In a message dated 1/19/13 9:43:37 AM, [email protected] writes:
> On Jan 19, 2013, at 9:28 AM, saul ostrow <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Though I would suggest that depiction is a semiotic system (one of > visual > > signs and symbols) and therefore linguistic. > Michael Brady responded: > > Thank you. Much more succinct than my reply. > I myself tend to think of it almost the other way around. A visual artist's one-line curve of a woman's hip reminds me directly of a real woman's hip. The memory of a real woman's hip is, for me, a visual memory. My brain, on seeing or hearing something, "retrieves" from memory quite directly: This one ink-line curve on paper "reminds me" of that real curve because of visual resemblance, association of like images. I reject systems of "signs", "signifying", "symbolizing" in attempts to explain why the one curve retrieves for me the memory of the other. A photograph of Lincoln brings to mind memories of the man; it does not do so because it "signifies" or "symbolizes" or "means" him. The image in the photo visually resembles images in my memory. The non-artist who, confronted by a "schematized, abstract" painting, says to himself "This means shoulder, this means hip, this means foot. (Means = signifies)," is flatly wrong. The imputation of "meaning" to a visual mark is a basic error. Philosophers are particularly prone to this peculiar form of self-delusion. Unwilling simply to accept the simpler truth that, after repeated juxtaposition of the sound "milk" with the white stuff, a child's brain connects/associates the sound with the white stuff, many philosophers have devised elaborate imaginary schemes called "denoting", "signifying", "designating", "meaning". The philosophers do this despite their readily accepting that a child, once painfully burned by a candle, immediately "associates" flame with pain. That smart puppy, Pavlov's dog, tried to teach philosophers that association is all that goes on when we recall. The philosophers are not consciously being dishonest. Craving a more profound analysis (and a more intricate vocabulary suggestive of profundity) they have sincerely deluded themselves into thinking that in some sense they "explain" the brain's ability to associate (and to recall by retrieving associated notions) better by saying that word-sounds "denote", "signify", "designate", etc. In fact the words DO nothing whatever; all the action is by the brain. In any case, all of this about hip-curves etc remains visual for me, not "linguistic". In fact, I associate "linguistic" much more with aural sensation than visual -- but that's another matter.
