Реторика, визуална реторика и визуална аргументация
Rhetoric, Visual Rhetoric and Visual Argumentation
Igor Ž. Žagar
Educational Research Institute & University of Primorska, Slovenia
Abstract: For the past twenty years (or so) the field of argumentation has become more “flexible” and open to new approaches, to approaches that are not based merely on logic (of one form or another), nor even just on language. Visual argumentation started to develop in the nineties, and scientific literature flourished at the beginning of the new millennium (Groarke, Birdsell, Kjeldsen, Roque, Tseronis, …), in 1997 Michael Gilbert (Coalescent Argumentation) proposed four modes of argument (ation): logical, emotional, visceral (“physical”) and kisceral (“meta-physical”, “intuitive”), and about ten years ago, Christian Plantin published a large volume on the role of emotions in argumentation – “Les Bonnes raisons des émotions – Principes et méthode pour l’analyse de la parole émotionnée” (2011). This paper is concerned with understanding and interpretation in visual argumentation, more precisely, with its vague methodology and epistemology. Theoretical claims are supported by empirical findings, based on a questionnaire.
Keywords: visual argumentation, reasoning, understanding, interpretation, enchronic analysis, (re)constructed reality.
1. Introduction
“In 1996, Argumentation and Advocacy published a groundbreaking issue devoted to visual argument. It was the first collection of essays on the subject. Twenty years later, we consider some of the doubts about the possibility of visual argument that were discussed in that first issue. We argue that these doubts have been answered by the last 20 years of research on visual argument, and we look at some of the key theoretical and applied issues that characterize this burgeoning subfield in the study of argument.” 2
This is how Leo Groarke, Catherine Palczewski and David Godden introduce a special, double issue of the journal Argumentation and Advocacy, dedicated to twenty years of “visual argumentation” (VA). In fact, in these past twenty years the research on visual argumentation started to burgeon with authors like Groarke 3, Gilbert 4, Kjeldsen 5, Roque 6, Dove 7, Godden 8 and others, who mostly took “visual argumentation” and “visual arguments” for granted, never really doubted their position about visuals having argumentative potential or even force, and never asked any serious methodological, let alone epistemological questions about VA. All the papers mentioned above are basically concerned with showing, using different visuals from different sources, that visuals can convey arguments; the question, what in the visual under examination can serve as a premise/argument and what as a conclusion/claim, or how we extract premises/arguments and conclusions/claims from a visual are rarely addressed with any systematic methodological rigour. It is only in his 2015 paper (i.e. almost twenty years after the “discovery” of visual argumentation!), The Study of Visual and Multimodal Argumentation (Argumentation, 2015, 29/2 p. 116), serving as an introduction to the thematic issue of the journal Argumentation on visual argumentation, that Kjeldsen announces an attempt “to take visual argumentation a step further in order to examine what visual and multimodal argumentation is and how it may work”. One of the rare exceptions in this line of reasoning is David Godden’s paper (Argumentation, 2017, 31/2) On the Norms of Visual Argument: A Case for Normative Non-revisionism, where he discusses the possible necessity of setting up different normative frameworks for verbal and visual arguments. But then the overall conclusion of his paper, namely that every argument containing a visual should count as visual argument, is rather controversial and a step back in the discussion, while from an epistemological and methodological point of view, it should be scrutinized in its very essence. Which is not the aim of this paper. On the other hand, there was some criticism of visual argumentation from more “traditional” scholars in the field of argumentation 10, 11, that were never seriously debated by the proponents of VA, and their objections (mostly that different norms and different criteria should indeed be established in order to evaluate visual arguments as arguments) were never systematically discussed, let alone rebutted.
2. Twenty years as a dichotomy
Let us, therefore, start in 1996. The introduction to this double issue of A&A on VA, written by D. Birdsell and L. Groarke, is (understandably) still pretty cautious as to what visuals can do (all emphases throughout the text are mine): “… the first step toward a theory of visual argument must be a better appreciation of both the possibility (!) of visual meaning and the limits of verbal meaning.”; “… we often clarify the latter (i.e., spoken or written words) with visual cues …”; “Words can establish a context of meaning into which images can enter with a high degree of specificity while achieving a meaning different from the words alone.”; “… diagrams can forward arguments…”; “The implicit verbal backdrop that allows us to derive arguments from images is clearly different from the immediate context created by the placement of a caption beside an image.” 12
If we sum up: in 1996, visuals may have some argumentative or persuasive potential (there is a possibility of visual meaning, visuals can forward arguments, and arguments can be derived from visuals), but they are usually (always?) still coupled with the verbal, and can achieve these argumentative effects (only?) in combination with the verbal. The pièce de resistance, the very first “visual argument” Birdsell and Groarke are offering to illustrate the claims above (i.e. the possibility of visual argumentation), is an anti-smoking poster, published by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1976, I would like to analyze in more detail, first theoretically, then empirically (using a questionnaire). Here it is:
Figure 1 (Smoking fish; taken from Birdsell and Groarke 1996)
In analysing the poster, the authors (Birdsell and Groarke) first admit that “visual images can, of course, be vague and ambiguous. But this alone does not distinguish them from words and sentences, which can also be vague and ambiguous” 13. And we can agree with that. Then they qualify this poster as “an amalgam of the verbal and the visual” 14, which, again, sounds quite acceptable. But then they unexpectedly conclude: “Here the argument that you should be wary of cigarettes because they can hook you and endanger your health is forwarded by means of visual images…” 15. Which is obviously not the case. Without the verbal part, “don’t you get hooked!”, the poster could be understood (framed) as a joke, as a cartoon, where, for example, smoking is presented as such a ubiquitous activity that even anglers use cigarettes to catch fish. Only when we add the verbal part “don’t you get hooked!” – where “hooked” activates an associative chain or semantic frame of knowledge relating to this specific concept, which includes “get addicted”, and is, at the same time, juxtaposed with a visual representation of a hook with a cigarette on it – is the appropriate (intended) frame 16 set: the poster is now, and only now, understood as an anti-smoking add, belonging to an anti-smoking campaign.
