Image and Object

quite dubious that such a concept of resemblance apart from psychology should not be considered as merely derived and usable only within very limited conditions.

In any case, the use of iconic and indexical signs depends on the sign users’ aware-ness of similarity or causal relation, which can be stabilized inter-individually only by means of symbolic communication. Without anchoring the language-mediated context of Figure 17, its iconic use remains ambiguous (“Is this meant as a human form or not?”), its indexical reference unclear (“where is this?” “who/what made that shadow-like spot?”). In order to provide a better understanding of how iconic (and indexical) sign uses depend on symbolically mediated frames of interpretations, the next section gives a coarse sketch of the complex inner structures of resemblance relations.

3.3.1 The Naïve Approach to Resemblance

We have a cat on the mat, and we have a picture of it. There is a part of the picture that corresponds to the cat; it is composed of parts that correspond in turn to parts of the cat:

to the paws, the tail, the whiskers, ... This part of the picture is mostly black, except for one white bit that corresponds to a bit of the cat's throat; therefore the picture represents the cat as being black except for a white patch on the throat. The part of the picture that cor-responds to the cat touches on another part of the picture that corcor-responds to the mat;

therefore the picture represents the cat as being on the mat.

[LEWIS 1986, 166]

The quote above examplifies (particularly with the final sentence) a common non-semiotic conception of pictures assuming a representation relation that is (i) independent of any use in a sign act, and (ii) immediately derived from a similarity relation. It demonstrates the naïve understanding of similarity as an objective relation between objects existing – without perspective – out there. In the naïve approach, the world consists of a set of individual objects – cats, mats, trees, chairs, teapots or bones – an observation quite in accord with everyday experience. These objects have specific distributions of attributes, which are used, assumedly, to classify or identify the objects by means of comparing them with an inner standard. Resemblance is conceived of, in this view, as a derived relation, a weak form of identity that may be stated to some degree if not all but only a certain amount of the attributes of two objects match. There-fore, likeness is one of the potential sources of deception (as in the case of the mirror image taken eventually for another person).

With a more sophisticated understanding, it is evident that objects are conceivable only as something given to an individual [UEXKÜLL 1909]. That individual must then show a certain behavior, or act in a specific way, as the anecdote about ZEUXIS [PLINIUS

1977, 65], a famous artist in ancient Greece, indicates: in the presence of a picture of fruit – perhaps ZEUXIS had exhibited them for sale by hanging the pictures in a tree –

Figure 18: Ascription of an Elementary Deception: the Observer Assumes a Relation of the Ob-served Behavior to Another Situation

birds behaved in a most peculiar manner. They mistook, it is told, this picture with what is depicted: they tried to eat the fruits “deceived by the similarity of the painting”. But what is actually the criterion for such a statement? What clue do we have for speaking legitimately of “the bird’s deception”? Well, the answer may be approximately like this:

the birds flew hither and tried to peck up the feigned fruit – they behaved as if such fruit was really present. This behavior, or more precisely: their behavior that we recognize as not adequate to the situation while simultaneously imagining a situation in which it would be adequate for them is the condition that allows us to ascribe a deception to the animals (Fig. 18).

It is advisable to explain the concept “object” not as the concept of an isolated entity, but as a component of the concepts for certain dispositions to behave or act [PLESSNER

1928]: an act-theoretic analysis of the concept of resemblance in the general framework of object constitution is therefore unavoidable.

3.3.2 The Act-Theoretic Basis of the Concept »Resemblance«

Studying systematically the relations between animal behavior and situational conditions is the subject of the biological subdiscipline of ethology. Ethologists can profit by experiments with situations mistaken by animals: they can, for example, use dummies with varying attributes in order to study relevant dependencies between corresponding aspects in an animal’s environment and the actual behavior.

Mimicry, i.e., “imitating” something (in appearance and behavior) that their enemies ignore or avoid, is a “strategy” of numerous species to “protect” the corresponding indi-viduals. Certain butterflies provide prominent case studies: if, e.g., an individual of the

species Smerinthus ocellata feels being attacked it lifts its unspectacular brownish (camouflage) upper pair of wings and, thus, presents framed in a brilliant red its striking hind wings with their distinct black and light blue eye pattern (Fig. 19). The similarity of the lepidopteron’s appearance with the head of a fox (or perhaps an eagle-owl) is hardly doubtable at least for the human beholder, and it is assumed that the main enemies of the insect (birds, rats, etc.) are suffi-ciently often impressed, too.

