James Welling, Flower 2 (2006). Image (C)  James Welling, courtesy of the artist
James Welling, Flower 2 (2006). Image (C) James Welling, courtesy of the artist

The New Philosophy of Photography

Hosted by the Institute of Philosophy

Friday 13th – Saturday 14th February  2015
Senate House, Malet Street WC1, London
Deller Hall

A collaboration between the London Aesthetics Forum and the
Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts at the University of Warwick 

This workshop brings together philosophers and theorists from the UK, USA, Canada, France, Belgium and Germany to discuss recent developments in the philosophy of photography. Over the last few years, philosophers have belatedly begun to consider the challenge that artists’ use of photography may present for standard philosophical conceptions of photography as a ‘purely causal’ process ensuring ‘belief independent feature tracking’ or ‘natural counter-factual dependence’ of photographs on what they are photographs of. These challenges can no longer be accommodated by ad hoc extensions to existing theories, or by treating artistic uses of photography as a special case. Moreover, it is not only philosophy that is implicated by taking photographic art seriously: such core art theoretical notions as ‘indexicality’ are similarly put into question. This workshop considers philosophers’ attempts to address such problems to date, and asks whether a fundamental re-conception of the field is now required.

James Welling, Glass House 9818 (2009); imag e © James Welling, courtesy of the artist
James Welling, Glass House 9818 (2009); imag e © James Welling, courtesy of the artist

Confirmed Speakers

Provisional programme

Friday 13 February

09.30: Tea & Coffee

10.00 Welcome

10.10-11.40: Diarmuid Costello, ‘What’s So New about the “New” Philosophy of Photography?’

11.40-1.10: Dominic McIver Lopes, ‘Abstract Photography’

1.10-2.30: Lunch (own arrangements for non-speakers)

2.30-4.00: Laure Blanc-Benon, ‘Black & White versus Colour: An Issue for the Philosophy of Photography’

4-4.30: Tea & Coffee

Speaker 4.30-6.00: Bence Nanay, ‘Two-Dimensional versus Three-Dimensional Pictorial Organization in Photographs’

Saturday 14 February

09.30: Tea & Coffee

10-11.30: Dawn M. Wilson, ‘Composing, Conducting, Performing, Improvising and Sampling: Photographers Creating Art’

11.30-1.00: Paloma Atencia Linares, ‘Photographic Communication beyond Grice’

1.00-2.00: Lunch (own arrangements for non-speakers)

2.00-3.30: Charles Palermo, ‘Standing a Round: Photography, Agency and Money’

3.30-4: Tea & Coffee

4.00-5.30: Martin Seel, ‘Three Pairs of Pictures (and an Encore)’

5.30-6.30: Concluding roundtable

Attendance is free but requires advance registration. Please register below.

[pdb_signup]

This workshop is supported by the British Society
of Aesthetics.

bsa_logo_hrz_bw_high (in white box)