Wittgenstein’s Picture Theory of Pictures

• Main Author: Enrico Terrone
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Firenze University Press 2013-05-01
• Series: Aisthesis
• Subjects: Depiction; Ontology; Cinema; Wittgenstein
• Online Access: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/aisthesis/article/view/661

I rely on Frascolla's interpretation of the Tractatus ontology to develop an account of depiction in which a picture is conceived of as a visual structure constituted by pixels that are conceived of, in their turn, as elementary propositions. Then I argue that such an account is complementary to the considerations about «noticing aspects» in the Philosophical Investigations, to the extent that the visual structure constituted by pixels provides a design allowing the picture’s viewer to notice aspects. Finally I argue that a joint reading of the considerations about pictures in the Tractatus and in the Philosophical Investigations allows us to address some important issues in the contemporary philosophical debate about depiction.