TY - JOUR
T1 - Shot in the dark : notes on photography, causality, and content
AU - PETTERSSON, Carl Mikael
N1 - Thanks to Jonas Åkerman, Staffan Carlshamre, Kathrin Glüer-Pagin, Rob Hopkins, Anna Jörngården, Sara Packalén, Emma Wallin, and an anonymous referee for this journal for valuable discussion and/or comments. The research was supported, in part, by Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse and Birgit and Gad Rausings Stiftelse för Humanistisk Forskning.
PY - 2012/10/1
Y1 - 2012/10/1
N2 - Photography is often said to be an essentially causal medium. This paper addresses the role of causality in photography and argues for three main claims: (i) a causal theory of photography does not force us to say that images of backlit objects are photographs of the back surfaces of the said objects (as Roy Sorensen would have it); rather, (ii), such images, I suggest, are photographs of the objects and what Alva Noë would call their ‘looks’; (iii) the notion of ‘looks’ furnishes us with a way to move closer to an answer to the question of the appropriate causal relation in photography.
AB - Photography is often said to be an essentially causal medium. This paper addresses the role of causality in photography and argues for three main claims: (i) a causal theory of photography does not force us to say that images of backlit objects are photographs of the back surfaces of the said objects (as Roy Sorensen would have it); rather, (ii), such images, I suggest, are photographs of the objects and what Alva Noë would call their ‘looks’; (iii) the notion of ‘looks’ furnishes us with a way to move closer to an answer to the question of the appropriate causal relation in photography.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84866076955&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2012.00073.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2012.00073.x
M3 - Journal Article (refereed)
SN - 0031-8094
VL - 62
SP - 759
EP - 776
JO - The Philosophical Quarterly
JF - The Philosophical Quarterly
IS - 249
ER -