Pictorial Philosophy

1. Philosophy can be presented pictorially. Pictures or images may have captions illustrating the philosophies.
2. e.g. The Philosophy of any particular thinker can be elaborated through selected pictures.
3. These pictures can be the photographs captured during the philosopher’s lifetime or digital images available easily at the click.
4. The advantage of doing a pictorial philosophy is that it can bring people together. Pictures have a common appeal.
5. e.g. The idea of a lamp and its understanding, the rainfall.
6. Pictorial Photography overcomes the linguistic barriers.
7. It can be grasped without knowing a particular language.
8. Are there such attempts made by any College/ University to present Philosophy pictorially? Posters and coffee-books do serve the same purpose but the idea yet is to be developed as an alternative or additional way to the conventional mode of presenting Philosophy. The sporadic practices can be the triggering points but full-fledged Philosophy, on those lines, need to be developed.
9. Audio-deficit talent can be channelized to Pictorial Philosophy.
10. The efforts may focus on the elucidation of a particular concept. e.g. The Buddhist idea that the world is full of suffering but ‘Nirvana’ can be and should be attained; “Ought implies can”, “ The Principle of Parsimony”, “Prima-facie duties” can be illustrated graphically.

The Metaphorical expressions are embedded in Philosophical doctrines but the capacity of pictorial form to reveal the connotation needs to be developed as an additional method in Philosophy at least as far as History of Philosophy is concerned.