Denotation

Denotation is the foundational mode of symbolic reference in Goodman's framework—the relation by which a symbol picks out, labels, or depicts its subject. A portrait denotes the person portrayed; the word 'dog' denotes dogs; a diagram denotes the system it represents. Denotation operates through conventions that establish which symbols refer to which subjects—pictorial conventions for painting, linguistic conventions for words, diagrammatic conventions for scientific representation. The conventions are not arbitrary (they are constrained by purposes and by fit with other accepted versions), but they are conventional—there is no natural, pre-conventional connection between a symbol and what it denotes. Goodman's analysis of denotation displaced the assumption that representations work by resemblance—that a portrait denotes its subject by looking like it. Resemblance, Goodman demonstrated, is symmetric and reflexive (if A resembles B, then B resembles A, and A resembles itself), while denotation is neither. A portrait denotes its subject; the subject does not denote the portrait. The connection is established by convention, not by similarity. Understanding what a symbol denotes requires knowing which conventions are in play,