Diarmuid Costello - On Photography: A Philosophical Inquiry

On Photography

What is photography? Is it a source of knowledge or an art? Many have said the former because it records the world automatically, others the latter because it expresses human subjectivity. Can photography be both or must we choose?

In On Photography: A Philosophical Inquiry, Diarmuid Costello examines these fascinating questions and more, drawing on images by Alfred Stieglitz, Berenice Abbott, Paul Strand, Lee Friedlander, James Welling, and Wolfgang Tillmans, among others, and the writings of Elizabeth Eastlake, Peter Henry Emerson, Edward Weston, Siegfried Kracauer, Andr Bazin, and Stanley Cavell. This sets the scene for the contemporary stand-off between sceptical and non-sceptical Orthodoxy in the work of Roger Scruton and Kendall Walton, and a New Theory of Photography taking its cue from Lszl Moholy-Nagy and Patrick Maynard.

Written in a clear and engaging style, On Photography is essential reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of photography, aesthetics, art, and visual studies.

Diarmuid Costello is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts at the University of Warwick, UK.

Diarmuid Costello

On Photography

A Philosophical Inquiry

for three generations of photographers

Contents

Introduction
On photography, then and now

One
Foundational intuitions and folk theory

Two
Aesthetic scepticism and its critics

Three
Transparency and its critics

Conclusion
The unity of photography

Gerhard Richter, Lesende, 1994. Oil on canvas, 2018Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac 28 in. (72 102 cm). Image Gerhard Richter. Reproduced with permission of the artist.

Gerhard Richter, Betty, 1988. Oil on canvas, 4018Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac 2838Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (102 72 cm). Image Gerhard Richter. Reproduced with permission of the artist.

douard Manet, Roses mousseuses dans un vase [Moss roses in a vase], 1882. Oil on canvas, 22 1358Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (55.9 34.6 cm). Credit: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA/Bridgeman Images.

Wolfgang Tillmans, Freischwimmer 16, 2003. Chromogenic print, on paper on board, 943 70712Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (2,395 1,797 cm). Wolfgang Tillmanns. Image courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London.

Jeff Wall, Dead Troops Talk (A Vision after an Ambush of a Red Army Patrol, near Moqor, Afghanistan, Winter 1986), 1992. Transparency in lightbox, 9018Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac 16418Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (228.92 416.88 cm). The Broad Art Foundation.

James Welling, Cascade, 1980. Gelatin silver contact print, 434Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac 334Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (12 9.5 cm). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London.

James Welling, 9818, 2009. Inkjet print on rag paper, 3323Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac 5012Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (85.5 128.3 cm). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London. Philip Johnson Glass House is a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Frontispiece Albert Renger-Patzsch, Tpferhnde, 1925. Gelatin silver print, 7116Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac 9116Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (18 23 cm). Archiv Ann and Jrgen Wilde.

0.1 Walker Evans, Factory and Smokestacks, New York City, 19281930. Film negative dimensions 158Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac 212Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (4.13 6.35 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Walker Evans Archive, 1994 (1994.251.102). Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

1.1 Peter Henry Emerson, A Rushy Shore, 1886. Platinum print, 7316Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac 11716Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (18.3 29.1 cm). Image: The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

1.2 Alfred Stieglitz, The Hand of Man, 1902, printed 1910. Photogravure, 912Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac 12916Frac Root a EndRoot Over b EndFrac in. (24.2 31.9 cm). Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.