ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a mixed theory paying attention both to the different ways of visually encoding information and its later decoding by the recipient. A huge variety of different imaging technologies is at the scientists' disposal – a stock that is growing steadily in correlation with the development of new experiments and instruments in science. Stephen M. Downes connects the aspects of pictorial diversity and points out that no "unified representation-based account" can explain how scientific images play their role in epistemic and non-epistemic processes in science. Scientific communication not only aims at the distribution of information but also at its preservation, that is, recording and storing in diverse media. Scientific knowledge is distributed and increased by the use of arguments, and the latter are constituted by linguistic expressions. The chapter argues for the relevance of maintaining contexts of usage apart when theorising on scientific images.
