What do we see in a mirror? There is an ongoing debate over whether mirrors present us with images of objects or whether we see, through the mirror, the objects themselves. Roberto Casati has recently argued that there is a categorical difference between images and mirror reflections. His argument depends on the observation that mirrors, but not paintings, are sensitive to changes in the observer's perspective. In our paper we scrutinize Casati's argument and present a modal argument that shows that it cannot establish this conclusion. We suggest that Casati's line of reasoning suffers from the fact that he does not take dynamic images - that is, images that change over time - into account.

Mirrors, Windows, and Paintings / C. Calabi, W. Huemer, M. Santambrogio. - In: ESTETIKA. - ISSN 2571-0915. - 59:1(2022), pp. 22-32. [10.33134/eeja.200]

Mirrors, Windows, and Paintings

C. Calabi
Primo
;
2022

Abstract

What do we see in a mirror? There is an ongoing debate over whether mirrors present us with images of objects or whether we see, through the mirror, the objects themselves. Roberto Casati has recently argued that there is a categorical difference between images and mirror reflections. His argument depends on the observation that mirrors, but not paintings, are sensitive to changes in the observer's perspective. In our paper we scrutinize Casati's argument and present a modal argument that shows that it cannot establish this conclusion. We suggest that Casati's line of reasoning suffers from the fact that he does not take dynamic images - that is, images that change over time - into account.
mirror images; pictorial representation; perspective; dynamic images; Brunelleschi's experiment
Settore M-FIL/05 - Filosofia e Teoria dei Linguaggi
2022
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/995988
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