Representation is a concern crucial to the sciences and the arts
alike. Scientists devote substantial time to devising and exploring
representations of all kinds. From photographs and
computer-generated images to diagrams, charts, and graphs; from
scale models to abstract theories, representations are ubiquitous
in, and central to, science. Likewise, after spending much of the
twentieth century in proverbial exile as abstraction and Formalist
aesthetics reigned supreme, representation has returned with a
vengeance to contemporary visual art. Representational photography,
video and ever-evolving forms of new media now figure prominently
in the globalized art world, while this "return of the real" has
re-energized problems of representation in the traditional media of
painting and sculpture. If it ever really left, representation in
the arts is certainly back. Central as they are to science and art,
these representational concerns have been perceived as different in
kind and as objects of separate intellectual traditions. Scientific
modeling and theorizing have been topics of heated debate in
twentieth century philosophy of science in the analytic tradition,
while representation of the real and ideal has never moved far from
the core humanist concerns of historians of Western art. Yet, both
of these traditions have recently arrived at a similar impasse.
Thinking about representation has polarized into oppositions
between mimesis and convention. Advocates of mimesis understand
some notion of mimicry (or similarity, resemblance or imitation) as
the core of representation: something represents something else if,
and only if, the former mimics the latter in some relevant way.
Such mimetic views stand in stark contrast to conventionalist
accounts of representation, which see voluntary and arbitrary
stipulation as the core of representation. Occasional exceptions
only serve to prove the rule that mimesis and convention govern
current thinking about representation in both analytic philosophy
of science and studies of visual art. This conjunction can hardly
be dismissed as a matter of mere coincidence. In fact, researchers
in philosophy of science and the history of art have increasingly
found themselves trespassing into the domain of the other
community, pilfering ideas and approaches to representation.
Cognizant of the limitations of the accounts of representation
available within the field, philosophers of science have begun to
look outward toward the rich traditions of thinking about
representation in the visual and literary arts. Simultaneously,
scholars in art history and affiliated fields like visual studies
have come to see images generated in scientific contexts as not
merely interesting illustrations derived from "high art", but as
sophisticated visualization techniques that dynamically challenge
our received conceptions of representation and aesthetics. "Beyond
Mimesis and Convention: Representation in Art and Science" is
motivated by the conviction that we students of the sciences and
arts are best served by confronting our mutual impasse and by
recognizing the shared concerns that have necessitated our covert
acts of kleptomania. Drawing leading contributors from the
philosophy of science, the philosophy of literature, art history
and visual studies, our volume takes its brief from our title. That
is, these essays aim to put the evidence of science and of art to
work in thinking about representation by offering third (or fourth,
or fifth) ways beyond mimesis and convention. In so doing, our
contributors explore a range of topics-fictionalism,
exemplification, neuroaesthetics, approximate truth-that build upon
and depart from ongoing conversations in philosophy of science and
studies of visual art in ways that will be of interest to both
interpretive communities. To put these contributions into context,
the remainder of this introduction aims to survey how our
communities have discretely arrived at a place wherein the
perhaps-surprising collaboration between philosophy of science and
art history has become not only salubrious, but a matter of
necessity.
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