Depiction, Imagination, and Photography

Imagination plays an important role in depiction. In this chapter, I focus on photography and I discuss the role imagination plays in photographic depiction. I suggest to follow a broadly Waltonian view, but I also depart from it in several places. I start by discussing a general feature of the relation of depiction, namely the fact that it is a ternary relation which always involves “something external.” I then turn my attention to Walton’s view, where this third relatum of the relation of depiction is largely analyzed in terms of the role imagination plays in depiction. I consider the objection to his view that not all cases of depiction involve imagination – for instance, documentary photographs – as well as Walton’s own strategy to face this objection, and I argue that it is partly adequate and partly wrong. As we will see, first, it is an unnecessary mistake to insist too heavily on the fact that photographs are produced in a mechanical way (as opposed to, say, paintings), and second, the notion of “imagining-seeing,” as it is articulated by Walton, is perhaps too strong and does not entirely do justice to the external character of the role imagination plays here.