3. “Pure” and “infected” visuals through a pilot questionnaire
In the present paper, I wanted to upgrade and empirically test these theoretical conclusions. For a start, I opted for an experimental survey study, involving a pilot questionnaire. This pilot questionnaire, titled A Short Questionnaire on Understanding Visuals (Drawings, Pictures, Photographs …) comprised three well-known visuals from Leo Groarke’s work on VA, namely:
1) The smoking fish (where all the text was removed from the picture)
Figure 2
2) The poster “UvA for Women” (exactly as it was presented in Groarke, 1996, p. 112):
Figure 3
3) Jean Luis David’s painting La Mort de Marat (Marat’s Death):
Figure 4
4. Calibrating the questionnaire: not too much and not too little
Each visual was preceded with a necessary but short introduction – necessary for historically or chronologically framing the visual (but not explaining the context) – while following each visual there were two questions, constructed in as neutral а way as possible, at the same time trying to avoid a very actual possibility in this kind of surveys that respondents would nоt understand what the goal (the intention) of asking these questions was. Here they are.
In the case of the smoking fish:
Introduction: The drawing below dates back to the seventies of the previous century. Please, take a good look at it, and then answer the two questions below.
Question 1: What do you see on the drawing (how would you describe the “content” or “what is going on” in the drawing in the most correct and objective way)?
Question 2: In your opinion, what could be the goal/purpose/meaning of the drawing? In other words, how would you interpret it (e.g. advertisement against smoking/cigarettes, advertisement in favour of smoking/cigarettes, advertisement in anglers’ bulletin, joke, caricature, other). Please, give reasons for your opinion.
In the case of UvA for Women:
Introduction: The photograph below represents a poster that was to be found around Amsterdam some time ago, probably especially in the vicinity of the University of Amsterdam. The text on the poster reads: “University of Amsterdam – for Women”. Please, take a good look at it, and then answer the two questions below.
Question 1: What do you see on the poster (how would you describe the “content” or “what is going on” in the poster in the most correct and objective way)?
Question 2: In your opinion, what could be the goal/purpose/meaning of the poster? In other words, how would you interpret it (e.g. advertisement for the university, call for enrolment, call for employment, joke, parody, other). Please, give reasons for your opinion.
In the case of David‘s Marat:
Introduction: The painting below was created in 1793 by Jacques Luis David, and bears the title La Mort de Marat (Marat’s Death). Please, take a good look at it, and then answer the two questions below.
Question 1: What do you see in the painting (how would you describe the “content” or “what is going on” in the poster in the most correct and objective way)?
Question 2: Does the painting remind you of anything or recall any historical (or other) reminiscences? If yes, please explain which one(s), and why.
This questionnaire was distributed/administered to three different age groups, with different educational background, all European, with Slovenian citizenship. I planned a fourth one, a group of refugees living in Slovenia (mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, some of them from North Africa), but the refugee coordinator refused to participate because of ethical reasons.
Here are some of the characteristics of these groups:
Group 1: STUDENTS (number: 26; age: 20-24; sex: 25 female, 1 male; education: completed high school, currently 2nd year students of Educational Studies at the University of Primorska, Slovenia).
Group 2: RESEARCHERS (number: 7/30; age: 28-68; sex: 6 female, 1 male; education: PhD in Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, Education Sciences, two PhD candidates, all working at the Educational Research Institute, Slovenia).
Group 3: SENIORS (number: 3/12; age: 69-86; sex: 2 female, 1 male; education: high school to university education, all attendants of the University of the Third Age, Slovenia).
The survey took place between 29th May and 2nd June 2017.
Of course, from a methodological point of view and strictly statistically speaking, samples vary too much and cannot be compared in an orderly quantitative fashion. But at this point, I was interested in qualitative data, and as a pilot study, even such disparate groups are acceptable.
What follows are the findings of the survey.
5. About the smoking fish
5.1 The answers and results
Group 1: 9 students out of 26 (34,6%) thought that the drawing “could have been/ might have been/probably was/likely was” an anti-smoking ad (but none of them straightforwardly answered that the ad was an anti-smoking ad).
There were another three answers (12,8%) that the ad was probably against smoking, but two of them argued further that an anti-smoking intention was just an intermediate stage, while the main point of the ad was that by smoking, we are polluting the environment. One of the respondents (3,8%) opted for an anti-smoking ad because “the hook pulls the cigarette out of the fish’s mouth, thus preventing it to smoke”.
Interestingly, three students (12,8%) thought that the drawing was a representation of society in the seventies. One of them commented that “society realized that smoking was bad, but has already surrendered to destiny”, the other one that the drawing “represents people dissatisfied with the system”.
What is particularly interesting is the fact that most of the respondents substantiated their claims not with the maggot on the hook in the fish’s mouths, but by the expression on the fish’s “face”. Here are some qualifiers they used for the expression of the fish’s face in relation with the maggot on the hook (and further, social situation at large):
– sad expression
– indifferent eyes
– bored and apathetic fish
– bored and indifferent gaze
– dead face
– sad gaze
– angry gaze
– unsatisfied expression
– boredom and discontent
– not in good mood
– reluctant and angry
– without emotions
– sad eyes.
This shift of focus from the maggot on the hook to the “facial expression” of the fish, while keeping in mind the info from the instructions that the drawing is from the seventies is a perfect proof that the decision about the meaning of the drawing was reached through enchronic analysis, something I argued for in my Lisbon paper on theoretical grounds 18. Just a short reminder what enchronic analysis is all about: “Enchronic analysis is concerned with relations between data from neighbouring moments, adjacent units of behaviour in locally coherent communicative sequences” 19.
In other words: enchronic analysis looks at sequences of social interaction in which the moves that constitute social actions occur as responses to other such moves, and in turn these moves give rise to further moves. We could say that enchrony dynamically, interactively and recursively combines synchrony and diachrony, that it opens synchrony to diachrony and injects diachronicity into synchronicity on a micro level.
