PHL 710 Lecture 12: Philosophy and Film
Document Summary
Reality remade: art is not a copy of the real world. Imitation: to make a faithful picture, come as close as possible to copying the object just as it is is simple minded. In representing an object, we don"t copy an interpretation, we achieve it: the way we see and depict depends upon and varies with experience, practice, interests and attitudes. Identity in pattern of light rays must constitute identity of appearance. Sculpture: the troubles with the copy theory are attributed to the impossibility of depicting reality on a flat surface. If we want to understand representation, we need to drop that idea: thinks it"s a mistake to think of representation involving copying. This is a cup: representation involves reference, not resemblance, realism in art, let"s say we have denotation, portraits. It might not refer but we need to think about what is actually represented: there are paintings that don"t have reference but have sense.
