content. Instead, he drew a similar distinction between incorrect and correct seeing-in. Correct seeing-in is what one must see in a picture, in conformity with the author’s intentions. For correct seeing-in provides what the picture is about. Yet putting things this way makes one think that there is a perceptual distinction between what one incorrectly sees in a picture and what one must see in it. However, the example Wollheim himself provides shows that this is not the case. Hence, Wollheim’s distinction must be reframed in terms of the present distinction between what a picture presents, its generic figurative content, and its proper subject, constituting its fleshed-out content. Looking at Hans Holbein The Younger’s picture of Henry VIII, says Wollheim, in it, instead of correctly seeing his Majesty, in conformity with Holbein’s intentions, one may incorrectly see the contemporary British actor Charles Laughton. Yet this example must be reconceived as displaying a (potentially) merely representationally ambiguous picture, which, while still presenting the very same generic scene in the very same seeing-in experience, thereby having the same figurative content, might have different fleshed out contents, one involving its proper subject, Henry VIII, and the other one involving another (possible) subject, Laughton. The example can be multiplied. In correctly taking a painting not as being about a certain something—Leonardo—but as being about another something—Plato—and thereby having a certain fleshed out content, one captures the picture’s proper subject, while keeping fixed what one sees in it, that is, its figurative content amounting to the generic scene that the picture goes on presenting and concerning a venerable old-looking man (who is surrounded by other similar men). Indeed, the different individuals that such a merely representationally ambiguous picture is potentially about are all compatible with the very same generic item the picture presents: both Leonardo and Plato are venerable old-looking men. Thus, what a picture presents, that is, what one sees in it in the recognitional fold of the relevant seeing-in experience, is a generic item constituting its figurative content that is compatible with the (typically, but not exclusively) particular individual the picture is about and constitutes its fleshed out content. If one wants to appeal to a criterion of correctness here, it only concerns how the picture’s proper subject is selected, as constituting the picture’s fleshed out content. For it provides the right thing for the picture to be about. In the case of transparent pictures, the criterion is fixed causally: the right thing for a transparent picture to be about is its relevant cause. In the case of opaque pictures, the criterion is fixed intentionally: the right thing for an opaque picture to be about is what its author, possibly through a negotiation with her audience, takes it to be about. II.B. How Can One See Something in Mirrors? So far, so good. As I said before, in this article I assume that the mark of figurativity for a picture, what makes it a picture, that is, a figurative representation, namely, a depiction, may be understood in terms of a seeing-in experience, once so reconceived (Voltolini 2015). Now, armed with the above reconception of seeing-in, I can say how mirrors are pictures in this sense as well, since they are grasped by the relevant seeing-in experiences. First, an experience of seeing in a mirror involves a proper configurational fold like any other such experience. Yet, as regards mirrors, the picture’s vehicle is not a material object per se, but is just the mirror surface as affected by a particular phenomenon of light reflection. This is not a specificity of mirror pictures. Other transparent pictures, such as movie screens, laptops, smartphones and TV monitors, work in this way. Even opaque pictures present similar cases of nonmaterial yet physical vehicles. Consider pointillist paintings or stereoscopic pictures. In both, the vehicle’s material substrate counts less than the different phenomenon of light reflection working as the relevant picture’s physical basis. Second, as we saw in the previous Section with movie screens, just like any naturalistic picture (whether transparent or opaque), a mirror’s vehicle is perceived but not noticed; it is affected by phenomenal but not by report awareness. In Dominic Lopes’s (1996) terms, all such pictures are grasped by seeing-in experiences that are weakly twofold: in their configurational fold, one perceives the pictures’ vehicles but does not attend to the properties they instantiate. As Bence Nanay (2011, 473) underlines, while watching a soccer match in TV, one may not notice the trapezoidal shape on the TV monitor presenting the rectangular shape of the penalty area in a soccer field. Likewise, in facing a convex mirror one may not notice the particular smaller shape presenting a larger face. Yet the fact that, as regards its configurational fold, the seeing-in experience with a mirror is weakly twofold does not mean that the perception of a mirror qua pictorial vehicle in that configurational fold is not an enriched perception of that vehicle, just as with any other picture. For again, in that configurational