And what about the other answers from Group 1? Two of the respondents (7,7%) thought it was (a kind of) a joke, meaning/implying that smoking is so widespread nowadays that even fish started to smoke (which was also one of the possibilities offered in my Lisbon paper).
Another two thought the drawing was an ad in an angler newsletter, its purpose being alerting the readers against the pollution of waters.
One of the respondents (3,8%) thought it was a joke at the expense of non-smokers, another one that it was a teaser, a challenge to non-smokers (pleading in favour of cigarettes). Another one thought the drawing was a protest from the vegetarian viewpoint (emphasizing the feelings of a fish when it gets caught), somebody took it as a kind of allegory (in her own words): you can get hooked or you cannot (the choice is yours).
The remaining three (11,5%) could not decide about the meaning of the message.
Group 2 had much less to say about the appearance of the fish, for most of them it looked “sad and bored”.
As for the message, three of them (42,8%) answered it could have been an anti-smoking ad, two of them (28,8%) emphasized it could be either a funny ad, a joke, or an anti-smoking ad, while one of them (14,3%) was reminded of the Rat Park Experiment, and one of the respondents thought the drawing looked like an illustration from a child book.
From the Group 3, we got the following three answers: 1) advertisement of the tobacco industry, 2) could be anything, and 3) I really don’t know (33,3% each).
5.2 The discussion
The conclusion we can draw from all these answers is pretty obvious, I think: Birdsell’s and Groarke’s claim that the argument that you should be wary of cigarettes because they can hook you and endanger your health is forwarded by means of visual images, is clearly refuted. What is evident from the answers is that unless there is a clear verbal supplement, “don’t you get hooked”, the interpretator’s inference about the (intended) meaning of the drawing (let alone its possible argumentativity, which may not be inferred at all), obviously depends on their historical, social, cultural and individual background, on the specifics of their education, their values, even ordinary everyday experience (to name just a few parameters). As will become more and more clear with the following examples.
6. About UvA for women
6.1 The claims
First, here is Groarke’s argument(ation) (all emphases are mine): “The black and white photograph … presents the university’s three chief administrators in front of the official entrance to the university. Especially in poster size, the photograph makes a stark impression, placing all this confident maleness in front of (visually blocking) the university’s main entrance. According to the committee, which commissioned the poster, it is a ‘statement’, which effectively makes the point that ‘we want more women at our university’ and ‘still have a long way to go in this regard’“.20
But, if we are not acquainted with the committee’s ‘statement’ that they want more women at their university (as, I guess, an ‘average’ Amsterdamer is not), and we just, walking the streets of Amsterdam, bump into this poster with three corpulent males, ‘stating’ ‘UvA for Women’, it is not at all clear how the poster was intended to be framed (by its authors). Is it (simply) a bad joke? Like, these corpulent males looking down on women and explicitly mocking them (with an implicitly inverted message like ‘We don’t need any women at UvA!’). Should it be taken ironically, maybe cynically, as a meta-statement from somebody who knows and objects the fact that UvA is all male? There is even a (at least implicitly) sexist interpretation that all these males at UvA need more women (but not necessarily for teaching and research…).
In other words, because of the insufficiently unambiguous framing it is not at all clear that we (the observers) can (and even should) reconstruct the argument(ation) in question in the very linear and unidirectional way Groarke does:
P
↓
C
where the premise P is the (visual) statement that ‘The University of Amsterdam’s three chief administrators are all men’ and C is the conclusion that ‘The University needs more women’ (Groarke, 1996, p. 111). Even if we take P as rather unambiguous (which it is not; for one thing, the fact that the University of Amsterdam’s three chief administrators are all men is not a matter of general knowledge; also, it is far from obvious that the three men in the photo are University administrators), the arrow, leading to C, is in no way – at least it couldn’t have and it shouldn’t have been – so linear, unidirectional, or monotonic (if you want) as to lead exclusively and directly to C, interpreted as ‘The University needs more women’. C could easily have had many other (enchronic) interpretations (and P many other formulations than the one chosen by Groarke, for that matter), depending on the framing and personal experience of different readers, for example: ‘UvA does’t need women!’, ‘UvA is a sexist institution’, ‘UvA needs some women to change appearances’.
6.2 The results
And here is what my survey showed.
When describing the photo (question a), all three groups formulated what they saw in the photo in very similar, almost identical words: three well-dressed middle-aged white males with spectacles, standing together, looking seriously.
As for question b), asking about the purpose, the objective of the poster, the answers were very far from Groarke’s claim.
Group 1
Most of the students, 12 (46,1%), thought the poster was a joke or a parody, two of them (7,7%) qualified this joke as irony, one (3,8%) of them as a sexist joke, and another one as some kind of advertisement for some kind of a band.
One of the respondents took it as a provocation (on the part of feminists), another one as making fools of women as well as of the university.
One respondent understood the poster as a criticism of the system (being unfair to women), another one as means of discouraging women to enrol.
Two of the respondents answered that the message was not clear, but maybe the purpose of the poster was to get women’s attention (in one way or another).
Only two students answered that the poster may represent an advertisement for the university (asking women students to enrol), while a third one added the following explanation: “call for enrolment addressed to women, so that they could have the same education as the men on the photo.”
The remaining 3 (11,5%) could not decide.
Group 2
Two of the respondents (28,6%) saw the poster as a parody (one of them as originating from students, the other as emphasizing the contradiction: more and more women at universities, while most of the leading positions are still in the hands of men). One of the respondents (14,3%) saw the poster as sexist, one of them as protest (against inequality), and another one as an effort to promote equality through contradiction. One of the respondents saw the poster as a failed advertisement for the university (failed because it was, according to the respondent, conveying the message that at UvA men work also for women). Only one respondent saw the poster as calling more women to enrol, but added, “especially in the fields where traditional patterns are dominant”.
Group 3
Out of only three answers, one of them (33,3) saw the poster as a joke, the other one as pointing to the problems (in society), and the third one could not tell.
