Iconic Knowledge and Demonstration. A Criticism of the Deictic Value of the Scientific Image

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the notion of iconic knowledge from philosopher Gottfried Boehm. The argumentation about Boehm's iconic knowledge as well as his notion of schematic as a visual demonstration will be analyzed at first. In a second moment I will argue how we are able to recognize concepts, abstract and invisible, in models as well as the possibility of judging them as true or false. A third moment I will address Dieter Mersch's approach to scientific images and their demonstrative capacity as well as the methodological and theoretical obstacles that iconic knowledge must face.