Responding to a picture as a picture: Eugene Gendlin and Susanne Langer
Pictures and animals
In the section ‘(g) pictures’ in Chapter VII-A of “A Process Model” (APM), it is discussed in detail that “Animals don’t respond to pictures of something” (Gendlin, 1997/2018, p. 125), which was already addressed, albeit budding, in 1973. Before we go any further, let’s look at Susanne Langer’s prior work:
Gendlin inherited Langer’s view and has persistently examined it since the 1970s.
Pictures for humans: “proportion of parts” and patterns
Since the early 1970s, Gendlin has discussed the inability of animals to respond to a picture as a picture, but he has not explicitly discussed why; on the contrary, we humans can respond to a picture as a picture. This point was revisited in a paper published in the early 1990s, “Thinking Beyond Patterns” (Gendlin, 1991), which again drawed on Langer’s philosophy. This paper discussed in more detail the basis for the later conclusion in APM that “To respond to a picture is different than to behave at the object pictured as if it were present.” (Gendlin, 1997/2018, p. 125)
What connects Langer’s discussion with Gendlin’s discussion of patterns in the 1990s is the “proportion of parts” characteristic of pictures. First, let’s look at Langer’s specific discussion of what it means for humans to respond to a picture as a picture before Gendlin:
Gendlin also made a similar argument to Langer, but only for the cat on the right.
That was all that Gendlin has in common with Langer.
Not petting the cat in the picture: separability and movability of patterns
Gendlin expanded from discussing patterns to his argument of “doubled perception.”
Gendlin argued that when humans acquired the ability to see things as patterns, they could move and separate the cat’s features from their actual place.
The characteristics of the pattern make it possible to separate it from the real cat and respond as a picture to a picture of a cat with the same proportion in another place. This, Gendlin argued, is what distinguishes humans from animals.
That is why, Gendlin pointed out, “You expect the cardboard to make a noise if you tap it, but you would be shocked if the cat meowed instead” (Gendlin, 1991, p. 114). This is because we believe the cat is only in the picture and not real.
Not bowing to the word “Napoleon”: “aboutness” in words
A characteristic of “doubled perception” that only humans possess, but not animals, is the ability to see a picture of a cat but not pet it as if it were a real cat. The human ability to respond to visual patterns, Gendlin in the ’70s argued, “involves a new type of process, one in which in one way the situation is not changed, not behaved in, and yet in which in another way allows one to process the situation” (Gendlin, 1973, pp. 374-5). Precisely, “not petting the picture” corresponds to “not changing the situation and not behaving in the situation.” This is precisely meant by “To respond to a picture is different than to behave at the object pictured as if it were present” in APM. Furthermore, in the same book, Gendlin stated, “To respond to a picture as a picture is to live an aboutness.” (Gendlin, 1997/2018, p. 125). So, let us first overview Langer’s consideration of “aboutness” in the discursive use of symbols and then return to Gendlin’s assertion that we respond to a picture as a picture.”
In Langer’s classic work “Philosophy in a New Key,” which I have already quoted, the preposition “about” appears casually. For example, “we are able to think about the object without reacting to it overtly at all” (Langer, 1942/1957, p. 64). The following are specific examples of “without reacting to it overtly at all”:
In other words, we humans are able to think about James without the overt behavior of looking for him at all, and we are able to think about Napoleon without the overt behavior of bowing to him at all. This is the “aboutness” on the discursive use of what Gendlin once said in his discussion of the picture, “in one way the situation is not changed, not behaved in, and yet in which in another way allows one to process the situation.”
Not bowing to the picture of Napoleon: “aboutness” in visual patterns
In Langer’s example above, when one says the word “Napoleon”, “we are able to think about the object without reacting to it overtly at all”. However, this is not limited to the discursive use of symbols such as words; it also applies to the non-discursive use of symbols such as pictures. In other words, although Langer did not say it, I consider it can be applied to the non-discursive use as well: “When I show you a picture of Napoleon, you do not bow to this European conqueror as if you had been introduced to him, but only think of him.”
I interpret this as the meaning of “To respond to a picture as a picture is to live an aboutness.”
References
David, J.L. (1801). Bonaparte franchissant le Grand-Saint-Bernard.
Gendlin, E.T. (1973). A phenomenology of emotions: anger. In D. Carr & E.S. Casey (Eds.), Explorations in phenomenology (pp. 367-98). Martinus Nijhoff.
Gendlin, E.T. (1986). Let your body interpret your dreams. Chiron.
Gendlin, E. T. (1991). Thinking beyond patterns: body, language and situations. In B. den Ouden, & M. Moen (Eds.), The Presence of Feeling in Thought (pp. 21–151). Peter Lang.
Gendlin, E. T. (1997/2018). A process model. Northwestern University Press.
Gendlin, E.T., Grindler, D. & McGuire, M. (1984). Imagery, body, and space in focusing. In A.A. Sheikh (Ed.), Imagination and healing (pp. 259-86). Baywood.
Langer, S.K. (1942/1957). Philosophy in a new key: a study in the symbolism of reason, rite, and art (3rd ed.). Harvard University Press.
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