6.3 The discussion
Again, it is quite obvious from the answers that the poster does not present the argument:
P
↓
C
where the premise P is the (visual) statement that “The University of Amsterdam’s three chief administrators are all men” and C is the conclusion that “The University needs more women”. P and C could have been, even should have been, formulated quite differently, in many different ways and versions, and the possibilities of starting from different starting points (of understanding and interpreting the poster) should have been considered (as, for example, rhizome theory 21 and superdiversity theory 22, 23 convincingly show), while the arrow connecting P and C should not be straightforward, but bent, curved or even broken in different ways and on different places.
In an (yet unpublished) paper, exclusively for the purpose of illustrating the above argument, I suggest (at least) the following arrows (all taken from what Microsoft Word had in stock):
↝
↬
↯
↳
⇝
where different curves, breaks and bendings are taken to suggest (and imply) a dynamic (and enchronic) interplay of variables among an increased number (in our more and more diversified world) of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, possibly trans-nationally connected and socio-economically differentiated as well as legally stratified layers and connections between (different) semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles (if we borrow the hybrid terminology of rhizome and superdiversity theories).
7. About Marat’s death
7.1 The Claims
Leo Groarke’s interpretation of Jacques Louis David’ painting La Mort de Marat 24 was often praised (without giving any concrete arguments for this praise) as “arguing convincingly” for the argumentative potential or argumentativity of David’s painting allegedly representing Marat as a dying Christ. Leo Groarke himself speaks more cautiously of “the way in which argumentative analysis can illuminate a work of visual art”; according to him, it is “the interpretation, not the work of art itself”. 25
But, how does Groarke proceed?
After a series of quotes and references from art history (which is an important fact for his argumentation as well as for my counter-argumentation), Groarke comes to his (intermediate) claim (all emphases are mine): “We might easily understand the message of David’s painting as the argument: “Marat was a great martyr. You should, therefore, strive to be like him (and support the revolution)”. There is something to this analysis, but a fully satisfactory account of Marat must better recognize the painting’s visual and political context (sic!), which are evident in the number of details. Above all else, it is important to recognize that its style and composition compare Marat to Christ (sic!). This is in keeping with hymns and rumours of the day (sic!), which celebrated this comparison (Marat’s heart was, for example, treated as a relic and claimed to resemble Christ’s (sic!)).” 26
If we sum up Groarke’s analysis so far: in order to recognize the presumed resemblance between (the depiction of) dying Christ and (the depiction of) dying Marat, the observer is supposed to know about:
– painting’s visual and political context
– style and composition
– hymns and rumours (of those days = Marat’s days = days of French revolution)
– catholic doctrine/mythology about the importance of people’s hearts (especially heroes and martyrs).
But then, to justify his claim even more firmly, Leo Groarke gives this quote from his brother Louis Groarke’s paper “David’s Marat: Beautiful Falsity or False Beauty” 27 that goes even deeper into detail and finesse of art history (sic!):
David likewise presents us with a homage to a revolutionary Christ. The treatment of the figure recalls traditional religious iconography. The idealized nude body is like a Renaissance Christ. The recumbent pose with the extended, trailing arms recalls, in detail, depictions of the Dispositions of Christ (cf. Giroet, Caravaggio, Montagnea, Pontormo, Fiorentino, van der Wyden, etc.). The gaping wound with the stream of blood parallels the wound in the Saviour’s side. The knife, smeared with blood, is the instrument of his passion, comparable to the lance and thorns and nails emphasized in many paintings of Christ’s passion. Even the note clutched in his languishing hand might be compared to the notice nailed to the cross above the Saviours’s head …
When reading all these scholarly detailed thoughts and comparisons, we should be aware that Luis Groarke specializes in ethics, aesthetics and political history, this is (one of the reasons) why he was drawn to and fascinated by David’s picture, and why he was able to see and discern all those details. But, could just anybody do it? Could an “average” person from the street do it? Could a person with just an average education, without special interest in art history, do it? Could a(ny) person from another (non-Western) culture do it? Could a(ny) person belonging to another religious tradition than Christianity do it? I have serious doubts about that and my survey confirms that.
But, as far as Groarke’s analysis is concerned, this is not all. After this quote and several other details coming (again) from art history, Leo Groarke proposes a diagram of the extended argument supposedly contained in and presented by David’s painting. In short, the argument goes like this (P = premise, C = claim, MC = master conclusion):
P1 = Marat was a man of great dignity and composure;
P2 = Marat’s assassin herself recognized his reputation as a benefactor of the unfortunate;
P3 = Marat gave his last penny to the poor;
C1 = Marat was, like Christ, a great moral martyr;
MC = You must strive to emulate Marat in support of the revolution.
Groarke continues by giving a series of detailed, but disputed, historical facts, then rejects all the above premises (P1, P2, P3), as well as the claims (C1, MC), and concludes:
These criticisms of the argument in Marat cannot undermine the fact that it displays a magnificent ability to paint. But one artificially ignores the meaning of the painting if one does not recognize that David was a social commentator as well as a painter when he created Marat. It is not insignificant that he wielded tremendous influence and contributed to out-of-control executions by propounding faulty arguments that glorified Marat. One might best compare his masterpiece to a rhetorically powerful verbal argument, which is nonetheless founded on false premises and invites a faulty inference.
Not just everybody – a “common”, “average” man – can follow this chain of reasoning (and those who can would certainly not agree on all the points Groarke is making), not everybody can recognize David’s painting of Marat as a powerful argument, based on a series of (disputed) social, cultural, political and religious details (that have different evaluations, depending on class, religious preference and many other socio-cultural factors).
A prototypical consumer of Groarke’s reasoning, of his detailed “argument” about Marat resembling Christ, could only be constructed as well-educated western male/female, educated in the humanities and especially in the art history, with (rather) good social and economic standing, profound interest in history, culture and religion, and strong inclination for (visual) arts.
But this construct represents a very thin segment of mostly “Western” population. Most of the younger or elderly people (even if Westerners), do not qualify. Neither do “average” people, “everyday” people, “people from the street”. Probably not even most of the professionals from natural sciences and technology (if we give in to certain stereotypes), unless they’ve had good, probably “classical” education, and share special interest in arts.
