Practice question · Match the pairs
Match each mode of reference to how it works.
- Icon
- Index
- Symbol
- Dense symbol system
- Refers by resemblance to its object
- Has no disjoint, differentiated characters
- Refers by a real physical connection
- Refers by convention alone
Hints
- Three are Peirce's modes and one is Goodman's property.
- The one about characters is the property that rules out notation.
Show the answer
- Icon → Refers by resemblance to its object
- Index → Refers by a real physical connection
- Symbol → Refers by convention alone
- Dense symbol system → Has no disjoint, differentiated characters
Why
Holding Peirce's three modes and Goodman's density together gives you most of what the analogy is good for: a way of asking how an image refers, and a reason not to expect the answer to look like a dictionary entry.
Practise Is Art a Language?
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Art History I is free to start.
More questions on Is Art a Language?
- Why does Goodman conclude that painting cannot be a notation?
- Sort each art by whether it is AUTOGRAPHIC or ALLOGRAPHIC in Goodman's sense.
- An image can express negation as directly as a sentence can.
- Which respects does the language analogy genuinely capture?
- Complete the vocabulary of the lesson.
- How many modes of reference does Peirce's trichotomy distinguish?
- If art functions strictly as an allographic language, what follows for the art historian confronted with a…
- Arrange these steps of asking how an image refers, in the order they are useful.
- A halo conveys sanctity by resemblance rather than by convention.