Conceptually, behavior based on simple stimulus-response schemata allows us al-ready to ascribe deceptions to a corresponding creature, though deceptions of a very re-duced kind. Such instinctive behavior, called a “reflex” , includes the ability to distin-guish the present situation of stimuli: those with a corresponding stimulus, and the oth-ers. The associated behavior is (usually) observed only in the former. The classification ability of reflexes is summarized by the formula “stimuli of the same kind lead to re-sponses of the same kind¹⁵“. The behavior of predators when facing successful mimicry is based on this merely schematic ability of classification. It is therefore wrong to as-sume that creatures thus endowed are able to deal with objects as individuals in the sense of our concept of material spatio-temporal objects – or even to be able to perceive two such objects as being similar. In the field of concepts of »reflex creatures«, there is no way of “projecting back” to the reflex arc whether the reaction performed was not

15 – presuming the same inner conditions hold, i.e., apart form states of fatigue, illness, etc.

Figure 19: Smerinthus ocellata – a Case of Mimicry

appropriate, i.e., whether the stimulus was not really “of the same kind” (cf. also [PLESSNER 1928, Sect. 6.2]).

The behavior of ZEUXIS’ birds is, however, not at all explainable by means of simple reflexes alone. There are at least two interacting reflex-like elements, since the birds do not just try to peck up the painted fruits; they have to come close, first: into pecking dis-tance to the apparent fruit. It is part of the repertoire of such creatures to react on food already from a distance (much) greater than the one necessary for the “food ingestion”

reflex proper to successfully “fire”.

In this context, G. H. MEAD proposed to distinguish “distance experiences” from

“contact stimuli”. While reflexes in the proper meaning depend on contact senses (and lead to “contact reactions” accordingly), distance senses are understood as the sensory part of a reflex-like functional entity that is additionally related in a systematic way (i.e., by its concept) to other reflexes. Only in the later case, MEAD explains, it is legitimate to speak of ‘perception’ [MEAD 1932]. As observers of creatures with distance senses, our attention is focused on activities that are (i) activated by stimuli of the distance senses, but that we (ii) understand as having the purpose of establishing (or avoiding) certain contact reactions (of the associated reflexes): we consider those movements in a broader temporal context than would be possible with the concept of reflexes alone. In the example of ZEUXIS’ birds, the pecking (contact) reflex can be assumed as systemati-cally associated to an “approach food” (distance) reflex – although the same stimulating object for us, there are involved two quite different and unrelated stimuli on the level of mere reflexes.

However, the punch line of the systematic relation is not only the approaching (or avoiding) reaction from the distance. That could be explained as a simple reflex (form-ing “a reflex chain” ). For MEAD, the activation of the distance sense also provokes an anticipation of the contact reflex linked. Or more precisely: we must conceive the con-tact reflex as being potentiated before its stimulus is in fact present, so that the reflex can be activated quicker and more easily (weaker stimulus) – sometimes even without the actual stimulus (displacement activity).

Furthermore, with each distance stimulus, many potential contact reactions can be an-ticipated: “toward the water… – in order to drink, – in order to bath, – in order to cool down, – in order to prey,” etc. Usually, a motivational structuring coordinates the di-verse contact reflexes associated: e.g., the potential contact behaviors may inhibit each other, so that only one actually gets the better when the contact situation is reached.

MEAD calls “resistance” the influence that the potentiated but finally not selected op-tions have on the contact reaction actually performed. This resistance is in his under-standing the origin of the primary object constitution [MEAD 1968, 413].

3.3.3 Perception, Deception, and Primary Object Constitution

The systematic conceptual correlation of distance stimulus and contact stimuli prepares a first concept of an object that can be ascribed by an observer to such a creature. We can say then that for such a creature there exists – in contrast to mere stimuli – something like an object. That is, we can interpret the creature’s behavior as being directed toward that object – though ‘object’ must be understood here in a rather rudimentary manner: this is but a precursor of our concept of objects as appearing in everyday language. The concept of such “pre-objects” (as they shall be called here for short) depends on the compound of anticipations “to one theme”; since a connection of several options of behavior is considered that remains invariant (“objective”) compared

to the changing stimuli that appear from different distances or perspectives (cf. also [PLESSNER 1928, Sect. 6.3]) .