And we could go on, but my bottom line is this: a presumably visual argument that needs more than 3 pages of technically sophisticated, but dubious explanations in 10 paragraphs (but no visuals, even if they are available!) to persuade a rather thin layer of population of itself being a visual argument, can hardly be called a visual argument.
Here are my arguments to support the above claim from my survey.
7.2 The results and the discussion
First (question a), what the students saw in the painting (all emphases are mine and highlight the observations that somehow contradict the painting):
“I see a man, leaning on the chair, not showing any signs of life. We could conclude from what the picture is showing that he was writing a letter and committed suicide.”
“I see a person who committed suicide.”
“A man lies on the table/chair in a motionless position, in his hand he holds a letter he has just written, he is dressed inadequately, as a matter of fact just in blankets/sheets.”
“A man is sitting at the table. He has a turban on his head, so he could be of Muslim religion.”
“I see a man who leans on something. I suppose he committed suicide, because there is a knife on the floor.”
“I see a gentleman who dies while writing a love letter.”
“I see a young boy, who has just finished writing a letter. From what I see in the painting, I conclude that he is suffering from some illness, and is writing about how he feels to somebody.”
“I see a man who was killed in a bathtub.”
It is pretty clear from these answers, I think, that the respondents (except, maybe, for the last one), despite the fact that they were told who was depicted, and when the painting was created, did not have a clue about what was going on in the painting, let alone of any argumentative potential imputed to the painting by Groarke.
Now let us have a look at the following answers on question a):
“There is a woman in the painting, with a scarf on her head… I conclude that she has maybe died.”
“There is a woman in the picture that holds a letter in one hand, while she is gazing in another direction with a sad expression on her face…”
“I see a woman in the picture, lying in the bathtub. She was probably writing a farewell letter.”
“I see a woman who, with a last bit of energy, wrote a farewell letter.”
“I see a woman who wrote a letter. She is lying on the counter; she has a headdress on her head and wears a robe.”
I do not think any commentary is really needed, but nevertheless: if people think Marat was a woman, then it is safe to conclude that they do not know at all who Marat was, and that they know even less what his role in the French revolution was. Which undermines a good part of Groarke’s arguments if not all of them.
Let us have a look at the remaining part of the answers, answering the question b). Nineteen respondents (out of 26), 73%, answered that the painting didn’t remind them of anything, that seeing it doesn’t recall any memories whatsoever. The other seven answers were the following:
“It reminds me of the French revolution” (the same person who under a)) answered: “I see a man who was killed in a bathtub.”).
“It reminds me of high school where we learned about this painting” (under a) that person answered that the man on the painting committed suicide).
“Maybe the end of some historical era, signing the contract with death.”
“Reminds me of assassinations that occurred through history.”
“Reminds me of war, because at that time women wrote letters to their husbands who went to war.”
“The painting reminds me of suicide.”
“The painting casts un ugly feeling.”
Hence, there is absolutely nothing in these answers that could substantiate Groarke’s arguments. As for my counter-arguments, it is pretty obvious from the answers that the level and the quality of education greatly affect possible interpretations.
Group 2
First a few answers to question a):
“I see a dead man in a bathtub.”
“What I know of French revolution.”
“I see a man who committed suicide (?). The light on the right indicates the departure toward light, which symbolizes belief in the afterlife.”
“I see a dying man who has written a farewell letter.”
“Dying Marat writing his last message.”
Despite the fact that most of the members of Group 2 hold a PhD in humanities or social sciences, the answers do not seem very encouraging (in any sense, the quality of education included). What about answers to question b)?
“It reminds me of events after the French revolution … The person depicted may be fictitious or real historical personality … The inclination of the head and the expression on the face give the impression of martyrdom.”
“It reminds me of the death of Jesus. I don’t know, maybe because of the way he died. Similarly wrapped head, the knife wound on the body, tranquillity at the transition to the other side, belief in the afterlife.”
“Reminds me of the crucifixion of Christ, because of the position of the body.”
“French revolution, violence, terror, Napoleon, Bastille.”
“I think of Robert Capa: faking reality to get a good picture/photo.”
“Reminds me of French revolution, dynamics of struggles for power.”
“It makes me think, how hard it is if a man is alone in the last moments of his life. Older you are, more you are aware of it.”
If, for a moment, we neglect the fact that the doctor of philosophy thinks Marat might have been a “fictitious or real historical personality” (ignorance that speak in favour of my point of view), we finally got two answers (the underlined ones), relating the painting of dying/dead Marat to the dying/dead Christ.
But the first respondent in question is reminded of the death of Jesus because of the way Marat died. And her first argument in support of this claim is “similarly wrapped head”. But while Jesus was on the cross, when he was taken off, and while in his mother’s hand, his head was not wrapped. He was only wrapped for the burial. Also, the crucified Jesus is usually described as expressing suffering, not tranquillity.
The other respondent mentioning Jesus is reminded of the crucifixion of Christ, “because of the position of the body”. That is, Marat’s body. But Marat’s body is not in the “crucifixion position” (i.e. as on the cross), it is in the “pieta position” (i.e. as in his mother’s arms).
In short, the only two persons reminded of Jesus by David’s painting of Marat, are actually reminded of different attributes of Jesus at different moments during and after the crucifixion, even of different versions of Jesus, which are historically not attested to or were transformed in the (enchronic?) process of inference. They somehow recognize the similarity between some depictions of Christ and David’s depiction of Marat, but they are far from attributing any (potential of hypothetical) arguments or claims to the latter.
Group 3
Rather interesting were the answers of the 3rd group. Already under a), two respondents (out of three) started to literally quote what Wikipedia says about David’s painting, while under b), they quoted the same source about who David was and what his role in the French revolution and later was.
(The 3rd respondent wrote: “If a revolutionary dies while soaking in a bathtub this is not a heroic death worthy of a revolutionary.”)
