Digital

From Derrida & Wittgenstein by Garver and Lee:

The other thing that impresses us about Monet's paintings is the distinctive way this exactness of representation is conveyed. Its medium is pictorial rather than verbal, but it is pictorial in a way that is not photographic. Photographs have a kind of digital exactness, which now lets them be transmitted by electronic means.

In a book that focuses on two philosophers, both of whom primarily focused on language as the key to metaphysical and existential understanding, one would assume the authors would take great care to understand their own diction. This usage of digital is precisely the reason why people oftentimes conflate the ideas of digital, electronic, interactive, computerized, procedural, amongst a myriad of other related terms.

Digital stems from the Latin digitalis, meaning "relating to a finger" (originating from digitus, meaning "finger or toe"). Its correct appropriation, it would be safe to say, stems from the initial phalangeal understanding in two ways. The main facets of something that is, in fact, digital are (1) it consists of discrete units (e.g. fingers for counting) and (2) it relates to the fingers or toes. Hence, modern computers are properly digital in that they deal with binary units at their core, as well as can be manipulated with the hand via a keyboard and mouse. This secondary portion of the definition becomes difficult as technology outstrips physical limitations. For that matter, the primary portion of the definition, i.e. discreteness, will be the focus (though the secondary aspect will be revisited).

Now that digital has been pared down--consisting of discrete units--let's look at the quotation's use of the word. Here, digital is meant to convey something that is autonomous, objective, precise, and accurate. While Daston and Galison would surely take issue here with the objective part (as I do), the latter two are the the real culprits of misuse. The authors use digital in a manner in which digital tools, such as computers or video cameras, are described.

Photographs, especially those that influenced Impressionism, were actually analog, as many photographs are today (save the increasing number of digital photographs which are aptly named due to their use of discrete units called pixels). Analog technologies rely on a continuous scale. To compare, a pencil is analog and an early Etch A Sketch is digital--a pencil has infinite degrees of freedom (in the physics sense) and an Etch A Sketch relies on a grid (though later models were much freer). As discrete units shrink in size and explode in number, the comparisons between analog and digital is uncanny. Photographs are transmitted not because they are digital, but because digital technology can translate analog things into a workable form (this is the gripe many have with mp3s as opposed to records). But I digress.

One would be quick to point out the use of the (filler?) phrase "kind of". Maybe a terse "That is no excuse for muddling language" would be appropriate. However, the use of "kind of" only emphasizes their mistaken definition, further confining their usage I explained before. "Kind of" provides a buffer, making their loose speech looser and square-pegging their definition.

The point is clear--digital does not mean precise, nor accurate, nor objective, nor autonomous. Digital means, in the context of our world, discretely operating at some level. Photographs, for that matter, were not only non-digital when Monet developed his form, but they are non-digital now. (I would make the claim that digital photography is a wholly different art form and resembles traditional photographic methods as much as film does.) More startling is a photograph's perceived precision, accuracy, objectivity, and autonomy are derivative of its methods of capturing light without use of the hand. The photochemical reaction is not manipulated, i.e. "to touch with one's hands", and, as a result, looked at as more pure (again, Daston and Galison). In this sense (part 2 of the definition), the photograph is also non-digital.

A more precise (authors, please read as "digital") word would surely be mechanical or chemi-mechanical (though this latter option is kind of correct).

A few pages earlier, translating Blaise Pascal, the authors write:

"True eloquence makes fun of eloquence, true morality makes fun of morality; that is, the morality of judgment makes fun of the morality of intellect, which is without rules."

Eloquence and intellect, surely; language, not as much.