Photography and Ontology

Watch this video
http://vimeo.com/12302777

"Photography and Ontology" By Blake Stimson, Professor of Art History at University of California, Davis

"Photography has two distinctly appealing properties. On the one had, it has mechanically-enhanced artistic powers: it can capture a moment, or orchestrate an intricate arrangement, or populate an empty frame with the blink of an eye. We might call this its vertical or qualitative axis, and plot any given photograph according to its degree of artistic success according to whatever criteria we might choose--exhibitions, say, or reviews, or individual judgment of its mastery. On the other hand, photography has mechanically and electronically-accelerated powers of distribution like computers and promises something like a factory in every pocket or handbag. We might refer to this as its horizontal, or quantitative axis, plotting the spread of photographicization by the picture, say, or camera, or megapixel, or ISO sensitivity. Both of these properties makes its own claim to universality, to ontology, to the meaning of being, one idealist, the other materialist, one metaphorical, the other metonymical. Because of its uniquely ingrained connection with art and its broad appeal as non-art, photography's ontology is defined to an exceptional extent by a dynamic tension between the one and the all. This presentation will explore some of the sociopolitical effects and opportunities arising from that distinctive tension."

Philosophy goes to the movies

Philosophy goes to the movies
Christopher falzon , 2007 , routledge
(Many interesting chapters using examples of films to illustrate philosophical inquiry)

Introduction
   Philosophy + film
- the book is founded on the idea that films represent a collective visual memory, vast repository of images which many ideas and arguments can be discussed.
- within philosophy there is a degree of prejudice against the visual image p3
- it is thought that images are concrete and particular, whereas philosophy is concerned with the abstract and the universal.
- thank you plato for this… The myth of the cave… Even worse the modern cinema is very much like his cave, dark + transfixed by images removed from the real world.
- seems cinema is the opposite of philosophy… However, plato himself instills a striking image into his philosophical discourse. Thus, it is a pathway to understanding… (Reminds me of wynn bullock)  p6
- philosophy is full of arresting images and imaginative visions to illustrate and clarify positions

-  calling into question the perception that philosophy is remote from everyday existence, concerned only with abstraction and universalisation. P5
- second possible concern, from the pov of film, do we run the risk of distorting films and treating them as examples for philosophy (i think they can be used for many things)

- the idea of film as philosophy… Two points.
1. Whatever philosophical themes and content going on, it is only part of it.
2. The extent which films can be used to illustrate and shed light on philosophical themes and positions.

The philosophical approach
- what is philosophy’s subject area? It is so vast.
- jay Rosenberg “philosophy is a second order discipline” . It is a form of reflection in which we try to think about, clarify, and critically evaluate the most basic terms within which we think and act. P11

Overview of the book
- starting point in each chapter is ancient greek philosophy… Roughly historical order.
- philosophy of mind may be very relevant to what i need to research (functionalism etc if i remember correctly)
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(Just a thought, ontology of the photographer… Well even though the other half of my understanding is the interpreter… Could he even be a photographer? The witness? He is making pictures in his head, we all are!!!! Everyone is a photographer, we all make images, we all reference examples in the world to make our points,..)
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Star trek clips… Such as the transporter accident… Riker being tom and riker two identities!
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Wynn Bullock Quote

"As human beings we have a fundamental choice: we can either search for meaning within the realm of what appears to be real, or we can challenge the limits of that reality by asking if there might not be something more."

Things to discuss with Andrew...

An understanding if a lot of material that I have read… Reminder to self that I am just posing questions and not the answers yet. If there are answers at all.

The format for the assignment to take? Pictures I can use of other photographers, ATM thinking I’m just using my own… Etc…

The thoughts about ‘ontology of the photographer’ seems slightly paradoxical, of course he exists, or does he, what of the times where a photographer/artist was invented?.?

ontology / Heidegger

ontology = 
Theory of being as such. It was originally called “first philosophy” by Aristotle. In the 18th century Christian Wolff contrasted ontology, or general metaphysics, with special metaphysical theories of souls, bodies, or God, claiming that ontology could be a deductive discipline revealing the essences of things. This view was later strongly criticized by David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Ontology was revived in the early 20th century by practitioners of phenomenology and existentialism, notably Edmund Husserl and his student Martin Heidegger. In the English-speaking world, interest in ontology was renewed in the mid-20th century by W.V.O. Quine; by the end of the century it had become a central discipline of analytic philosophy. See also idealism; realism; universal.

Heidegger =
In 1927 he published his magnum opus, Being and Time. It strongly influenced Jean-Paul Sartre and other existentialists, and, despite Heidegger’s protestations, he was classed as the leading atheistic existentialist.
His declared purpose in the work was to raise anew the question of the meaning of being. His preliminary analysis of human existence (Dasein, or “being-there”) employed the method of phenomenology.
In the early 1930s his thought underwent a Kehre (“turning around”), which some have seen as an abandonment of the problem of Being and Time. Then the whole Nazi thing…
Phenomenology restricts the philosopher’s attention to the pure data of consciousness, uncontaminated by metaphysical theories or scientific assumptions. Husserl’s concept of the life-world—as the individual’s personal world as directly experienced—expressed this same idea of immediacy

incompatible with metaphysics!?
I'm starting to like the notion of the 'being' 

Which Philosopher are you?

Your Result: W.v.O. Quine / Late Wittgenstein

60%
There is no provable absolute truth. The way you see things is dependant on your language. Truths exist only within a language, and change as the language does. —This quiz was made by S. A-Lerer.

58%
Plato (strict rationalists)

50%
Aristotle
48%
Nietzsche
42%
Immanuel Kant
40%
Sartre/Camus (late existentialists)
34%
Early Wittgenstein / Positivists

To look at: Fred Ritchin

Fred Ritchin - bending the frame