Iconological Dualism Re-Thought: A New Variation on Two Old Theories

Abstract

This article aims at defending the old theory of iconological dualism that opposes ‘handmade’ pictures to photographic pictures. I defend a new version of that theory, according to which photographs always enable viewers to have singular thoughts on the things photographed, while handmade pictures by themselves never enable viewers to have singular thoughts but only enable them to have what I call ‘thoughts by depiction’. To this end, I defend the old theory according to which singular thoughts require a special relation—called ‘acquaintance’—between the thinker and the object thought about. I put this traditional view forward thanks to a new version of the classic spy argument for the acquaintance constraint on singular thoughts.