# Is seeing in a transparency effect **Opening (not a real abstract):** Philosophers disagree on the conditions that must hold for a viewer to understand a picture, but most agree that understanding a picture usually involves the experience of seeing-in: a visual awareness of the picture’s subject matter ‘in’ the picture’s surface. This paper proposes that seeing-in is illuminated by a perceptual phenomenon that has received extensive attention in perceptual psychology: transparency perception. Some, but not all examples of seeing-in can be understood as instances of transparency perception. In the case of pictures, these examples will typically involve a visual experience of both picture surface and subject matter, so that the subject matter appears as if seen through the surface of the picture. This proposal is unlikely to seem initially appealing: picture surfaces are **Authors:** [[Michael Newall]]