forms of representation, where we are (at least implicitly) distinctively
aware of ourselves as using representations, above and beyond simpler
sensory reactions to things.Representing as natural, human, world-responsive activity
Depicting, then, is both something that arises out of natural capacities of
responsiveness to the world and something we learn to do actively, where it
is not easy, and arguably impossible, to pull apart the contributions of simple
responsiveness and active learning to what we come to be able to do.
A similar point applies to verbal representation. It too arises out of natural
expressions of pain, alarm, and interest in the form of calls and cries, and it
too is then something we do, as we come to articulate natural expressions
into representational language.
This similarity points us to a set of further questions. How and why do we
come tobe makers and users ofrepresentations–visual and verbal alike–atall?
Howare the capacitiesand interests thatare developedthrough the making and
using of representations in general related to artistic representation? What
makes a representation–a presentation of a subject matter–artistic?With
some developed responses to these questions, the antithesis–representations
arematters ofactivegame-playing versusrepresentationsaremattersofnatural
responsiveness to nature–begins to emerge as a false one.
Like at least other chordates, human beings are perceptually aware of and
responsive to features of their environments. Unlike other animals, human
beings are aware to a very high degree of aspects of things and of multiple
ways of classifying the same object. For us–as Michael Tomasello puts it,
developing Wittgenstein’s work on linguistic reference as a social phenom-
enon and on aspect-seeing–
In different communicative situations one and the same object may be
construed as a dog, an animal, a pet, or a pest; one and the same event may be
construed as running, moving, fleeing, or surviving; one and the same place
may be construed as the coast, the shore, the beach, or the sand, all depending
on the communicative goals of the speaker.^58(^58) Michael Tomasello,The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition(Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1999), pp. 8–9.
44 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art