Beatrice Sasha Kobow

'See What I Mean' Beatrice Sasha Kobow

"See What I Mean Understanding Films as Communicative Actions" contributes to the theoretical foundations of film philosophy. It is the application of an intention-based semantics to films.
An intention-based semantics describes the meaning of words as their speaker-intended use. This facilitates a pre-conventional definition of communicative actions on the token-level. It makes the individualist, action-theoretical model of communication apt for an application to other communicative contexts, such as films.
The book applies H. P. Grice s theory of meaning and Georg Meggle s extension of the Gricean model to films. Film-philosophical questions concerning film-understanding, truth of films, the cognitive value of films, the relationship of films and reality and their intentionality are discussed.
Studies in film semiotics attempt to understand films via their Language-likeness . These approaches typically fail to show the discrete, arbitrary and conventional units of films which function as non-naturally meaningful signs analogous to the functioning of words in a natural Language. See What I Mean reintroduces the question of Language-likeness and finds an answer: films are not like natural Languages, but films and natural Languages are alike they are both used for communicative purposes.
In this book, films are considered to be a special class of moving images; they are intentional, visual artifacts with the main goal of communication. The text is a critique on film realism and discursive film theories; it asks the reader to consider films as communicative actions in the world. Understood as such, films fit into the social reality as John R. Searle reconstructs it: With films we negotiate and change this social reality.
Films are communicative attempts of a speaker directed towards a spectator; they are directives of the form: "Look at the world in this way!"