The possibility and actuality of visual arguments.

• Author: Blair, J. Anthony
• Position: Visual Argument - Part 1

For the last 30 years the very concept of argument has come under fairly intense examination by the speech communication community (see Gronbeck, 1980, for the early years). Sometimes the focus has been inward, upon its central features (Brockriede, 1975; O'Keefe, 1977, 1982; Trapp, 1983; Hample, 1985). More recently, its more global features have been scrutinized (Willard, 1983, 1989; van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984). The present paper is intended as a contribution to the investigation of the extension of argument into a realm hitherto given scant attention. The study of argument since Aristotle has assumed it to be paradigmatically verbal, if not essentially and exclusively so. At a time when technological and cultural developments are increasingly enhancing visual communication, it behooves us to consider whether argument can partake of visual expression.

There is no doubt that images can be influential in affecting attitudes and beliefs. A single visual image can probably be more powerful than a single verbal assertion, other things being equal, although broader claims should be made with caution: probably nothing in history has been more influential than the great verbal religious works, such as the Bible and the Koran. However, it is obvious that paintings and sculptures, and the visual component of movies, television programs and commercial and political advertising, are enormously powerful influences on attitudes and beliefs. Still, from the fact that images influence beliefs and attitudes it does not follow that such images are arguments, for there is any number of other ways of influencing attitudes and beliefs besides arguing.

Indeed, it would be a mistake to assimilate all means of cognitive and affective influence to argument, or even to assimilate all persuasion to argument. In that case, shock therapy becomes indistinguishable from a syllogism; crowd mania merges with a carefully crafted case for a conclusion; and fear-mongering or appeals to blind loyalty cannot be separated from clear-eyed appeals to interests or to evidence. There is no pedantry, no hairsplitting, in recognizing that a loss of clarity and understanding attends such blurring of conceptual boundaries. So we should at the outset investigate whether there can be visual arguments, not just take it for granted that they exist.

To determine whether they exist, we need to know what a visual argument would look like if we encountered one. How, if at all, are visual and verbal arguments related? An account of a concept of visual argument serves to establish the possibility that they exist. By analogy, knowing what a symphony is tells us that symphonies are auditory, not visual; so a "visual symphony" must be a metaphor. Are visual arguments like visual symphonies? If they are possible in a non-metaphorical way, are there any visual arguments? By analogy, an adult person who is totally free of self-deception is surely possible; but has any such person lived yet? Are all the things that look as though they might be visual arguments the genuine article? These are the questions addressed in this paper.

1. PROPERTIES OF VISUAL ARGUMENTS

   Let us turn first, then, to what would count as a visual argument. We are exploring new territory: little has been written about visual arguments (see Groarke, in press). Like the Norse adventurers, who are said to have kept a landfall in sight behind them when they sailed into the North Atlantic,(1) it would be best to keep in mind a clear conception of argument and a clear conception of what "visual" means here, when we investigate the terra relatively incognita of visual argument. That approach sounds a prioristic, which can be a Bad Thing. But the preferred method, starting the analysis from clear and indisputable cases of visual arguments and observing their salient properties, is unavailable here because it would beg the question: the issue before us is precisely whether the paradigm of verbal arguments has room for, or can be extended to include, visual arguments. The latter constitute a new candidate for inclusion in the concept of argument. And the only other alternative seems to be to list all sorts of "examples," or candidates for membership in this class, without any way of deciding which ones really belong and which ones don't. So let us begin by settling, first, what counts as an argument and, second, what counts as visual.

   A. Argument

   For the purpose of the present investigation, O'Keefe's concept of [argument.sub.1] serves admirably. O'Keefe describes the paradigm case of [argument.sub.1] as involving "a linguistically explicable claim and one or more linguistically explicable reasons" (O'Keefe, 1982, p. 17). Let it be clear that O'Keefe's [argument.sub.1] is not the logician's abstraction. Such arguments are made and used. O'Keefe suggests that, "a paradigm case of making an [argument.sub.1] involves the communication of both (1) a linguistically explicable claim and (2) one or more overtly expressed reasons which are linguistically explicit" (p. 14).

