Thursday Post 4-16-09
Truth
"It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it"
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, novelist and dramatist.
Horwich, Paul. Truth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
What is truth? Paul Horwich gives the definitive exposition of a notable philosophical idea, 'minimalism'. This is the controversial idea that the nature of truth is entirely captured in the trivial fact that each proposition specifies its own condition for being true, and that truth is therefore, despite the philosophical struggles to which it has given rise, an entirely mundane and unpuzzling concept.
"'What is truth?' we sometimes ask, but the question tends to be rhetorical, conveying the somewhat defeatist idea that a good answer, if indeed there is such a thing, will be so subtle, so profound, and so hard to find, that to look for one would surely be a waste of time....The common sense notion that truth is a kind of 'correspondence with the facts' has never been worked out to anyone's satisfaction."
What is true and what is untrue are important concepts in my work. The fun part is the idea that there is no such thing as truth, at least in the absolute sense. In truth I am showing you a tree, but no, that's not quite it, I'm showing you the interpretation of a tree as rendered by my camera, the computer, and then the printer. And in truth, that is also not what I'm showing, I am showing dots on a piece of paper that represent a tree, but at the same time a cliff. This constant fight between what is true and what is not true in photography is so tangled with nonsense that it has almost ceased to be - and that's where my work comes into play. Because what am I showing you? I am showing you the result of a process, and so in a way, I am not lying at all.
"It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it"
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, novelist and dramatist.
Horwich, Paul. Truth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
What is truth? Paul Horwich gives the definitive exposition of a notable philosophical idea, 'minimalism'. This is the controversial idea that the nature of truth is entirely captured in the trivial fact that each proposition specifies its own condition for being true, and that truth is therefore, despite the philosophical struggles to which it has given rise, an entirely mundane and unpuzzling concept.
"'What is truth?' we sometimes ask, but the question tends to be rhetorical, conveying the somewhat defeatist idea that a good answer, if indeed there is such a thing, will be so subtle, so profound, and so hard to find, that to look for one would surely be a waste of time....The common sense notion that truth is a kind of 'correspondence with the facts' has never been worked out to anyone's satisfaction."
What is true and what is untrue are important concepts in my work. The fun part is the idea that there is no such thing as truth, at least in the absolute sense. In truth I am showing you a tree, but no, that's not quite it, I'm showing you the interpretation of a tree as rendered by my camera, the computer, and then the printer. And in truth, that is also not what I'm showing, I am showing dots on a piece of paper that represent a tree, but at the same time a cliff. This constant fight between what is true and what is not true in photography is so tangled with nonsense that it has almost ceased to be - and that's where my work comes into play. Because what am I showing you? I am showing you the result of a process, and so in a way, I am not lying at all.
Labels: Thursday
posted by Megan Wagner at
2:16 PM
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