It therefore is obvious that the third group was not addressed by David’s painting in any way, even more, they did not have any idea what the painting was about at all. And since the questionnaire mentioned the name of the painter and the title of the painting, they obviously thought that copying the relevant entry from Wikipedia would be the best solution …
7. In place of conclusion: a perceptual-cognitive grid
This small research (which is to be continued and upgraded) persuasively shows that direct – linear, uniform or “objective” – argumentative impact of (more or less pure) visuals on different audiences is rather small. in other words, different audiences (different by age, education, cultural and social background…) infer differently (or different “things) and via these inferences come to different conclusions (if any at all).
That is why I would like to tentatively propose a rough sketch, a scheme, some may call it a model (in the making), I will call it a grid, of how (and why) interpretations of visuals (but not just visuals, verbal arguments operate in the same way) may function, what may trigger the inferences leading to these interpretations (and why), what these interpretations depend on (i.e. what are the necessary and/or sufficient conditions for such interpretations to unfold), and what may be their restrictions and limitations. please note that constructing this grid has exclusively didactic, not ontological ambitions.
We will take a look at two perspectives, let us call them an “objective” and a “subjective” one (which are only technical, working terms).
Objective (diachronic) view
Step 1
Figure 5
The most obvious, natural, neutral and general background (note that all these adjectives should really be placed between quotation marks, because they are quite ambivalent, meaning different things to different people and in different situations) is, of course, reality. At least, it seems to be. And since there is really no reality as such – per se or an Sich – we can talk about (but only reality as it is “for us”), we should put at least this one between quotation marks.
What I understand as “reality” here is undefined, undiscerned and indistinct “reality”, things (material or immaterial) that are “out there”, that may be “out there”, that allow us to be, to do things, to think and act, but are not, or not yet, part of our “social ‘reality’” (or “subjective ‘reality’”; but subjective always depends on the social, even if this dependence seems minimal) i.e. we have not (yet) given them any form of (intentional) conceptualization, and are not conscious to us as possible signs (i.e. something we can manipulate mentally and/or verbally).
That is the reason the space above is blank, empty (white), even without a frame. It could have also been full (black), symbolizing everything or nothing, a step before the first basic/primitive conceptualization.
Step 2
Figure 6
The second step narrows the perspective (in the direction of foregrounding), imposing a kind of a frame on the previously (still) undefined and undiscerned “reality”, thus forming our social “reality”. This social “reality” frame is a fuzzy frame, a frame that changes all the time, a frame that is being (enchronically) constructed and re-constructed all the time, thus becoming wider (expanding) at some point in time, comprising more elements, while at some other point in time it may become narrower (shrinking), comprising less elements.
And the term “social” in this case/usage, embraces the physical, intellectual, emotional, cultural, economic, demographic … everything we (can) see, notice, and are aware of (but do not necessarily understand or conceptualize it yet!) at our individual hermeneutical horizon (as part of our necessary social perspective). Even nature is part of this framed social “reality”, in the sense and in the degree it enters our social experience. If it doesn’t (a very rare experience, though), it is still part of our social “reality” (by being, more or less, absent from it). And as such, social “reality” is still pretty undifferentiated and unconceptualized.
Step 3
Figure 7
With framed “reality” (in the sense of Goffman as well as Fillmore and Lakoff), we are narrowing the perspective even more, actually much more. Framed “reality” isolates and concentrates on specific aspects, fragments, usually situations from the largely undefined social “reality”, in order to achieve (more) certainty, definiteness, in order to disambiguate and de-bias what may (still) be undefined and uncertain in the social “reality” at large, thus giving it (at least) basic conceptualization and allowing further necessary cognitive processing.
Framing certain “reality” or situation requires intentionality and often implies predicting possible actors, topics, as well as possible (verbal) exchanges, scripts or scenarios. In other words, framing certain reality implies choosing or determining the possible semantic networks, verbal and conversational exchanges, and consequently possible lexical choices as well as boundaries.
Step 4
Figure 8
If we narrow the perspective even further towards the foreground (as we always do in everyday life), we come to mental spaces. [28] Mental spaces are fleeting, ephemeral constructions, relating to a certain framed “reality”, which are triggered by specific, very often singular elements, such as verbal (visual) expressions, which can assume a (specific) role in an activated semantic frame, polysemy chain, polyphony construction (Ducrot) or something else. For the explanation and illustration of the above table, let us try to apply it to the UvA poster.
R stands for the “reality” of the speaker (speaker’s mental space), and M for the “reality” of the observer (observer’s mental space). p represents the poster in question, F(p) its (intended) premise, and q its (intended) conclusion in R.
In M, on the other hand, p still represents the same poster in question (hence the long dotted arrow connecting the two spaces), but F'(p), the observer’s premise, and q’, the observer’ s conclusion, may be quite different from the speaker’s premise and the speaker’s conclusion (depending on the observer’s experience, social and cultural background, education, gender, and many other demographic, even bio-neurological and cognitive factors).
On top of that, M spaces may be (even have to be) multiplied in relation to R space – depending on the number of people taking part in the conversation/event -, precisely because of the addressees’ different (social, cultural, etc.) background, education, gender, and many other factors we have already mentioned, addressees’ imminent intentions (based on their enchronic processing of the concrete situation) being one of the strongest factors.
This could be a (simple and simplified) model of a filtering grid, involved in a possible reconstruction of a diachronic, objective perspective on interpretation and meaning construction. But from the synchronic, subjective perspective things may look somehow different.
Subjective (synchronic) view
Of course, there is still a generic, undefined “reality” in the deep background. But in the immediate foreground, there are always just mental spaces, the elements that trigger the imminent construction of meaning interpretation of the problem at hand. And this construction (and re-construction) of respective ephemeral mental spaces in the subjective perspective, always already (silently) implies the framed chunks of “reality” in the background (which again depend on the hermeneutical horizon of the social “reality” the framed “reality” relies upon).
Figure 9
Enchronic view
Enchronic view embraces both, synchronic and diachronic perspective. Since it is concerned with relations between data from neighbouring moments, enchronic analysis is therefore looking at sequences of social interaction in which the moves that constitute social actions occur as responses to other such moves and in turn these give rise to other such moves.
