A view on denotation in photography
Emanuele Martino · Semiotica · 2008
If a photograph is considered an index in Peirce's sense, it makes reference to a single object (the one that was photographed) and provides some knowledge about it. Can this knowledge be extended to other similar objects which were not photographed? Is this extension limited, and how? It is argued that such an extension is possible and permissible only if the observed similarity is defined as belongingness to the same fuzzy set, where the word ‘fuzzy’ is intended in accordance with Zadeh's set theory. The relation between a photograph and its object may be called ‘indication’; the relation between the same photograph and other objects belonging to the same fuzzy set may be called ‘denotation.’