Concepts of Truth in the Photographic Image

Abstract

There is a commonsense understanding of photographs that, due to their apparent realism, they are unique among still images. Even when we distrust a photograph it is usually because of some suspicion of fakery. Photographs are presumed evidentially privileged because of their chemical and physical necessity. They exist only because their subjects exist or did exist and because those subjects directly caused the images. As a consequence of these qualities photographs are presumed unique conveyors of the truth and innocent recorders of the real.

On the other hand this view frequently excludes photography as a vehicle of the higher truths which we associate with the arts. We assume that the artist expresses her message using materials which are sufficiently malleable that not only the existent is portrayed, but the non-existent and the imaginary as well.

This thesis shows that the commonsense notion that photography has a privileged position in its ability to record the real is in error. I examine the underlying assumptions of Roger Scruton's "Photography and Representation", a sophisticated defense of the commonsense view. The result of this analysis is that causal necessity in the photographic process is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for any privileged notion of photographic truth. This opens photography to wider expressive and truth functional uses.

Next I examine the book Truth and Falsehood in Visual Images by David Carrier and Mark Roskill. It reveals a range of approaches to the notion of truth in visual imagery. Discussions of photography seldom examine the way truth values shift when subjected to varying contexts and discourses. To address this, I examine a chapter on truth in fictional writing in Lorraine Code's Epistemic Responsibility in order to come to an understanding of the narrative process. The idea of a narrative process is then used in conjunction with the findings of the earlier analyses to suggest that still images must be viewed in their discursive and narrative contexts to understand their relations to truth.

Finally I examine how photographs may be viewed as artifacts which absorb narrative from their discursive contexts in order to attain their truth values. Contemporary artists use photographs in ways which call into question these narrative and discursive uses in order to criticize the ways in which imagery is used in popular culture.