Drawing philosophical thought experiments

I've now finished my final drawing for a book under contract with OUP entitled Philosophy Illustrated, which fill feature line drawings of 42 thought experiments, and reflections written by experts.

What can make a visual artwork philosophical? 

By now, it is becoming increasingly well-established that fiction can be philosophical. Lots of speculative and other fiction is deeply philosophical, and stories were one of the ways in which philosophy used to be written. An early example is Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan‎, a philosophical novel which contains a rich long thought experiment of a boy who grows up on an island without culture or education and who learns, through his own experience, about the nature of physical reality and ultimately also about God. 

Eric Schwitzgebel argues here that stories can be philosophical. He writes: 

I reject the idea that philosophy is argument. If philosophy is argument, then Confucius's Analects is not philosophy, and the pre-Socratics' fragments are not philosophy, and the aphorisms of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are not philosophy. I say, instead: If an essay, or a parable, or a dialogue, or an aphorism, or a movie engages the reader toward new reflections on fundamental questions about meaning, value, the human condition, the nature of knowledge or art or morality or love or mentality, pushing us out of our settled and conventional ways of thinking, challenging us to explore and reconsider -- that's philosophy. Most real philosophy, as experienced by most people, takes the form of fiction.

If we can use a wide range of media to express philosophical thoughts, what would make a picture philosophical?

Obvious examples of philosophical visual artworks include the works by René Magritte, M.C. Escher, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso and many more. For example, Magritte's Balcony (right) is a clear visual play on Manet's Balcony (left), but it is more than a crass memento mori where young beautiful people are replaced by coffins. As Magritte himself wrote about this work "For me the setting of The Balcony offered a suitable place to put coffins. The "mechanism" at work here might form the object of a learned explanation, which I am unable to provide. The explanation would be valid, indeed beyond question, but that would not make it any less mysterious. ”

My thought experiments drawings are not independent philosophical works. They are drawn for didactic purposes mainly, as a visual anchor and tool for readers (undergraduate students and the lay audience) to get to grips with the usually very pithy, and quite bare bones thought experiments that will be presented in the book.

But at the same time, I do offer some interpretation of the thought experiments and hope that readers of the book will think about these and form their own interpretations (the reflections written by experts will add yet another layer).  

To explain the process, here is an example which will appear in the book, which is the illustration of Judith Jarvis Thomson's People seeds (1971), a thought experiment on contraceptive failure. It is, I think, a wonderful weird tale, a little horror miniature. 

[S]uppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don’t want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective; and a seed drifts in and takes root. (Thomson 1971)

From the perspective of reproductive-age woman in a country with access to contraception, the prospect of contraceptive failure is a horror, aptly captured in Thomson's weird story. The story obviously does not capture all the intricacies of pregnancy, nor is it meant to. 

So to illustrate this thought experiment, as with other drawings I decide on genre, protagonist(s), color palette, and other visual features. Given the genre of horror, I decided to go with a protracted, uneasy perspective, unnatural colors, and of course a creepy doll. The protagonist who came to my mind was a white woman (as in most horror movies I've seen). As an illustrator one can play with visual references to other artworks (as Magritte did), so several drawings feature this. 

For the present drawing, I used the following as (conscious) sources of inspiration: the classic children's book Goodnight moon (the color scheme with the tomato red floor and green walls), to convey a feeling of unrest. Beds and bedrooms are normally places of rest, but in Thomson's story they are a place of worry and liminality (the worry of being pregnant, not a planned pregnancy). I find there's an interesting disconnect between the drawings and the story in Goodnight moon, similar to the disconnect between the outward appearance of pregnancy (joy! baby showers!) and all the other things that go beneath the surface (can we afford another baby?).

A second source of inspiration is a classic painting, Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles (three versions exist of this painting). This picture was just a plain representation of the artist's bedroom, as he said (see this Wikipedia entry), without any shadows. The room is very narrow, and the perspective of the bed was suitable, so as to create a feeling of oppressiveness as the people seed takes root. 

Finally, I wanted to also incorporate some reference to religious imagery, particularly given how the abortion debate in the US and other countries such as Poland has been shaped by preferences of religious people who wish to severely restrict abortion or ban it altogether. There is also the often torn response of women who are pregnant and don't want to be, who feel the pull of these religious arguments in their decision of whether to have an abortion. 

The obvious visual reference for this is the annunciation, where the Virgin Mary learns from the angel Gabriel, to her shock and dismay that she is pregnant. She thinks, and says, this cannot be true, and yet it is. The parallels to unplanned pregnancy and what one goes through are strikingly similar. 

I looked at paintings where Mary is vulnerable and confused, for example this one by the pre-raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rosetti. Ultimately, my protagonist looks a bit different; she crosses her arms as she looks at the people seed, unsure what to do (or so I imagine) - and there is no angel to announce the pregnancy either. 

Ultimately, not all readers will be acquainted with all these references or will spot them (consciously) even if they do, but I think taking advantage of this rich, tacit visual vocabulary helps us to look at thought experiments with fresh eyes.

After finishing this project, I'm thinking of doing other visual projects on philosophy and have an (ambitious and underdeveloped) idea of doing an illustrated novel or graphic novel on a philosophical theme. Philosophy is evolving to become more inclusive of different forms of philosophical expression, as well as philosophical topics. This will ultimately impact the way we disseminate philosophy, and the way we engage our senses and our emotions in the process. I'm excited by how things will develop in the next decades.