Plato considered all material things as imperfect temporary reflections of eternal "ideas" which exist in a purely mental world. (Cf. The Republic: "Socrates talking to Glaucon".) From this point of view, making images is a dubious activity: too much focus on the material world. A similar anti-image attitude we find in Judaism, Islam and Calvinism.

Today, the idea that human thought involves direct communication with a realm of eternal ideas may still be encountered in the philosophy of mathematics. Roger Penrose, for instance, seems to take it fairly literally.

   

Thus, for example, when I imagine a triangle, even though there may perhaps be no such figure anywhere in the world outside of my thought, nor ever have been, nevertheless the figure cannot help having a certain determinate nature . . . or essence, which is immutable and eternal, which I have not invented and which does not in any way depend on my mind.

René Descartes: Meditation on First Philosophy. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1951 (1641), p.61.

Die größere "Reinheit" der nicht auf die Sinne wirkenden Gegenstände, z. B., der Zahlen.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1937. (Vermischte Bemerkungen, p. 56.)

Alleen mathesis is zuiver symbolisch.

Frederik van Eeden: Redekundige Grondslag der Verstandhouding, # 32.

Wij kunnen ook geen wiskunstige lijnen tekenen; maar moeten het doen met strepen.

Frederik van Eeden: Redekundige Grondslag der Verstandhouding, # 32.

Der Mathematiker (Pascal), der die Schönheit eines Theorems der Zahlentheorie bewundert; er bewundert gleichsam eine Naturschönheit. Es ist wunderbar, sagt er, welch herrliche Eigenschaften die Zahlen haben. Es ist, als bewunderte er die Regelmässigkeiten einer art von Krystall.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1942. (Vermischte Bemerkungen, p. 83.)

Man könnte sagen: welch herrliche Gesetze hat der Schöpfer in die Zahlen gelegt!

Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1942. (Vermischte Bemerkungen, p. 84.)

In a sense, conceptual art returns to Judaism as it eliminates the image and focuses on the word.

Osvaldo Romberg : "Art to Art. Life to Life." Catalogue, Faith, Ridgefield: Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, 1999.