Description
In the last century, most philosophers and legal thinkers accepted the idea that rules are established via words (that is, in some linguistic form) and the idea that they are made of words (that is, that the inherent nature of rules coincides with words). These views are open to criticism. In fact, some rules are not formulated in words; they are not word-made at all. For example, there are rules that we create by using drawings (designs, pictures, paintings, diagrams, maps, engravings, sketches, images, etc.), which will be termed “graphic rules” (other terms used are “iconic rules”, “drawn rules”, “pictorial rules”, “depictive rules”). In today’s world we are surrounded by graphic rules of all kinds: land-use plans, building regulations, political maps, traffic signs, visual cues like the “No smoking” sign, flat-pack furniture assembly instructions, diagrams in instruction manuals, instructions for the assembly of plastic construction toys, etc. All these are cases of deontic artifacts, artifacts that have a normative function.
There is clearly a form of “verbal-centrism” dominating the general discussion in the area of rules and legal regulations. Despite the growing interest in the impact of images in society, investigation of graphic rules and normative drawings is at present largely neglected.
The aim of the conference is to study normative drawings by investigating seven general classes of philosophical questions:
In the last century, most philosophers and legal thinkers accepted the idea that rules are established via words (that is, in some linguistic form) and the idea that they are made of words (that is, that the inherent nature of rules coincides with words). These views are open to criticism. In fact, some rules are not formulated in words; they are not word-made at all. For example, there are rules that we create by using drawings (designs, pictures, paintings, diagrams, maps, engravings, sketches, images, etc.), which will be termed “graphic rules” (other terms used are “iconic rules”, “drawn rules”, “pictorial rules”, “depictive rules”). In today’s world we are surrounded by graphic rules of all kinds: land-use plans, building regulations, political maps, traffic signs, visual cues like the “No smoking” sign, flat-pack furniture assembly instructions, diagrams in instruction manuals, instructions for the assembly of plastic construction toys, etc. All these are cases of deontic artifacts, artifacts that have a normative function.
There is clearly a form of “verbal-centrism” dominating the general discussion in the area of rules and legal regulations. Despite the growing interest in the impact of images in society, investigation of graphic rules and normative drawings is at present largely neglected.
The aim of the conference is to study normative drawings by investigating seven general classes of philosophical questions:
- ontological (the kind of existence and the ontological status of graphic rules),
- logical (the possibility of a logic of deontic drawings),
- typological (kinds of normativity and degree of iconicity of graphic rules),
- epistemological (informational and expressive equivalence between graphic rules and linguistic ones),
- semantic (semantic content and the reference of deontic drawings),
- pragmatic (comprehensibility, accessibility and immediacy of graphic rules),
- philosophy-of-mind (possibility of a non-sentential normative thinking).