fold one must arrange the mirror’s elements so as to allow a scene to be perceived in the recognitional fold of that experience. Indeed, even mirrors display Dalmatian-like cases. In a water reflection just as in an old mirror, for a long while one can only see confused patches of color until one is able, in what amounts to be the configurational fold of a seeing-experience, to arrange them in a figure-ground way that enables one to see, in what amounts to be the recognitional fold of that experience, a body in front of a background. Third, what is (knowingly illusorily) perceived in the recognitional fold of a seeing-in experience with a mirror is a generic item (constituting its figurative content) just like any other picture.7 A simple thought experiment shows this point. Suppose that, all of a sudden, a mirror were transferred to Twin Earth. The mirror would then be causally related to a Twin-Earth counterpart of the Earth item that caused the original reflection to be displayed on it. Therefore, the mirror would no longer depict that item; it would rather depict that counterpart. In the causal terms previously seen, the mirror would have a different proper subject, as constituting its different fleshed out content. Yet by just looking at the mirror itself, like any other picture, one could not read off whether it depicts the Earth item or its Twin-Earth counterpart. In order to get its (causally-based) proper subject, one should independently know where the mirror is located. For one would go on seeing in the very same generic scene it presents. In order to grasp this point, one is not even forced to refer to Twin-Earth situations. For the same would hold of a mirror that, instead of reflecting a house, reflected an identically looking façade. Now, apart from the fact that its proper subject is fixed intentionally and not causally, the same holds in the Leonardo-Plato case discussed above. Just by looking at Raphael’s masterpiece, one cannot read off whether it is about Leonardo or Plato. For in either case one goes on looking the very same generic scene involving a venerable old-looking man. All in all, therefore, by merely looking at the mirror, like any other picture, in the recognitional fold of the relevant seeing-in experience one (knowingly illusorily) perceives a generic scene that remains the same independently of what the mirror picture depicts. This point is easily neglected if one does not draw a distinction, as I did before, between what a mirror, qua picture, presents and what it is about, its proper subject. Qua picture, albeit transparent, a mirror is about something just like any other picture. It would be wrong to say that mirrors are just like pareidolia such as those reported by Wollheim (1980) himself; namely, things in which we see something else even though they are not pictures of that something, for no proper subject has been ascribed to them (e.g., rocks in which we see faces); in a nutshell, things having a figurative but no fleshed-out content. Indeed, to stick to what I said before à propos of Wollheim’s criterion of correctness, just as any other picture a mirror has its proper subject, what it is correctly about; namely, its causal source, the object actually facing it and constituting its fleshed out content. But—pace Robert Casati (2012), Mizrahi (2018, 2019), and Marteen Steenhagen (2017)—this subject is not seen at all. For not only can it not be read off from what the picture presents. But also, it is not the direct cause of one’s perceptual state. For, to repeat what I said in the previous Section, this cause is the mirror’s vehicle, which is indeed perceived in the configurational fold of the relevant seeing-in experience. This vehicle is Dretske-seen, in Matthen’s (2018) terminology. Fourth, the mirror’s vehicle is not the only item that is seen in the (configurational fold of the) seeing-in experience with a mirror. For, like any other picture, what is grasped in (the recognitional fold of) that seeing-in’s experience, that is, what the picture presents, is seen as well, though knowingly illusorily. Some people (e.g., Steenhagen 2017) doubt that there is an element of (known) illusion in mirror perception, consisting in that in a mirror, one illusorily sees something as lying behind the mirror itself. Yet this element transpires if we consider a case of mirror realization matching the second pictorial situation I presented in the previous subsection; namely, the situation of one’s recovery from a genuine trompe-l’oeil delusion. As Ernst Mach recounted, once he had wearily jumped on a bus he thought, how miserable that shabby schoolmaster over there looks! Only to realize later that in the bus there was a mirror reflecting himself and he had simply mistaken himself for that schoolmaster. Now, at time t′, that is, the moment of his realization, Mach precisely entertained a seeing-in experience whose recognitional fold presents the same (generic) scene that he illusorily perceived at the prior time t. Yet what at t was a delusory perception of that scene turned out to be in that recognitional fold a perceptual illusion of that same scene yet known to be such, because of the simultaneous perceptual realization—in the configurational fold of the same