On some epistemological problems in film theory

Abstract

In the light of recent debates in film studies over the nature of film theory and the kinds of knowledge it produces, this paper examines some of the epistemological issues currently being raised by film scholars. In particular, it examines the ‘dualistic’ positions that have been developed by Noël Carroll and Malcolm Turvey and seeks to find a ‘third’ way by calling on the philosophy of American pragmatist C.S. Peirce. Two general conclusions are drawn: first, that epistemological inquiries into what we call ‘film theory’ require we take into consideration the various goals and ideals that animate its numerous projects; secondly, that many epistemological problems will be solved if we avoid the sort of dualism implied by Carroll and Turvey's positions.

Keywords:

• film theory
• epistemology
• film-philosophy
• Noël Carroll
• Malcolm Turvey
• Rudolf Arnheim
• C.S. Peirce

Notes

1. I say ‘seemingly’ because in a more recent piece, Turvey inexplicably and, in my view, somewhat confusedly seeks to partly reconcile his views with Carroll's. (See Turvey [2007]. See also note 2 below.)

2. Such statements explain why I was stunned by some of Malcolm Turvey's (2007, 112) claims in his more recent October piece, including the following passage where he fully endorses Carroll's ‘framework’ for film theory: ‘As in the natural sciences, film theories, [Carroll] argues correctly in my view, should be formulated through dialectical criticism of rivals because it is only by proposing better theories of film that film theory can make progress, and it is this dialectical criticism that had been sorely lacking in film theory when it was dominated by psychoanalysis and semiotics.… Theoretical inquiry in a variety of theoretical disciplines such as philosophy, the natural sciences, and the human sciences has advanced through dialectical criticism, so why shouldn't film theory?’ In addition, on the essay's final page, he adds: ‘… film is what we are trying to explain’ (120, italics mine). It seems fair to say that Turvey has abandoned the notion according to which, as quoted above, ‘our answers to questions about the cinema's internal norms are not fallible and do not need improving in the future’.

3. In the 1933 Faber and Faber English edition of Film als kunst, Arnheim writes: ‘The idea of conscious artistic creation is a very late product of civilisation. To this day very few people are moved by it … Up to the present, artistic appreciation is confused with the pleasures suggested by works of art … It follows that even today mankind in the mass is unconsciously inimical to the development of the arts.… Enormous audiences crowd the cinemas. But the pleasure which most people derive even from films of artistic value is wholly divorced from any artistic appreciation and depends solely upon the action and the milieu’ (43–46).

4. Obviously, a definition may also purport to tell us what existing usage is, in which case the statement may be true or false. However, this is clearly not what Arnheim is doing in defining art as expressive – whence his comment concerning how loosely some people us the term. Morris Weitz (1956), of course, made a similar argument to the one I'm making here more than half a century ago.

5. This is standard notation for the eight volume edition of the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Peirce 1931–60). The first digit refers to the volume number while the numbers that follow the period refer to the paragraph.

6. See Thomas Short (2008) for a brief but useful discussion of the matter.