Philosophy of Film Without Theory

Craig Fox is Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania Western University, USA. He teaches courses in logic, aesthetics, and the history of philosophy. Recently, he has been working on pieces of an overall project focused on aesthetics as a path into understanding the significance and relevance of Wittgenstein’s later thought.  Britt Harrison is an Independent Scholar with PhDs in philosophy from the University of York, UK, (2022) and the University of Hertfordshire, UK, (2012). She is also a film producer, screenwriter, and script consultant.

• 1. ​Introduction:  Philosophy of Film, With and Without Theory Craig Fox and Britt Harrison.- Part One:  Doing Without Theory Yet Still Doing Philosophy.- 2. The Procrustean Bed of Theory: In Conversation with Richard Allen and Malcolm Turvey  Richard Allen, Malcolm Turvey, Craig Fox, and Britt Harrison.- 3. It All Depends: Some Problems with Analytic Film Theorising from the Perspective of Ordinary Language Philosophy Andrew Klevan.- 4. Lone Star: Ambiguity as a Philosophical Given, and a Philosophical Virtue Katheryn Doran.- 5. No Theory in Marienbad Constantine Sandis.- 6. Film and the Space-Time Continuum Part Two: The Appeal of – and to – Wittgenstein.- 7.   Ordinary Returns in Le notti di Cabiria John Gibson.- 8. Wittgensteinian film-as-philosophy exemplified: Exploring the exploration of point-of-view in Cuaron’s space-exploration film Gravity Rupert Read.- 9.On Films that Think by Seeing Frictionally: Toward a Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Film Carla Carmona.- Part Three:  Revisiting – and Reconsidering – Cavell.- 10. Knowing or Not-Knowing in the Cinema? Rethinking Cavell’s Image of Skepticism David Macarthur.- 11. Cavell, Experiences of Modernism, and Kamran Shirdel’s The Night it Rained Craig Fox.- 12.  The Same Again, Only a Little Different: Stanley Cavell’s Two Takes on The Philadelphia Story William Rothman.- Part Four:  Seeing Faces, Finding Others.- 13.  Seeing One Another Anew with Godfrey Reggio’s Visitor Eran Guter and Inbal Guter.- 14. A Punctum Scene in Shoah Rob van Gerwen.- 15.  Mary Magdalene and Murdochian Film Phenomenology  Lucy Bolton.- Part Five:  Cinematic Investigations.- 16. Cinematic Invisibility: The Shower Scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho James Conant.- 17. Entertaining Unhappiness Sebastian Sunday.- 18. In Kieślowski’s Restaurant des Philosophes: determinism and free will under surveillance Colin Heber-Percy.- 19. Loving The Characters, Caring for The Work: Long Term Engagement with TV Serials Iris Vidmar Jovanović.

“In many ways, this edited collection of eighteen original essays represents both a second wave in post-theory film-thinking, and an entirely new point of departure. … This book follows in the path of titles such as Read and Goodenough’s Film as Philosophy (2005) … as an extremely welcome contribution to the field, whose variety provides much ground for future dialogue.” (Alexis Gibbs, Film and Philosophy, Vol. 28, 2024)