Most of the renewed focus on vision over the past decade understands itself as a critique of representation. This critique has primarily taken the form of a critique of the transparency and naturalness of vision--- what philosophers have called the mirror of nature.
At the philosophical level the basic position of the critique of representation involves a rejection of the proposition that the fundamental relation of a person to the world consists in the relation of the content of an individual mind to the world of objects, events, and states of affairs as represented by that content.
Instead, it is held that the most fundamental variety of human action consists in the apparently unthinking, skilled action that makes up much of our everyday activities, and that does not require mental guidance or intervention for its successful accomplishment .
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at December 11, 2004 10:56 PM | TrackBack