To be considered as?

Question

Which is correct - "to be considered something" or "to be considered as something"? For example: The structuralist approach assumes that paleolithic art represents certain symbolism. This particular painting matches criteria to be considered (as?) such symbolism".

KrisBlueNZ · Accepted Answer

"... to be CONSIDERED AS something" is wrong, I believe, though it is not uncommon.
"... to be CONSIDERED something" and "... to be CONSIDERED TO BE something" are right.
There is one case where CONSIDERED AS could be used: when CONSIDERED relates to candidates, for example people applying for a job. "Mr. Jones is good enough to be CONSIDERED AS an applicant for this position (job)". This is a subtle distinction. and "... CONSIDERED FOR this position" is better. I suggest just avoiding CONSIDERED AS altogether.

Your example sentence has some problems. I'm NOT SURE about what I'm saying here, since I know nothing about art. The explanation below could be wrong.
SYMBOLISM in cave paintings (I assume "paleolithic art" is cave paintings) is a way of representing things using SYMBOLS.
So the first sentence should say "The structuralist approach ASSERTS that paleolithic art USES symbolism", in other words, according to the structuralist approach, paleolithic art uses a system in which certain images or markings in paleolithic art REPRESENT or SYMBOLIZE certain things. This is what SYMBOLISM means; things in the picture are SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATIONS of other things. For example, (and I'm just making these up), a person could be represented by a circle with four lines in it (a circle for the face and lines for the eyes, nose and mouth) and a tiger might be represented by the same thing with extra lines to represent (symbolize) whiskers. Like I said, I'm just making this up.
This means that these cave paintings USE symbolism, they do not REPRESENT symbolism.
When you say "... CERTAIN symbolism", perhaps you mean that there is a specific set of symbols that represent specific things, i.e. a standardised, consistent symbolism. If that's not what you mean, I would not use CERTAIN.
The second sentence
"This particular painting matches THE criteria to be considered an example of symbolism". This is a lot better but not quite right, but I can't figure out how to improve it.
As I said, I may be misunderstanding how these terms are used in the art world. All my taste is in my mouth and all my culture is in my fridge :-)

Maksimko · Answer

Thanks a lot for this helpful and comprehensive comment.

KrisBlueNZ · Answer

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To be considered as?

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