Enchronic analysis is therefore constantly moving from synchronic to diachronic, thus constructing a new perspective, relative to and relevant for the particular moment in time, its representation and (re)construction of a particular mental space.
References and Notes
[1 Parts of this article were presented at the European Conferences on Argumentation in Lisbon (2015) and Fribourg (2017), and in parts appeared in the proceedings of these conferences (Žagar 2016, 2018).
[2 Argumentation and Advocacy (2015). 52/4, 16.
[3 Groarke, L. (1996). Logic, art and argument. Informal logic 18: 105–129.
Groarke, L. (2002). Towards a pragma-dialectics of visual argument. (F. H. van Eemeren ed.), Advances in pragma-dialectics, (pp. 137–151). Amsterdam and Newport News: Sic Sat and Vale Press.
Groarke, L. (2009). Five theses on Toulmin and visual argument. (F. H. van Eemeren and B. Garssen eds.), Pondering on problems of argumentation, (pp. 229–239). Amsterdam: Springer.
Groarke, L. (2013). The Elements of Argument: Six Steps to a Thick Theory. (eds. Kišiček, G. & Žagar I. Ž.), What Do We Know about the World? Rhetorical and Argumentative Perspectives, (pp. 25–43), Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute. https://www.doi.org/10.32320/978-961-270-171-0).
Groarke, L. (2015). Going multimodal: What is a mode of arguing and why does it matter? Argumentation 29 (2): 133–155.
Groarke L., Palczewski, C. H. & Godden, D. (2016). Navigating the Visual Turn in Argument. Argumentation and Advocacy, 52 (4): 217–235.
[4 Gilbert, M. A. (1994). Multi-modal argumentation. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 24: 159–77.
Gilbert, M. A. (1997). Coalescent argumentation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
[5 Kjeldsen, J. E. (1999). Visual rhetoric—From elocutio to invention. (F. H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J. A. Blair and C. A. Willard eds.), Proceedings of the fourth international conference of the international society for the study of argumentation, (pp. 455–60). Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Kjeldsen, J. E. (2007). Visual argumentation in Scandinavian political advertising: A cognitive, contextual, and reception-oriented approach. Argumentation and Advocacy, 43 (3–4): 124–132.
Kjeldsen, J. E. (2012). Pictorial argumentation in advertising: Visual tropes and figures as a way of creating visual argumentation. (F. H. van Eemeren and B. Garssen eds.), Topical themes in argumentation theory, (pp. 239–256). Amsterdam: Springer.
Kjeldsen, J. E. (2013). Strategies of visual argumentation in slideshow presentations: The role of visuals in an Al Gore presentation on climate change. Argumentation, 27 (4): 425–443.
Kjeldsen J. E. (2015). The Study of Visual and Multimodal Argumentation. Argumentation, 29, 115-132.
Kjeldsen, J. E. (2015). The rhetoric of thick representation: How pictures render the importance and strength of an argument salient. Argumentation, 29 (2): 197–215.
[6 Roque, G. (2010). What is visual in visual argumentation? (eds. J. Ritola et al.), Argument cultures: Proceedings of OSSA 09, (pp. 1–9). Windsor, ON: OSSA.
Roque, G. (2012). Visual argumentation: A further reappraisal. (F. H. van Eemeren and B. Garssen eds.), Topical themes in argumentation theory, (pp. 273–288). Springer: Amsterdam.
Roque, G. (2015). Should visual arguments be propositional in order to be arguments? Argumentation 29 (2): 177–195.
[7 Dove, I. J. (2002). Can pictures prove? Logique et Analyse 179–180: 309–340.
Dove, I. J. (2011a). Image, Evidence, Argument. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, eds. F. H. van
Eemeren, B. Garssen, D. Godden & Mitchell, G. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Quaterly. http://rozenbergquarterly.com/issa-proceedings-2010-image-evidence-argument/. Retrieved on 09.06.2020.
Dove, I. J. (2011b). Visual analogies and arguments. (Zenker, F. ed.) Argumentation: Cognition and Community. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation. (pp. 1–16). Windsor, Ontario: OSSA.
[8 Dove, I. J. (2002). Can pictures prove? Logique et Analyse, 179–180: 309–340.
Dove, I. J. (2011a). Image, Evidence, Argument. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, eds. F. H. van
Eemeren, B. Garssen, D. Godden and G. Mitchell. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Quaterly: http://rozenbergquarterly.com/issa-proceedings-2010-image-evidence-argument/. Retrieved on 09.06.2020.
Dove, I. J. (2011b). Visual analogies and arguments. (Zenker, F. ed.) Argumentation: Cognition and Community. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation. (pp. 1–16). Windsor, Ontario: OSSA.
[9 Godden, D. (2013). On the norms of visual argument. (eds. D. Mohammed and M. Lewin´ski) Virtues of Argumentation. Proceedings of the 10th international conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation. , https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/ossaarchive/OSSA10/papersandcommentaries/54/. Windsor, Ontario.
Godden, D. (2015). Images as arguments: Progress and problems, a brief commentary. Argumentation, 29 (2): 2 3 5– 238.
Godden, D. (2017). On the Norms of Visual Argument: A Case for Normative Non-revisionism, Argumentation, 31 (2): 395–431.
[10 Johnson, R. H. 2003. Why ‘‘visual arguments’’ aren’t arguments. (H. V. Hansen, Ch. W. Tindale, A. Blair and Ralph H. Johnson eds.), Informal Logic at 25: Proceedings of the Windsor conference, (pp. 1–13). Windsor: University of Windsor.
Johnson, R. H. (2010). On the evaluation of visual arguments: Roque and the autonomy thesis. [Unpublished conference paper, presented to] Persuasion et argumentation: Colloque international organisé par le CRAL à l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 7–9 September 2010.
[11 Patterson, S. W. (2010). A picture held us Captive: The later Wittgenstein on visual argumentation. Cogency, 2 (2): 105–134.
