二十世紀下半葉歐美的藝術哲學討論聚焦於圖像再現的感知問題，其中以貢布里希(E. H. Gombrich, 1919-2001)與古德曼(Nelson Goodman, 1906-1998)的爭議受到當代哲學家與美學家的關注與討論。古德曼對貢布里希的觀點之評述可見於1968年出版的《藝術的語言》，而貢布里希具體回應古德曼的論述可見於1982年出版的《圖像與眼睛》(The Image and The Eye)。
對比兩人對圖像再現的解讀策略而言，古德曼提出以「符號系統」與象徵功能解釋圖像再現的結構與要素，而較少論及藝術家製作圖像的意圖，而是強調圖像的符號具有的指稱作用以及審美徵候(考量符號的句法與語義的充盈與否)。然 而，貢布里希強調以知覺的視覺經驗作為區別藝術與非藝術圖像的基礎，並且建議從媒材(medium)、心理定向(mental set)與等效原則(equivalence)等概念著手分析藝術家的再現意圖。兩人對圖像再現的爭議涉及著圖像再現的傳統慣例、圖式與風格的分類，以及再現的現實主義與觀者的觀看意識等問題；特別是後兩者為本論文探究的核心課題。
透過貢布里希回應古德曼的論述，加以闡明藝術哲學的核心議題，亦即探究藝術(作品)的真實性為什麼有別於現實世界的真實性，又前者的真實性之依據是什麼，以及為什麼藝術的真實性具有其獨立的審美價值？由於貢布里希與古德曼的再現理論皆立基於哲學的思維剖析方法，從而展開對藝術現象與審美經驗的探究，若能深入理解爭論背後的美學課題，將有助於我們省思再現藝術的美學價值與建構自身的審美認知。
This thesis is to focus on the problem of pictorial perception, which was an important issue in the philosophy of Art during the second half of the twentieth century. Particularly, the debate between E. H. Gombrich and Nelson Goodman was a matter of great concern to many philosophers and aestheticians. In the dispute, Goodman set out his argument in Language of Art (1968), after rejecting the aesthetics of traditional European painting, he looked for the analogies between pictorial representation and verbal description and emphasized that they could form and characterize our world. With a dissection of the analogies, he established the theory of symptoms of the aesthetic to make a distinction between aesthetic and non-aesthetic properties. However, Gombrich was unequivocal in response to Goodman’s semantic account on the problem of pictorial perception and showed his disagreement in The Image and The Eye (1982) among his other works. He argued that the perception played a role which would help to distinguish the visual experiences of artistic images from that of non-artistic images. Besides, he emphasized the significance of the intentions of representational images, and suggested that the medium, the mental set and the equivalence principle should be considered as the main factors while analyzing the artists’ representational intentions. Beholder’s share should be taken into consideration as well. The thesis, according to this line of thought, mainly examines Gombrich’s response to Goodman’s analysis of pictorial perception, to investigate into the core issue of representation in the philosophy of Art. The results show that their arguments provide us a framework to reflect on the phenomenon of art and its aesthetic value in a more critical and richer way.
