Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-l4dxg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T22:30:01.540Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

PHOTOGRAPHICALLY BASED KNOWLEDGE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2013

Dan Cavedon-Taylor
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Pictures are a quintessential source of aesthetic pleasure. This makes it easy to forget that they are epistemically valuable no less than they are aesthetically so. Pictures are representations. As such, they may furnish us with knowledge of the objects they represent. In this article I provide an account of why photographs are of greater epistemic utility than handmade pictures. To do so, I use a novel approach: I seek to illuminate the epistemic utility of photographs by situating both photographs and handmade pictures among the sources of knowledge. This method yields an account of photography's epistemic utility that better connects the issue with related issues in epistemology and is relatively superior to other accounts. Moreover, it answers a foundational issue in the epistemology of pictorial representation: ‘What kinds of knowledge do pictures furnish?’ I argue that photographs have greater epistemic utility than handmade pictures because photographs are sources of perceptual knowledge, while handmade pictures are sources of testimonial knowledge.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 283 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abell, C. 2010. “The Epistemic Value of Photographs.” In Abell, C. and Bantinaki, K. (eds), Philosophical Perspectives on Depiction, pp. 81–103. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Audi, R. 2002. “The Sources of Knowledge.” In Moser, P. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, pp. 71–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Audi, R. 2006. “Testimony, Credulity and Veracity.” In Lackey, J. and Sosa, E. (eds), The Epistemology of Testimony, pp. 25–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. 2002. “Non-Inferential Knowledge, Perceptual Experience, and Secondary Qualities: Placing McDowell's Empiricism.” In Smith, N. (ed.), Reading McDowell: On Mind and World, pp. 92–105. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cassam, Q. 2007. The Possibility of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cavedon-Taylor, D. 2009. “The Epistemic Status of Photographs and Paintings: A Response to Cohen and Meskin.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 67: 230–35.Google Scholar
Cohen, J., and Meskin, A. 2004. “On the Epistemic Value of Photographs.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 62: 197–210.Google Scholar
Costello, D., and Phillips, D. 2009. “Automatism, Causality and Realism: Foundational Problems in the Philosophy of Photography.” Philosophy Compass, 4: 1–21.Google Scholar
Currie, G. 1995. Image and Mind: Film, Philosophy and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Currie, G. 2004. “Documentary.” In Arts and Minds, pp. 63–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fricker, E. 1994. “Against Gullibility.” In B. Matilal, K. and Chakrabarti, A. (eds), Knowing From Words, pp. 125–61. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Graham, P. 2006. “Testimonial Justification: Inferential or Non-inferential?” Philosophical Quarterly, 56: 84–95.Google Scholar
Grice, P. 1957. “Meaning.” Philosophical Review, 66: 377–88.Google Scholar
Hopkins, R. 2012. “Factive Pictorial Experience: What's Special About Photographs?” Noûs, 46: 709–31.Google Scholar
Hossack, K. 2007. The Metaphysics of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, J. 2008. Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinson, J. 1984. “Hybrid Art Forms.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, 18: 5–13.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 1979. “Virtue and Reason.” The Monist, 62: 331–50.Google Scholar
Millar, A. 2000. “The Scope of Perceptual Knowledge.” Philosophy, 75: 73–88.Google Scholar
Moran, R. 2005. “Getting Told and Being Believed.” Philosopher's Imprint, 5: 1–29.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2004. “The Epistemology of Testimony.” Philosophical Issues, 14: 326–48.Google Scholar
Walden, S. 2012. “Photography and Knowledge.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 70: 139–49.Google Scholar
Walton, K. 1984. “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism.” Critical Inquiry, 11: 246–77.Google Scholar
Walton, K. 2008. “Postscripts to ‘Transparent Pictures’: Clarifications and To Do's.” In Walton, K., Marvelous Images: On Values and the Arts, pp. 110–16. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Young, J. 2001. Art and Knowledge. London: Routledge.Google Scholar