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A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895–1959Introduction

A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895–1959: Introduction [I begin by examining the nature of the book’s odd problem. On the one hand, every child knows what the word “documentary” signifies. On the other, “documentary” is one of the most embattled, blurred, and habitually loathed words to have participated in the ever-shifting discursive conjunction of arts, philosophy, semiotics, history of ideas, politics, society, and cinema. I move on to stress that the ancient problem of the meaning of “definitions” offers the thinking that defining documentary cannot remain a question of formal necessity, something akin to the way in which an author must establish his or her arguments. The introductory chapter steadfastly endeavors to clarify, from more than one perspective, the grounding argument of the book: that each of the definitions ever given to documentary along its historical course is not a solitary, finite, unit of signification. Rather, it is solely by virtue of the wholeness of the body of the definitions of documentary that the intended reader can meld the philosophical with the historical dimension of documentary. I sign off with the hope that this study will provide an account of how systematic “unconcealings” of fundamental conceptual variables of documentary may reshape our habitual documentary preconceptions.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895–1959Introduction

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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
ISBN
978-3-030-79465-1
Pages
1 –32
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-79466-8_1
Publisher site
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Abstract

[I begin by examining the nature of the book’s odd problem. On the one hand, every child knows what the word “documentary” signifies. On the other, “documentary” is one of the most embattled, blurred, and habitually loathed words to have participated in the ever-shifting discursive conjunction of arts, philosophy, semiotics, history of ideas, politics, society, and cinema. I move on to stress that the ancient problem of the meaning of “definitions” offers the thinking that defining documentary cannot remain a question of formal necessity, something akin to the way in which an author must establish his or her arguments. The introductory chapter steadfastly endeavors to clarify, from more than one perspective, the grounding argument of the book: that each of the definitions ever given to documentary along its historical course is not a solitary, finite, unit of signification. Rather, it is solely by virtue of the wholeness of the body of the definitions of documentary that the intended reader can meld the philosophical with the historical dimension of documentary. I sign off with the hope that this study will provide an account of how systematic “unconcealings” of fundamental conceptual variables of documentary may reshape our habitual documentary preconceptions.]

Published: Sep 16, 2021

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