[12 Birdsell, D. S. & Groarke, L. (1996). Toward a Theory of Visual Argumentation. Argumentation and Advocacy, 33(1): 2, 6.
[13 Birdsell, D. S. & Groarke, L. (1996). Toward a Theory of Visual Argumentation. Argumentation and Advocacy, 33(1): 2.
[14 Birdsell, D. S. & Groarke, L. (1996). Toward a Theory of Visual Argumentation. Argumentation and Advocacy, 33(1): 2.
[15 Birdsell, D. S. & Groarke, L. (1996). Toward a Theory of Visual Argumentation. Argumentation and Advocacy, 33(1): 6.
[16 The concept of frames, I am using here, are frames that help us organize our everyday experience, frames as developed by sociologist Erving Goffman in his influential book Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (London: Harper and Row, 1974).
What are Goffman’s frames? In his own words:
“When the individual in our Western society recognizes a particular event, he tends, whatever else he does, to imply in this response (and in effect employ) one or more frameworks or schemata of interpretation of a kind that can be called primary. I say primary because application of such a framework or perspective is seen by those who apply it as not depending on or harking back to some prior or “original” interpretation; indeed a primary framework is one that is seen as rendering what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful.” (Goffman 1974: 21)
Goffman distinguishes between natural and social frameworks. Natural frameworks
“identify occurrences seen as undirected, unoriented, unanimated, unguided, purely physical”. (ibid., p. 22). Social frameworks, on the other hand,
“provide background understanding for events that incorporate the will, aim, and controlling effort of an intelligence. … Motive and intent are involved, and their imputation helps select which of the various social frameworks of understandings is to be applied.” (ibid., p. 24)
[17 For different reasons, in group 2, only 7 questionnaires out of 30 that were distributed were returned, and only 3 out of 12 in group 3.
[18 Žagar, I. Ž. (2016). Against visual argumentation: multimodality as composite meaning and composite utterances. (D. Mohammed and M. Lewiński eds.) Argumentation and reasoned action. Volume I: Proceedings of the 1st European conference on argumentation, Lisbon 2015 (Studies in logic, vol. 62), (pp. 829–852). London: College Publications.
[19 Enfield, N. J. (2009). The Anatomy of Meaning. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 10.
[20 Informal Logic (1996). vol. 18, Nos. 2&3: 112.
[21 Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1980/2004). A Thousand Plateaus. London and New (York: Continuum.
[22 Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(6): 1024-1054.
[23 Blommaert, J. & Rampton, B. (2011). Language and Superdiversity. Diversities, 13(2): 1-21.
[24 Informal Logic (1996). vol. 18/2-3.
[25 Informal Logic (1996). vol. 18/ 2-3: 119.
[26 Informal Logic (1996). vol. 18/2-3: 120.
[27 The exact reference of the paper, marked as “forthcoming”, was, unfortunately impossible to find.
[28] Fauconnier, G. (1984). Espaces mentaux. Paris: Minuit.
Bibliography
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Dove, I. J. (2011b). Visual analogies and arguments. (Zenker, F. ed.) Argumentation: Cognition and Community. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation. (pp. 1–16). Windsor, Ontario: OSSA.
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Godden, D. (2015). Images as arguments: Progress and problems, a brief commentary. Argumentation, 29 (2): 2 3 5– 238.
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Groarke, L. (1996). Logic, art and argument. Informal logic, 18: 105–129.
Groarke, L. (2002). Towards a pragma-dialectics of visual argument. (F. H. van Eemeren ed.), Advances in pragma-dialectics, (pp. 137–151). Amsterdam and Newport News: Sic Sat and Vale Press.
Groarke, L. (2009). Five theses on Toulmin and visual argument. (F. H. van Eemeren and B. Garssen eds.), Pondering on problems of argumentation, (pp. 229–239). Amsterdam: Springer.
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Kjeldsen J. E. (2015). The Study of Visual and Multimodal Argumentation. Argumentation 29, 115-132.
Kjeldsen, J. E. (2015). The rhetoric of thick representation: How pictures render the importance and strength of an argument salient. Argumentation, 29 (2): 197–215.
Kišiček, G. & Žagar, I. Ž. eds. (2013). What do we know about the world? – Rhetorical and Argumentative perspectives. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute. https://www.doi.org/10.32320/978-961-270-171-0
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Roque, G. (2010). What is visual in visual argumentation? (eds. J. Ritola et al.), Argument cultures: Proceedings of OSSA 09, (pp. 1–9). Windsor, ON: OSSA.
Roque, G. (2012). Visual argumentation: A further reappraisal. (F. H. van Eemeren and B. Garssen eds.), Topical themes in argumentation theory, (pp. 273–288). Springer: Amsterdam.
Roque, G. (2015). Should visual arguments be propositional in order to be arguments? Argumentation, 29 (2): 177–195.
Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(6): 1024 – 1054.
Žagar, I. Ž. (2016). Against visual argumentation: multimodality as composite meaning and composite utterances. (D. Mohammed and M. Lewiński eds.) Argumentation and reasoned action. Volume I: Proceedings of the 1st European conference on argumentation, Lisbon 2015 (Studies in logic, vol. 62), (pp. 829–852). London: College Publications.
Žagar, I. Ž. (2018). Perception, inference, and understanding in visual argumentation (and beyond). (S. Oswald and D. Maillat eds.), Argumentation and inference. Volume I: Proceedings of the 1st European conference on argumentation, Fribourg 2017 (Studies in logic and argumentation, vol. 77), (pp. 439–469). London: College Publications.
Manuscript was submitted: 25.05.2020.
Peer Reviews: from 27.05.2020 till 15.06.2020.
Accepted: 25.06.2020.
Брой 44 на сп. „Реторика и комуникации“, юли 2020 г. се издава с финансовата помощ на Фонд научни изследвания, договор № КП-06-НП1/39 от 18 декември 2019 г.
Issue 44 of the Rhetoric and Communications Journal (July 2020) is published with the financial support of the Scientific Research Fund, Contract No. KP-06-NP1/39 of December 18, 2019.