Motion Picture, World-Picture, and Surveyable Representation

Motion Picture,World-Picture, and
Surveyable Representation
Dr.Thomas Wachtendorf
wachtendorf@akademiephilosophie.de
Forschungsstelle Erkenntnis, Universität Oldenburg, Germany
Film-Philosophy Conference 2017
July 4–6, 2017
Lancaster University, UK

Thomas Wachtendorf
Motion Picture,World-Picture, and Surveyable Representation
Preliminary remark
In this talk I am trying to point out that films are (a) art
and (b) have a distinct epistemic value.
That does not go without saying in Germany.
So at first I am going to take a little detour and say
something about the history of filmphilosophy in
Germany before I will make a proposal what this
epistemic value could be like.

Thomas Wachtendorf
1. Film as Technology
2. Iconic Turn
3. The director as author
4. World-Picture
5. Surveyable representation
German philosophers MARTIN HEIDEGGER and THEODOR
W. ADORNO both put emphasize on the claim that art is
where truth takes place.
Nevertheless, they don’t consider a film to be art.
Why is that so?
Both authors argue that the aim of art must be to reveal
truth – whereas „truth“ is not taken to always be easy to
understand or even to be entertaining.
According to HEIDEGGER and ADORNO, a film has another
aim: it must be profitable for the film industry.Therefore
as many people as possible must see the film.That’s why
a film is not directed to reveal truth, but merely to
entertain.

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
In this sense HEIDEGGER (and ADORNO) take a film to be
nothing more than an industrial product. But technology,
as HEIDEGGER states, in fact obscures truth and prevents
the subjects from finding the truth of being and developing
a self (because technology has another aim, too).
HEIDEGGER and especially ADORNO of course have just
witnessed the power of propaganda films and how this
power could lead people away from truth.
The reign of technology uses film and radio in a way that
makes us stop hearing and seeing [to thrash the living
daylights out of us,TW]. – HEIDEGGER, DieTechnik, my translation

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
2. Iconic Turn
While STANLEY CAVELL put film on the philosophical
agenda already in1971, due to the aforementioned
verdict of HEIDEGGER/ADORNO it took about 20 more
years until this topic finally was discussed in Germany.
There, film-philosophy emerged along with the new
pictorial-science.
In analogy to RICHARD RORTYS linguistic turn, GOTTFRIED
BOEHM declared an iconic turn in 1994, stating that
pictures are a source of knowledge sui generis.
If this is true, also films must have an epistemic value of
their own right.

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
2. Iconic Turn
BOEHM tries to show that by formulating some
arguments that focus on the phenomenon of showing (in
the sense of deixis).
If it could be proved (a) that showing can't be reduced to
saying and (b) that showing constitutes sense, showing
would refer to a distinct realm of sense:
(a) [1] To constitute sense, saying depends on a deixis
(= showing), therefore the deixis couldn’t be reduced
to saying.
(a) [2] Language is distinct.The relation between word-
reference-meaning may be unclear sometimes or even
problematic, but it is nevertheless distinct. Images in
contrast always bear a continuum within theirselves.
Many aspects of an image for example are not either-
or, but as-well-as. Therefore images couldn’t be
reduced to language.

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
2. Iconic Turn
(b) The world nowadays is fully depicted.There are more
images than what can be depicted.Thus, showing
construes a world since it shows how the world
should be seen in a speciﬁc way.
If these arguments are correct, then ﬁlms can be a source
of knowledge sui generis.
Insofar knowledge needs a knowing subject, the director
must be understood as an author who is presenting his
or her insights (knowledge) to the audience.

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
2. Iconic Turn
(Of course a film could work as a collection of symbols,
also.These symbols, then, are used as a replacement for
what they refer to. In this case the film – so to speak –
merely reflects sense and does not constitute sense.)

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
3.The Director as Author
World Director ID
(W) (rejective)
In this case a film tells something about the way the
director sees the world, not how the world is or
should be.
The director shouldn’t be called an author in a full
sense here. He or she and her or his film are merely
documents of the Zeitgeist and therefore throw the
audience back to the view onto how the world is
seen at a specific time. Such a film I call rejective
(from latin: re-iacere: throwing back).
The relation between ID
(W) and the world remains
unclear at this point.
The (too) simple model
??

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
3.The Director as Author
World Director ID
(W) (rejective)
To reﬁne this simple model let’s take a look at the
relation between the director and the world…
… from the point of view of Ludwig Wittgenstein!