The field of concepts coarsely sketched so far – let us call it the field of »pre-object creatures« – has been introduced by means of the field of simple »reflex creatures«. In-stead of sensors, which react on stimuli in a certain bandwidth, we speak in this context of detectors for specific pre-objects: a detector integrates the corresponding distance sensors with the associated contact sensors. Similar to the mutual dependency of the concepts »sensor« and »stimulus« in the field of »reflex creatures«, the concepts »detec-tor« and »pre-object« cannot be determined independently of each other: it is always a detector for a pre-object, or a pre-object relative to a detector. We may therefore say that C perceives O if a creature C’s detector for pre-object O is activated.

Because the concept of perception is introduced in this primary object constitution as the fusion of reflexes, the corresponding reactions are part of »perception«, as well. A pre-object perceivable in this sense is something on which the creature can react in dif-ferent ways – this is the basis of properties associated to the pre-object. Nevertheless, the pre-object is still “schematic”: detectors always detect membership of a set, so to speak, not individualized objects with a single coherent spatio-temporal development. In certain cases, we may find a “detector for an individual”, e.g., for parent binding; but then, this is merely a detector for a set that has just one member by chance, not by prin-ciple.

Pre-object creatures can be conceived of as having intentional states: the pre-objects to which these states are directed are intentional objects – objects for the creatures with corresponding active detectors. These intentional objects may even be “fictitious” : if, e.g., a food-detector becomes activated by distance stimulus – the creature perceives food from far – but there is not any stimulus for activating the corresponding contact re-flexes for food when approached. Thus, the case of ZEUXIS’ birds is explained quite well, although this determination of “fictitious” remains completely on the observer’s side: The pre-objects are fictitious intentional objects for us – there is something look-ing similar to somethlook-ing else from the distance. For them, reality and deception are in-deed indistinguishable. Certainly, the birds left the picture of ZEUXIS quite soon: after being “disillusioned” as the food-detector was deactivated when the “food ingestion” re-flex could not be performed successfully. Perhaps, a more adequate detector has even been activated instead. But the birds – conceived of as pre-object creatures – have no means of construing a relation between the two detectors, or the corresponding pre-objects respectively. By deactivating the food-detector, the intentional pre-object “food”

just disappears from their world.

In consequence: if ‘recognizing resemblance’ is based on the ability to distinguish be-tween ‘being equal’ and ‘being seemingly but not really equal’, then clearly, the birds cannot have seen the picture of ZEUXIS as resembling grapes. Because for them, it is not a question of ‘being similar to grapes’ but strictly of ‘being equal to grapes’ (i.e., rather just ‘being grapes’). It might be prudent to distinguish in the discussion of images be-tween two concepts of resemblance: concept »resemblanceα« applies in all cases similar to those birds: a schematic classification is rated by some observer as erroneous. Con-cept »resemblanceβ« is used if the creature we observe performing a classification does – or is at least in principle able to – understand that that classification is erroneous. Ob-viously, »resemblanceα« cannot be conceived of as a relation derived as a weaker form of identity. It is logically more elementary and forms the basis for originally establish-ing the field of concepts of identity. In that latter field, »resemblanceβ« takes the

con-ceptual place of »resemblanceα« (now in opposition to »identity«), thus opening the possibility of perceptoid signs. Though at its core is still the older primary re-semblance only modified by the new possibility of individual ob-jects.

For the complete object consti-tution necessary to understand how resemblanceβ is conceived, another transition to an even more complicated field of concepts of behavior must be considered: we have to look at creatures that can establish relations between pre-objects in arbitrary contexts, and thus originally invent identity in the proper sense (Fig. 20). The anticipations of pre-object creatures essen-tially integrate contexts directly linked by means of distance stimuli. That is, those con-texts are organized along the course of coherent activity – they are, in an extended sense, all present in the course of the ongoing action.Hence such anticipations are not sufficient to establish identity between completely disparate situations. A re-present-ation of any contexts apart from those mediated by continuous action can only be medi-ated by means of signs (cf. also [PLESSNER 1928, Sect. 6.4]).