Photographs Are Not Transparent Jonathan Cohen (joncohen@aardvark.ucsd.edu) University of California, San Diego Aaron Meskin (aaron.meskin@ttu.edu) Texas Tech University

Plan of Attack Walton on transparency A proposed response: egocentric spatial information Why doxastic solutions are no good Our non-doxastic proposal

Walton on Transparency For Walton, photographs are special because “transparent”: when I visually attend to a photograph of Granny, I see Granny. Photographs are visual prosthetics, just like mirrors, telescopes, eyeglasses. We use these to see what is spatiotemporally remote. He is not kidding.

Benefits of Transparency Explains counterfactual dependency. Explains preservation of visual similarities, non-preservation of non-visual similarities. Explains the evidential status of photographs.

Cost of Transparency It strikes most (plausibly including Walton) as extremely counterintuitive.

A Common Response Currie: “With ordinary seeing, we get information about the spatial and temporal relations between the object seen and ourselves….Photographs on the other hand do not convey egocentric information.” Carroll: “I submit that we do not speak literally of seeing objects unless I can perspicuously relate myself spatially to them--i.e., unless I know (roughly) where they are in the space I inhabit.”

The Doxastic Response S sees x only if S holds beliefs (/knows/makes judgments) about the egocentric spatial relations between S and x.

Walton's Response Case 1: long series of mirrors at unkown angles. Walton claims we see (prosthetically) despite lack of egocentric spatial beliefs. Case 2: object in front of face, but I suspect mirrors might be intervening. Walton claims we see (non-prosthetically) despite lack of egocentric spatial beliefs.

Outcome: A Long Road Leading Nowhere Could weaken doxastic requirements to explain why we see in Walton's cases – require only belief that object is in the same general space. Walton could invent new cases where we see despite absence of more general beliefs. Could weaken further....

Alternatively: The Orientation Condition Carroll: “I can orient my body spatially to what I see…But when I see a photograph I cannot orient my body to the photographed objects.” S sees x only if S can orient its body with respect to x. Problem: Seeing with locked-in syndrome.

The fundamental problem with the doxastic approach Belief is fragile with respect to perturbations that leave seeing intact, so no particular doxastic state can be necessary for seeing. For example, skepticism can undermine almost any belief. But skeptics see. Cf. Dretske Seeing and Knowing

Notice Where the Problem Lies No problem with egocentric spatial information per se. Problem from doxastic element. Therefore, we'll propose a non-doxastic account in terms of egocentric spatial information. Our theory will be (epistemically) externalist.

Reliable Processes and Information A belief-forming process is reliable to the extent that it is disposed to produce true beliefs. S1 is a reliable source of information about S2 just in case the conditional probability of S2, given S1, is 1 (and the conditional probability of S2 not given S1 is less than 1).

A Non-doxastic Condition on Object Seeing x sees y through a visual process z only if z is a reliable source of information about the egocentric location of y with respect to x. Mirrors are transparent because they reliably supply information about the egocentric location of the depicta with respect to viewers. Similarly for telescopes, periscopes, microscopes, eyeglasses, etc.

Caveats Our condition is necessary but not sufficient. Reliable sources of information can fail on occasions: individual failures don't make mirrors opaque. Reliability and information carrying are externalist – non-doxastic. We evade problems with doxastic responses. Is this dispute merely verbal? We don't think so.

Cases Where We See Non-prosthetic seeing and uncontroversial prosthetic seeing (eyeglasses, telescopes) allowed. Seeing through a single mirror is fine. The skeptic continues to see through many mirrors.

Cases Where We Don't No seeing through photography, film, video: these are not reliable sources of egocentric spatial information. No seeing through paintings (even photorealist).