Philosophy Through Pictures: Ideas and Iconotexts from I. A. Richards to Alain de Botton
Starting with the pedagogical use of diagrams by I. A. Richards, in the English Through Pictures language-learning series (19451959), I examine how the iconotext is used to capture and illustrate complex philosophical ideas that (one is tempted to claim) might otherwise seem inexpressible. Alain de...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2006-11-01
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| Series: | Études Britanniques Contemporaines |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/ebc/12334 |
| Summary: | Starting with the pedagogical use of diagrams by I. A. Richards, in the English Through Pictures language-learning series (19451959), I examine how the iconotext is used to capture and illustrate complex philosophical ideas that (one is tempted to claim) might otherwise seem inexpressible. Alain de Botton’s varied use of illustrations, photography, and diagrams in both novels such as The Romantic Movement (1994) and essays such as The Consolations of Philosophy (2000) tends to imply that these interactions of text and image are intrinsically creative and synthetic in themselves. However, the claim of the ‘inexpressibility’ of these ideas without the aid of the iconotext needs to be re-examined. I have elsewhere argued for water-tight barriers between the senses and the diverse media to which they are connected. Here I argue that these barriers between the senses do not imply that certain things are expressible via one media and yet totally beyond expression in another. This amounts to a slight modification of the Wittgensteinian claim that various languages or media would have varying and incommensurable limits. My point is that though we do indeed use different ‘languages’ to represent the world, there is ultimately no vast incommensurability between the different techniques that we happen to use, nor is there necessarily a plurality of worlds behind these varying techniques. |
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| ISSN: | 1168-4917 2271-5444 |