Norton Batkin'sPhotography and Philosophy

Abstract

Abstract Norton Batkin's Photography and Philosophy was once a Harvard dissertation, accepted in 1981. It is unlike anything else published on the history of the medium, and wiil be of the utmost interest to anyone who has ever been troubled by ‘photography history’. Anyone who makes the effort is likely to emerge the more troubled, but all to the good. The last of its six sections is on some of the photography of Paul Strand, and that warrants close attention. The Strand analyses, though, seem to be in the nature of a reward, attractive and digestible, for those who have made the journey. The preceding five sections invite comparison with Wittgenstein's linguistic analyses, and sometimes with the prose pieces of Samuel Beckett. They are written with declared circumspection, and invite the same. At journey's end a careful and persevering strident will take a sceptical view of what has so far passed for photography history.