seeing-in experience—of the mirror over there.8 In this respect, just as with any other picture, what is presented in a mirror does not lie in a sui generis space, as some people hold.9 In general, the space grasped by the seeing-in’s recognitional fold where the scene presented by a picture supposedly obtains is our space. As the above pictorial situation shows. In recovering from a trompe-l’oeil delusion, one knowingly seems to see what one also seemed to see over there when entertaining the delusion (Voltolini 2020b). Simply, since the recognitional fold is (knowingly) illusory, it is our space as it would have been if the recognitional fold had been veridical. When facing a mirror-picture of myself, in the mirror I see a generic someone looking like me as located in front of a background and lying behind the mirror, which is actually just in front of me. Simply, unlike the mirror, that someone is not located where it is seen to be located. Yet, that someone would have been so located if the recognitional fold of the relevant seeing-in experience with the mirror had been veridical. Thus, there is a spatial continuity between the perceiver, the mirror, and the scene that the mirror presents, as Mac Cumhaill (2011) maintains.10 Simply, that continuity is knowingly illusory. For the scene is not actually located where is seen as being located; namely, in a region of our space that knowingly illusorily departs from where the mirror actually is and, still knowingly illusorily, extends behind the mirror itself. This is not to say that whatever is presented by a mirror and is grasped in the recognitional fold of the relevant seeing-in experience of that mirror is (knowingly) illusory. As Casati (2012) rightly maintains, in the scene that the mirror presents, the left-right order of the objects there located is not reversed as regards the order of the real objects that are the causal sources of the mirror picture. For example, in that scene there knowingly illusorily is a generic someone that looks like me still knowingly illusorily lying behind the mirror. Yet I see his arms in the same left-right direction as, in an ordinary perceptual experience, I see my own arms. For as regards that scene, the recognitional fold of that seeing-in experience factors out the reverse right-left order of the reflected silhouettes—the arm-like silhouettes, in the previous example—that one instead perceives in the configurational fold of that experience. Actually, the reverse direction order is not the only element of nonveridicality that is factored out as regards the scenes mirrors present. Oblong mirrors in funfairs horror rooms are such that, although one sees oblong silhouettes in the configurational fold of the relevant seeing-in experiences with such mirrors, one sees normally elongated characters in the recognitional fold of those experiences. Once again, from a pictorial point of view mirrors are not alone in this respect. For Hopkins (2012a), black-and-white photos, or black-and-white TV shots, of flesh-and-blood human beings are such that the black-and-white colors of the spots one sees in the configurational fold of the relevant seeing-in experiences are factored out in the scenes one sees in the recognitional fold of such experiences that such photos or shots present. If, because of some electric blackout, all of a sudden a normally colored TV shot turned out to be black-and-white, nobody would say that it now presents a scene involving some black-and-white aliens, rather than continuing to present the same ordinary flesh-and-blood human beings.11 All in all, therefore, since they are grasped by a suitably reconceived experience of seeing-in, mirrors are bona fide pictures. In perceiving a mirror’s surface, what directly causes that perception, one also perceives the (generic) scene the mirror presents. This scene does not coincide with the mirror’s proper subject, the ordinary individual facing it and constituting the mirror’s fleshed out content. Hence appearances notwithstanding, this individual is not seen at all. From an aesthetical point of view, this is an important result. For it accounts for the intuition of mirrors as pictures that Plato himself shared. Put alternatively, the class of pictures may be what was originally supposed to be. III. CONCLUSION It is time to take stock. Pace many contemporary critics, by taking mirrors to be pictures, Plato was right in following an old widespread intuition. For, just as any other picture, a mirror is grasped by the relevant seeing-in perceptual experience that, if Wollheim is basically right as I assume throughout this article, confers on pictures in general their pictorial character, provided that such an experience is suitably reconceived. Aesthetically speaking, this is very important. For it shows that the class of pictures conforms to our original intuitions on the matter.12 References Block , Ned . 1995 . “On a Confusion about a Function of Consciousness.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18 : 227 – 47 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Brown , John H . 2010 . “Seeing Things in Pictures.” In Philosophical Perspectives on Depiction , edited by Catherine Abell and Katerina Bantinaki, 208 – 36 . Oxford University Press . 