The picture which philosophy today conjures up when addressing the nature of rational thinking is that of a verbal process, spoken, written, or silent. In contrast to this, I would like to show that rational - coherent, logical - thought and communication essentially involve non-verbal symbols too. Among these, visual symbols are the most important. By visual symbols I mean mental images as well as public pictures, diagrams, and models, and what I will particularly aim at demonstrating is that the growing abundance and increasingly easy production of pictures on the screen radically improve our capability to develop theories of visual imagery as well as to develop an understanding of their central role in our cognitive economy.
Vedi l'articolo di J.C. Nyíri
