Arts and Humanities Commons^™

By No Mere Means, Lu-Vada Dunford

Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

Photographs are many things. The mechanical process by which photographs are generated ensures their factivity. The information they carry is independent of whatever a photographer might believe. We have faith in the veracity of photographs. And they are democratic. Anyone who has access to a camera has the means to image reality. But photographs are not just exemplar recordings. They can be so much more. Photographic art speaks to us and continuously inspires new personal realizations. But Scruton claims that to defend photography as art is to place in the hands of everyone the means to be an artist. I …