On the Narrative Potential of Depiction

Abstract

The aim of this article is to defend the narrative potential of depiction against different strands of skepticism that proceed from the lack of temporal order in a single static image: such images, it has been argued, cannot represent the temporal components of narratives – i.e. action(s) and/or causal relations between temporally ordered actions or events. Contemporary philosophers of depiction have strongly challenged the strand of skepticism that focuses on the representation of action(s), but the strand which focuses on the representation of causal relations may seem to be intractable. Yet, I will argue, it rests on a rather partial conception of causation that unduly directs attention to the dimension of time rather than to the dimension of space – the uncontested domain of depiction