Abstract

Our aim in this essay is to take a look at cartoons under philosophical light. What are some of the similarities between philosophy and the art of cartooning? In what ways can cartoons be helpful to philosophy? What are some of the problems cartoons pose for philosophy? Perhaps the most basic philosophical question concerning cartoons is, “What is a cartoon?”. We argue that it is not easy to pin down necessary and sufficient conditions for something being a cartoon. We defend the view that cartoons form a class whose members are interconnected with the Wittgensteinian “family resemblance” relations. We then look into the problems involved in finding a connectionist parallel-processing correlate of the Wittgensteinian notion in the context of cartoons.