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Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Footnotes 1 The distinction between two layers of pictorial content is not only Kulvicki’s, but is standard in literature: see, for example, Lopes (1996), and Hopkins (1998). For Kulvicki (2009), figurative content is a structural content, thinner than the content of the recognitional fold of a seeing-in experience: bare bones content. For some, having a causally fixed content amounts to having it originally, while having an intentionally fixed content amounts to having it derivatively (e.g., Fodor 1990). Independently of whether these identifications are correct, the point remains: the very same content may be had in different ways. 2 Once one so faces objection (1), one may dismiss another similar objection by showing that it traces back to the fact that a mirror picture is a specific case of transparent picture. For this objection, mirrors are not pictures of their objects, since by their means we straightforwardly see such objects; unlike ordinary pictures, those very objects, but not the mirror surfaces themselves, are illuminated: “if I want to see my face in a mirror, it is my face and not the surface of the mirror that needs to be illuminated” (Hyman 2000, 22). Now, it is indisputable both that the objects of mirrors must be illuminated and that mirrors are only derivatively such; hence, a mirror in a dark room can still reflect an illuminated object lying outside of that room. But these facts have merely to do with the further fact that such objects are the causal sources of the mirror reflections, just as in any other case of transparent pictures. Were the object of a photo not illuminated, there would be no photo of it. As any naive photographer equipped with a bad camera realizes as soon as she tries to take a picture of a nighttime landscape. 3 As a referee has made me notice, the situation structurally resembles the case of two opposite leaning cards seen as separated by a window. Yet even if this case were a perception of transparency, the position of the card located behind the window is its actual, not its merely apparent, position. 4 Granted, the items of the scene a mirror presents stand in an apparent depth relationship more definite than the one connecting the items of a scene an opaque picture presents. But this only depends on the fact that in the latter case the picture’s proper subject is given intentionally, not causally. 5 So meant, the seeing-in’s recognitional fold differs from Kemp’s spectral seeing: “there is an x such that I see x as Φ, but I judge x not to be Φ” (2018, 438). For, as Kemp admits, spectral seeing can be no twofolded seeing. 6 Some people believe that one must draw a distinction between what one sees in a picture and what the picture presents, its figurative content. See Hopkins (1998), and Brown (2010). Yet for Wollheim (2003b), this distinction is not necessary: see Voltolini (2018, 2020a). 7 For Casati (2012), theories à laMatthen (2018) are superfluous ontological multipliers, for they postulate specific mirror-images. A mirror is a picture not because it has a mirror-image, an immanent object depending for its existence on the picture’s existence, but because it presents that there is something of a certain kind: a scene qua generic item. 8 PaceMac Cumhaill (2011), the fact that the delusory perception at t and the seeing-in’s recognitional fold at t′ are phenomenally indistinguishable does not mean that that perception was a seeing-in experience. For there is a phenomenal shift between it and the overall seeing-in experience. 9 For this thesis as regards pictures in general, Jagnow (2019); as regards mirrors, Mac Cumhaill (2011). 10 Yet one must not buy Mac Cumhaill’s (2011) further idea of an elasticity concerning the space seen in the mirror. For this idea, the perceiver is path-connected both to the objects presented by the mirror and to the mirror itself. This idea could be justified only if à laCasati (2012) mirrors were not pictures. 11 This factoring out depends on the fact that the recognitional fold of the seeing-in experience is cognitively penetrated (Voltolini 2015, 2018, 2020a; Wollheim 2003a). If one did not know that humans are flesh-and-blood, one might see black-and-white aliens in a black-and-white TV spot. Ditto for mirrors. In the recognitional fold of a seeing-in experience with mirrors, as regards items of the scene that are not cognitively penetrated, one can undergo an illusion. For example, in that recognitional fold we illusorily see text on a shirt as inverted. 12 This paper was originally presented at the workshop New Reflections on Mirrors, University of Turin, Nov 15 2019, Turin. I thank all the participants for their stimulating questions. I warmly thank Clotilde Calabi for her precious comments to a previous version of this paper. © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society for Aesthetics. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Seeing in Mirrors
JF - The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
DO - 10.1093/jaac/kpab021
DA - 2021-06-16
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/seeing-in-mirrors-Fk7PQHoEnd
SP - 1
EP - 1
VL - Advance Article
IS - 
DP - DeepDyve
ER -