JDMvW Posted December 3, 2020 Share Posted December 3, 2020 Does photography have any Categorical imperatives? Does "f/8 and be there" count? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikemorrell Posted December 3, 2020 Share Posted December 3, 2020 No. Does photography have any Categorical imperatives? Does "f/8 and be there" count? [ATTACH=full]1366835[/ATTACH] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
movingfinger Posted December 3, 2020 Share Posted December 3, 2020 Isn't the sunny categorical imperative: f/16 and 1/ISO. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted December 3, 2020 Share Posted December 3, 2020 The categorical imperative demands absolute necessity, in other words it must happen universally and under absolutely ALL conditions. There can be no qualifications. For Kant, it was also a moral basis, not a practical one. Most importantly, the categorical imperative applies to man (meaning "people") alone and it applies to man's reason. Much photography is guided by more important things to it than reason, so I'm with Mike. No. "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthur_gottschalk Posted December 6, 2020 Share Posted December 6, 2020 Are we talking about the guy who hung out with Hagel, Schlage and Schiller? Kant understand any of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted December 6, 2020 Share Posted December 6, 2020 Are we talking about the guy who hung out with Hagel, Schlage and Schiller? Kant understand any of it. I think Kant used to babysit for Hagel Hegel! :) "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin McAmera Posted December 6, 2020 Share Posted December 6, 2020 Would it be the principle that photographs are an absolute good thing, and therefore making more of them is a good way to spend our time? ..but I'll see your 'f/8 and be there' and raise you 'take the lens-cap off'. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted December 6, 2020 Share Posted December 6, 2020 Would it be the principle that photographs are an absolute good thing, and therefore making more of them is a good way to spend our time? :) Interestingly, Kant and photography go together well. Kant says that there is a real world out there but we can’t know it. We don’t have access to reality, just to our perception and experience of it. What we see is filtered through “categories” structured in our minds. An absolute good, for him, would be a human, moral way of being, not an activity like photography. But it seems to be that photographs which sometimes get mistaken for the things in the world they are photographs of are very much like Kant’s idea of human perceptions. Our perceptions, for Kant, bring us a representation and sometimes an enhancement and sometimes a restricted or even false view of reality. Photos can do the same. The only Kantian categorical imperative I can imagine would be, “Photograph others as you would have them photograph you,” which I don’t think works for photography much better than the Golden Rule works in real life. 1 "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDMvW Posted December 7, 2020 Author Share Posted December 7, 2020 “Photograph others as you would have them photograph you,” raises the question of the relation, or not, of the Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 raises the question of the relation, or not, of the Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule, Indeed, they're related but perhaps more like cousins than sisters. The Golden Rule is more individual and more empirical ... "as you would have others do unto you." The Categorical Imperative, though there are some instances of it that sound more like the Golden Rule, is a more universal maxim. Most importantly, Kant's Imperative comes from rationality itself and tells us to act as we would want all others to act to all others, in similar circumstances. Kant's is a universal law in that it makes all others the basis for how we act, not just how we would want to be treated. "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 In terms of any kind of moral question and photography, I find myself to be on a comfortable track when I think of it as a shared endeavor with my human and non-human subjects and my human (and sometimes non-human:)) viewers. Photography is something shared with the world itself because the camera is so often pointed at it, and something I also share with viewers. Sharing, at its most potent, involves empathy, which is a good place for any universal moral maxim to start. There's plenty of room for a strong will or ego in there, if you make room for it, especially since so many of us share in having a strong sense of self. "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
q.g._de_bakker Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 Take the lens cap off. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthur_gottschalk Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 Can't do Kant, but I do think Hegel explains it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
q.g._de_bakker Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 Hegel explains? Hmm... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDMvW Posted December 13, 2020 Author Share Posted December 13, 2020 Can't do Kant, but I do think Hegel explains it all. Ah, but as another famous pair of philosophers indicated, you need to turn "Hegel on his head" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted December 13, 2020 Share Posted December 13, 2020 "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDMvW Posted December 14, 2020 Author Share Posted December 14, 2020 @samstevens Hypnotoad?? Not to be confused with Hypnoken or Pepe, I'm sure. It is, however, somehow strangely appropriate. o_O There is singing sometime after 2 minutes, but with my hearing, I couldn't make much out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthur_gottschalk Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 OK, while we are at it, let's add Wittgenstein to the list of those who explain it. Between him and Hegel nothing else needs to be said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 Wittgenstein even rejected his own explanations in his later and more seasoned reflections, less explanations than written impressions. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 Kant’s brilliance was shaped by a strict mindset, thus the imperative sought and found. Wittgenstein yielded to a change in core thinking which became a kind of lack of core thinking, thus a more malleable approach to life’s questions. The notion of imperative doesn’t suit how I view and practice photography. I’ll usually choose a could over being dictated to by a should. "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthur_gottschalk Posted December 24, 2020 Share Posted December 24, 2020 You might say photography is a form of therapy similar to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
q.g._de_bakker Posted December 24, 2020 Share Posted December 24, 2020 (edited) Ouch! I like the idea of a "no imperative" imperative, if and when you like. A voluntary imperative. So we can keep our lens caps on, forget to put film or batteries in our cameras, create images that are or are not worth creating and/or seeing, et cetera, just because we feel like it. Edited December 24, 2020 by q.g._de_bakker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted December 25, 2020 Share Posted December 25, 2020 Kant was not terribly in favor of stating the obvious. This is why his categorical imperative was something beyond, "Remember to breathe." He thought, and so did others, it was a pivotal and deep moral founding of being human. "Take your lens cap off" would not have served his purpose, even though he'd recognize it as a good idea for taking pictures. He, of course, doesn't say anything about photography, but his aesthetics suggest that, for him, art would involve many similar concerns as morality. Were he to take up photography, my guess would be his imperative would be to show the order of the world and the wonder of nature. "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
httpwww.photo.netbarry Posted December 31, 2020 Share Posted December 31, 2020 Does photography have any Categorical imperatives? Does "f/8 and be there" count? [ATTACH=full]1366835[/ATTACH] Do you mean ideas that are true no matter what nietzsches they fall into? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaellinder Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 Do you mean ideas that are true no matter what nietzsches they fall into? Very punny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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