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Document Details : Title: De laatste seconde, of de eeuwigheid Subtitle: Ernst Jünger kijkt naar foto's uit de Eerste Wereldoorlog Author(s): SYMONS, Stéphane , CASTELEIN, Tammy Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 80 Issue: 4 Date: 2018 Pages: 749-770 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.80.4.3286095 Abstract : Around the end of the 1920s, the German philosopher and writer Ernst Jünger turned to the issue of photography. Collaborating with some of the most influential thinkers of the post-war right, Jünger co-edited a number of volumes that contain hundreds of photographic images and dozens of complementary essays. Jünger’s suggestions, however, oppose a view popular among his contemporaries, many of whom suggest that the work of photography is primarily a discomforting and perhaps even alienating business because it expresses contingency and transience. Meanwhile, for Jünger the camera is capable of retrieving a foundational truth that is at work within the world . Because it can capture the moment of danger, and dying, Jünger endows the camera with the ability to recover eternal values in the midst of historical events. Jünger’s view of photography can however be criticized as an aesthetization and mythologization of violence and war and ultimately blurs the distinction between life and death. |
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