Is There Really Something Which Might Be Called a ‘Self-Demonstrating Picture’ – Even
Within Scientific Imagery?
. Some Observations on a Double Illusion of Communication
I will propose some ideas about such pictures claiming to be self-demonstrating or self-illustrating, mostly using some classical anatomy illustrations. Based on these you may say that the anatomy seems to create a remarkable, realistic pictorial
code, which casts together in one single, self-demonstrating shape, an object of knowledge with the properties of the natural object itself. This is the paradox of the self-demonstrating picture's double illusion of communication: on the one hand it seems to be a picture of the natural appearance of the object, but on the other it is, in fact, simultaneously a depiction of a cognitive concept, a visual name of this object. It is a conditional and man-made classification, which is embodied into the body itself.