Abstract
An important issue for visual argumentation is its relationship to propositions, since it has been argued that, in order to be arguments, images should be propositional. The first part of the paper will approach this debate from a theoretical perspective. After quickly surveying the field on the issue, I will address the relationship between images and propositions. Three specific questions will be examined: (a) can propositions accurately account for the way images express arguments?; (b) are verbal propositions necessary to reconstruct arguments that images alone cannot convey, due to their lacking linguistic tools?; (c) are images essentially non-propositional because they don’t have truth-value? The second part of the paper will include a detailed analysis of two posters. From these analyses, I will ultimately conclude that some images can display a visual argument without necessarily being propositional.
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Notes
It should be noted that not all propositional logics distinguish between sentence and proposition. In the chapter Govier devotes to propositional logic, no difference is made between proposition and statement (Govier 2001, p. 253), since, for her, the logical relationship between statements is the only one that counts.
This is not exactly what Stainton says, since his thinking remains a propositional one. But this is a consequence that can be drawn from his claim.
Statement kindly communicated to me by the artist (and quoted here partially) in an email from July 25, 2013. It is reproduced in part in Glaser and Ilic 2006, p. 85.
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Acknowledgments
A first version of this paper was presented at the CRRAR Summer Institute on “Multi-Modal Arguments: Making Sense of Images in Argument” at the University of Windsor, in May 2013. I would like to thank Leo Groarke for suggesting to work on the relationship between visual arguments and propositions and Chris Tindale for arranging all the details of my trip and stay. I am also grateful to the participants of the Summer Institute. Their comments on my paper were helpful, and I also learned from their own papers and the rich discussions we had during that fruitful week. Tony Blair read the first version of this paper and made many useful remarks and comments that helped me improve it. I feel very grateful to him. I also received helpful comments from Jens E. Kjeldsen, Sergio Martínez, Ana Nettel and an anonymous reviewer on a further version of the paper. Finally, I would like to thank the two graphic designers, Woody Pirtle and Fang Chen, who gave me permission to reproduce their posters in this paper.
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Roque, G. Should Visual Arguments be Propositional in Order to be Arguments?. Argumentation 29, 177–195 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-014-9341-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-014-9341-3