Hans Jonas has developed an anthropology by describing the ability to create as the identifying characteristic unique to human beings. According to his definition of the “homo pictor” it is not about the ability to create pictures itself, but about the foundation of that ability: freedom. The paper wants to reconstruct the concept of picture anthropology and to explain how Jonas defines ‘picture’. Finally, the concept of freedom with the capacity to enable such a picture anthropology – and that hence defines the homo pictor – is evaluated.
The anthropological function of pictures lies in conveying initial context building, i.e., the gensis of the capacity to focus on situations that are not currently present. In order to support that thesis, we first recapitulate the concept of communication with two ways of presentation enclosed therein which are central to language competence and picture competence. Thereby a path opens up to define perceptoid media in more detail, through which a transition to initial context building can be suggested. However, it becomes clear, too, that the ability to present oneself as a picture user has to be stabilized by further acts of communication. In the end, they also lead to the option of context building without a fallback on perceptoid media that we generally call visual imagination.
In this paper I will argue for the possibility of a kind of evolutionary anthropology of images. I will rely on the notion of cognitive evolution as Merlin Donald construed it, on the one hand, and on the enactive account of vision, on the other hand. The two approaches can be seen as divergent, since the Donaldian theory is based on the evolution of representational capabilities, while enactivism (both conservative and radical wings) challenges the necessity of mental representation, at least in certain cases. But, as I suggest, this divergence does not lead to a contradiction, rather both illuminate the importance of the extra-cranial context, and the importance of the representational techniques that make ideas, fears, etc. manifest. I will begin by outlining the special character of the image construed as the picture of something; then I will review the necessary cognitive capabilities of perception and depiction, and finally account for the role of pictorial representation in cognitive evolution.
In his book "Understanding Pictures" (1996), Dominic Lopes suggests that a picture theory should be checked for four conditions. One of them is the condition of competence. It remains unclear whether these four conditions have a specific status or precise validity for specific persons. It is a goal of my paper to resolve or to reduce these uncertainties. In order to do that, I start sketching the motivation and the method of Lopes in part one. Then I present the condition of competence in part two. and explain its function in the third part. This leads to the question whether the condition of competence can be applied only to pictures and picture systems or also to terms and languages. Another question behind my reflections is: Why picture philosophy? My explanations however provide an implicit answer to that question at best.
