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What's so new about the "new" theory of photography?
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Costello, Diarmuid (2017) What's so new about the "new" theory of photography? Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 75 (4). pp. 439-452. doi:10.1111/jaac.12404
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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1111/jaac.12404
Abstract
This paper considers the shift currently taking place in philosophical thinking about photography. What I call “new” theory departs from philosophical orthodoxy as to when photographs come into existence. I trace this to Dawn Wilson (née Phillips) on the “photographic event.” To assess the new theory’s newness one needs a grip on the old. I divide this between “sceptical” and “non-skeptical orthodoxy,” where this turns on the theory’s implications for photography’s standing as art. New theory emerges as a response to sceptical orthodoxy (Roger Scruton) in particular. I divide new theory between “restrictive” (Paloma Atencia-Linares) and “permissive” (Dominic McIver Lopes) responses to sceptical orthodoxy, and raise challenges for both. The restrictive version arguably divides what does and does not count as strictly photographic in arbitrary ways; the permissive version rules in images that are not obviously photographs, and faces two difficulties individuating photographs. I conclude by noting several questions that need to be considered more fully before new theory has the upper hand over orthodoxy. These concern its ability to account for photography’s epistemic capacities, the extent to which it constitutes an advance over non-sceptical orthodoxy (notably, Kendall Walton), and whether new theorists have yet to be new enough when it comes to photographic agency.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BH Aesthetics T Technology > TR Photography |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Photography -- Philosophy, Photography, Artistic | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism | ||||||
| Publisher: | John Wiley & Sons Ltd. | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0021-8529 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 3 November 2017 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 75 | ||||||
| Number: | 4 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 439-452 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1111/jaac.12404 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
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