»See What I Mean«

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»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!«