Arto Mutanen, Tarkko Oksala & Mervi Friman
On Visual Reasoning
Introduction Visuality and reasoning are not generally integrated into one concept. A reason might be that visuality is principally connected to human senses and experiences, whereas reasoning is an intellectual act that is connected to human reason which should be formalized. Visuality is studied through aesthetics and reasoning through logic. So, it might seem that these two are mutually exclusive conceptually. However, the situation is not so simple. Human reasoning is a practical activity which includes different kinds of activities. Moreover, visuality is much more than mere aesthetics and reasoning is much more than logic. Currently communicating with memes, sharing photos and videos are an essential part of our lives. Even if the pictorial communication is strikingly present in our societies, the phenomenon is as old as human societies (Neurath, 1936). Pictorial information has shown its strength in education, and present-day computers, via computation, BigData, and CAD, open new possibilities of dealing visual information. So, it is necessary to explore visual reasoning deeper. In this article we want to illuminate the connections between visuality and reasoning from the perspectives of pictorialism, design science and architecture. Inspiration to this study rises from the relationship between theory and practice and the possibilities of non-linguistic communication. To start with, let us take a look at what Lewis (1976) says. Lewis (1976, 133) says that “Everyone who speaks English is familiar with two meanings for the word sense: (a) ordinary intelligence or ‘gumption’, and (b) perception by sight, hearing, taste, smell or touch, which we shall call aesthesis. In our individual linguistic histories gumption is undoubtedly the earlier meaning.” So, Lewis shows us that the word ‘sense’ is polysemic. Moreover, the meanings lead to directions we are interested in. As the starting point of his study, Lewis (1976, 134) takes the meaning of sense which is “something like ‘to experience, learn by experience, undergo, know at first hand’” which is closely connected to reasoning. The notion of aesthesis “descends from the concept of taste” (Shelley, 2017). It is connected to “fine art” in which it is tied to “subjective effects, which 200