   I use O'Keefe's [argument.sub.1], because if anything is an argument, then [arguments.sub.1] are. And I use his concept of [argument.sub.1] rather than his concept of [argument.sub.2] (argument as "overt disagreement . . . between interactants" [1982, p. 11]), because visual arguments are more plausibly akin to reasons for claims ([arguments.sub.1]) than to open disagreements between interacting parties ([arguments.sub.2]).

   The explicit properties of [arguments.sub.1] are the following:

   (1) there is a claim; that is, the assertion has been made that something has to be believed, or chosen, or done;

   (2) there is a reason or there are reasons for the claim; that is, the assertion has been made of something supporting what is to be believed, chosen or done;

   (3) the reason(s) is(are) linguistically explicable and overtly expressed;

   (4) the claim is linguistically explicable;

   (5) there is an attempt to communicate the claim and reason(s).

   These explicit properties entail the following implicit properties of [arguments.sub.1]:

   (6) there is some person who uses the claim and its reason(s) (this person may, but need not be, its author);

   (7) there is some intended recipient audience or interlocutor(s) to whom the claim and reason(s) are addressed.

   Although not entailed by O'Keefe's descriptions of the paradigms of [argument.sub.1] and of making [arguments.sub.1], I think it is in the spirit of his account that one further property be included:

   (8) it is the intention of the "user" to bring the recipient to accept the claim on the basis of the reason(s) offered.

   The concept of [argument.sub.1] has two implications of importance to the present discussion.

   One is that such arguments are "propositional." [Arguments.sub.1] are propositional because claims and reasons have to be propositions. That is, the reasons and claims making them up have propositional content, using "propositional content" in a broad way, so as to include as propositions value judgments and action prescriptions as well as descriptions, predictions, and so on. An expression has propositional content in the sense used here if it has a truth value, or (and this is a weaker but broader requirement) if it can be affirmed or rejected. Thus, "The economy is in a recession," "It is unfortunate that the economy is in a recession," and "Steps should be taken to get the economy out of the recession" all count here as expressing propositions.

   The second implication of the concept of [argument.sub.1] that is important for present purposes is that [arguments.sub.1] are not necessarily linguistic or verbal arguments. All that is required by O'Keefe's account for something to qualify as an [argument.sub.1] is that reasons be overtly expressed, and that reasons and claim be linguistically explicable. That means we have to be able to state or restate them in language, not that they have to be expressed in language in the first place. Thus O'Keefe's concept of [argument.sub.1] is not inimical to the possibility of visual arguments.

   What these two further implications add up to is that for something to count as an [argument.sub.1], we have to be able to say what the claim is and what the reasons are, and we have to be able to say so clearly enough that the claims or reasons can be accepted or rejected. (You cannot accept or reject "Yuck!"; you can accept or reject the claim, "This steak tastes like shoe leather!")

   B. Visual

   When we are interested in visual argument as a distinct and distinctive species, I take it that we mean to emphasize the contrast between the visual and the verbal. To be sure, verbal communication can be transmitted visually, by print or writing, but what is essential to it is the use of words and a language. Visual communication, when understood in contradistinction to verbal communication, occurs without the mediation of words or language in the literal sense. It is true that what is communicated visually can be described verbally, or translated into verbal communication. (Whether such descriptions or translations can be complete or fully adequate is a separate question.) However, such description or translation is not a reduction of the visual to the verbal. The visual communication stands on its own feet.

   Visual communication may entail the use of conventions, as exemplified by the rich visual symbolism to be found in medieval church sculpture and stained glass images, and medieval and renaissance paintings (Ferguson, 1954), however these conventions are not a language in the literal sense. There is no grammar, just signs and symbols: conventionalized images. Communication through visual imagery is not verbal.

   It is also true that we now know that certain causal properties are supervenient on certain visual properties, which thus affect their viewers in predictable ways. For example, colors invoke feelings of warmth (reds, oranges) or coolness (blues, greens)...