Emmanuel Alloa

This book is a defense of perspectivism in the age of post-truth. At the crossroads of science, art, and philosophy, it unearths a tradition that we must rediscover: the point of view is not only what divides, it is also what is shared. Today, perspective is associated with individualism and personal viewpoints. But in an age of post-truth, the only robust answer to relativism lies in fact in a reappraisal of perspectivism. In discussion with contemporary new realisms of various sorts, this book makes a case why perspectivism alone can avoid us falling back into epistemological naivetés. A journey into the history of optics, art, philosophy, and social psychology, this book unearths the forgotten tradition of perspectiva communis, which makes perspective the vector of a common horizon. This book argues that vision is never immediate. Rather, to see through is the key to understanding the perspectival operation. We never see by ourselves—all seeing must pass through something other than itself, through the mediation and the detour of an apparatus or the witness of a third party. Besides the theoretical framework for this new approach to perspective, this book presents a series of case studies ranging from innovative interpretations of classical authors and key moments in the history of art—from ancient painting, trompe l’oeil, and Brunelleschi’s experiment in Renaissance Florence—to the issue of perspective in the work of contemporary artists such as Robert Smithson. The Share of Perspective will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, phenomenology, art history, and the history of sciences.

This book is a defense of perspectivism in the age of post-truth. At the crossroads of science, art, and philosophy, it unearths a tradition that we must rediscover: the point of view is not only what divides, it is also what is shared.Today, perspective is associated with individualism and personal viewpoints. But in an age of post-truth, the only robust answer to relativism lies in fact in a reappraisal of perspectivism. In discussion with contemporary new realisms of various sorts, this book makes a case why perspectivism alone can avoid us falling back into epistemological naivetés. A journey into the history of optics, art, philosophy, and social psychology, this book unearths the forgotten tradition of perspectiva communis, which makes perspective the vector of a common horizon. This book argues that vision is never immediate. Rather, to see through is the key to understanding the perspectival operation. We never see by ourselves—all seeing must pass through something other than itself, through the mediation and the detour of an apparatus or the witness of a third party. Besides the theoretical framework for this new approach to perspective, this book presents a series of case studies ranging from innovative interpretations of classical authors and key moments in the history of art—from ancient painting, trompe l’oeil, and Brunelleschi’s experiment in Renaissance Florence—to the issue of perspective in the work of contemporary artists such as Robert Smithson.The Share of Perspective will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, phenomenology, art history, and the history of sciences.

Images have always stirred ambivalent reactions. Yet whether eliciting fascinated gazes or iconoclastic repulsion from their beholders, they have hardly ever been seen as true sources of knowledge. They were long viewed as mere appearances, placeholders for the things themselves or deceptive illusions. Today, the traditional critique of the spectacle has given way to an unconditional embrace of the visual. However, we still lack a persuasive theoretical account of how images work.Emmanuel Alloa retraces the history of Western attitudes toward the visual to propose a major rethinking of images as irreplaceable agents of our everyday engagement with the world. He examines how ideas of images and their powers have been constructed in Western humanities, art theory, and philosophy, developing a novel genealogy of both visual studies and the concept of the medium. Alloa reconstructs the earliest Western media theory—Aristotle’s concept of the diaphanous milieu of vision—and the significance of its subsequent erasure in the history of science. Ultimately, he argues for a historically informed phenomenology of images and visual media that explains why images are not simply referential depictions, windows onto the world. Instead, images constantly reactivate the power of appearing. As media of visualization, they allow things to appear that could not be visible except in and through these very material devices.

Images have always stirred ambivalent reactions. Yet whether eliciting fascinated gazes or iconoclastic repulsion from their beholders, they have hardly ever been seen as true sources of knowledge. They were long viewed as mere appearances, placeholders for the things themselves or deceptive illusions. Today, the traditional critique of the spectacle has given way to an unconditional embrace of the visual. However, we still lack a persuasive theoretical account of how images work.Emmanuel Alloa retraces the history of Western attitudes toward the visual to propose a major rethinking of images as irreplaceable agents of our everyday engagement with the world. He examines how ideas of images and their powers have been constructed in Western humanities, art theory, and philosophy, developing a novel genealogy of both visual studies and the concept of the medium. Alloa reconstructs the earliest Western media theory—Aristotle’s concept of the diaphanous milieu of vision—and the significance of its subsequent erasure in the history of science. Ultimately, he argues for a historically informed phenomenology of images and visual media that explains why images are not simply referential depictions, windows onto the world. Instead, images constantly reactivate the power of appearing. As media of visualization, they allow things to appear that could not be visible except in and through these very material devices.

In this book, Emmanuel Alloa offers a handrail for venturing into the complexities of the work of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–61). Through a comprehensive analysis of the three main phases of Merleau-Ponty's thinking and a thorough knowledge of his many unpublished manuscripts, the author traces how Merleau-Ponty's philosophy evolved and exposes the remarkable coherence that structures it from within. Alloa teases out the continuity of a motive that traverses the entire oeuvre as a common thread. Merleau-Ponty struggled incessantly against any kind of ideology of transparency, whether of the world, of the self, of knowledge, or of the self's relation to others. Already translated into several languages, Alloa's innovative reading of this crucially important thinker shows why the issues Merleau-Ponty raised are, more than ever, those of our time.

In this book, Emmanuel Alloa offers a handrail for venturing into the complexities of the work of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–61). Through a comprehensive analysis of the three main phases of Merleau-Ponty's thinking and a thorough knowledge of his many unpublished manuscripts, the author traces how Merleau-Ponty's philosophy evolved and exposes the remarkable coherence that structures it from within. Alloa teases out the continuity of a motive that traverses the entire oeuvre as a common thread. Merleau-Ponty struggled incessantly against any kind of ideology of transparency, whether of the world, of the self, of knowledge, or of the self's relation to others. Already translated into several languages, Alloa's innovative reading of this crucially important thinker shows why the issues Merleau-Ponty raised are, more than ever, those of our time.