The Possibility and Actuality of Visual Arguments

TLDR: In this paper, the authors investigate whether there can be visual arguments and what a visual argument would look like if we encountered one, and if they are possible in a non-metaphorical way, are there any visual arguments?

Abstract: The chapter investigates the extension of argument into the realm of visual expression. Although images can be influential in affecting attitudes and beliefs it does not follow that such images are arguments. So we should at the outset investigate whether there can be visual arguments. To do so, we need to know what a visual argument would look like if we encountered one. How, if at all, are visual and verbal arguments related? An account of a concept of visual argument serves to establish the possibility that they exist. If they are possible in a non-metaphorical way, are there any visual arguments? Examples show that they do exist: in paintings and sculpture, in print advertisements, in TV commercials and in political cartoons. But visual arguments are not distinct in essence from verbal arguments. The argument is always a propositional entity, merely expressed differently in the two cases. And the effectiveness in much visual persuasion is not due to any arguments conveyed.