Abstract: What kind of content do pictorial images express? Linguistic content arises, in the simplest case, when a sentence expresses the predication of a property to a referent. In the first part of this talk, I defend the natural and familiar view that pictorial content involves reference and predication in an importantly similar way. Thus a given picture might depict Obama (the referent) as lifting his arm (the predicate). Unfortunately for this otherwise plausible account, the format of pictorial representations resists any neat structural division into subject and predicate, in the manner of language or logic. How then is predicative pictorial content possible? In the second part of the talk, I offer a partial solution. My central assumption, drawn from recent work in philosophy and psychology, is that pictorial content is organized by rules of projective geometry. Building on this framework, I propose an interpretive principle which brings pictorial reference and geometry into alignment. In the resulting view, pictures do not mark a structural distinction between subject and predicate. Instead, the very same features both refer to individual objects and express the geometrical properties ascribed to these objects. Thus, while pictures and sentences are alike in ascribing properties to referents, they differ fundamentally in the way such content is expressed.