Thomas Wachtendorf
„That is to say, the questions that we raise and our
doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt
from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.“ (On
Certainty §341)
„At the foundation of well–founded belief lies belief that is
not founded.“ (On Certainty §253)
„That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientiﬁc
investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted.“ (On
Certainty §342)
„What I hold fast to is not one proposition but a nest of
propositions.“ (On Certainty §225)
„But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying
myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisﬁed
of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against
which I distinguish between true and false.“ (On Certainty
§94)
4.World-Picture
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
4.World-Picture
World Director ID
(W) (rejective)
Everyone believes something about the world he hasn’t
verified by himself. Some of these beliefs necessarily
cannot be doubted, because something must stand firm
so that another can move (= be true or false against …)
These assumptions are the hinges in which the question of
right or wrong first of all becomes possible.
One is adopted to them by taking part (and being a part
of) primitive language games, e.g. such language games in
which one learns to use the language.
This leads to a pragmatist point: „it is our acting, which lies
at the bottom of the language-game.“ (On Certainty §204)
World-Picture – Summary

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
4.World-Picture
World Director ID
(W) (rejective)
The assumptions I have adopted and which I am
acquainted to – the ungrounded belief as well as the
grounded belief – are derived from the world in a very
broad sense, but on the other hand they strongly
inﬂuence the way I see the world.

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
Seeing-As
„I contemplate a face, and then suddenly notice its
likeness to another. I see that it has not changed; and yet I see it
differently. I call this experience ‚noticing an
aspect’.“ (Philosophical Investigations ii XI 193)
„But we can also see the illustration now as one thing now as
another. —So we interpret it, and see it as we interpret
it.“ (Philosophical Investigations ii, XI 193)
„Hence the ﬂashing of an aspect on us seems half visual
experience, half thought.“ (Philosophical Investigations ii, Xi 197)
Perception Seeing-AsInterpretation
(in the sense of
„to construe“)

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
Seeing-As

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
Seeing-As
„Do I really see something different each time, or do I
only interpret what I see in a different way? I am inclined to say
the former. But why?—To interpret is to think, to do something;
seeing is a state.“ (Philosophical Investigations ii, XI 212)
„You only 'see the duck and rabbit aspects' if you are already
conversant with the shapes of those two animals.“ (Philosophical
Investigations ii, XI 207)
interpreting = acting

Thomas Wachtendorf
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
5. Surveyable
representation
5. Surveyable Representation
seeing-as
World Director
The almost appropriate model
Where is the place for ID
(W) in this model?

Thomas Wachtendorf
The ﬁnal model
seeing-as
World Director
Here:
Reﬂections on
Historienda
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
5. Surveyable
representation

Thomas Wachtendorf
Historienda
In intentional contexts artifacts (or concepts) respond to a certain
problem.
For example, a hammer looks the way it does, because it was
made (among others) to solve the problem of hitting a nail into
the wall. Its shape, material etc. isn’t accidentally.
To understand a problem, one must understand (a) the problem’s
history and (b) the history of the attempts to solve this problem.
The resulting history of sense I call historienda.
Historienda constitute an artifact’s sense.
MICHEL FOUCAULT made this method known e.g. in his famous
studies The Order ofThings, or Discipline and Punish.
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
5. Surveyable
representation

Thomas Wachtendorf
Historienda can be interpreted as what Wittgenstein calls a
surveyable representation:
„A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have
an overview of the use of our words. – Our grammar is deficient
in surveyability.A surveyable representation produces precisely
that kind of understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’.
Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links.
The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental
significance for us. It characterizes the way we represent things,
how we look at matters. (Is this a Weltanschauung?)“
(Philosophical Investigations §122, translated by Peter Hacker)
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
5. Surveyable
representation

Thomas Wachtendorf
Projective
Wittgenstein stresses the importance of ﬁnding connections
between the words as well as intermediate cases.
In doing so we understand the world, but also inﬂuence it by
changing the way we see it as (Our Weltanschauung changes).
My interpretation of the world, then, implicitly becomes a way
how the world – from my point of view – should be seen.
This interpretation likewise develops a view of a future world. It
presents a possible world.
An interpretation of such a kind I will call projective. (from latin:
pro-iacere: throwing forward).
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
5. Surveyable
representation

Thomas Wachtendorf
5. Surveyable Presentation
ID
(W), then, becomes
morally relevant, because
it gives insights into a
world-picture, thereby
changes the world by
stating how the world
should be, and by
teaching us to see it that
way:
„Look at things like this!“
(Culture andValue 61e)
The ﬁnal model
seeing-as
World Director ID
(W) (projective)
As interpreting is acting
and in a pragmatic sense
acting lies at the bottom
of the language-game,
interpreting inﬂuences
the way we see the
world.
2. Iconic Turn
4. World-Picture
5. Surveyable
presentation

Motion Picture, World-Picture, and Surveyable Representation

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