Fotografie als wissenschaftliches Argument (Diss)

Zur Aussagekraft fotografischer Aufnahmen in den Naturwissenschaften, insbesondere der Astronomie

Dissertation

Autor*in

Sebastian Voltmer

Ort, Datum

Universität für angewandte Kunst in Wien, Wien, Österreich, 03. April 2020

Schlagwörter

Fotografie, Naturwissenschaften, Semiotik

Text

The central idea in this thesis is that photographs can be considered as legitimate arguments in scientific essays. Charles Sanders Peirce´s (1839-1914) pragmatistic (also termed pragmatisistic) orientated semiotics proves to be an appropriate philosophical approach. Amongst others, Peirce developed the concept of abduction – in relation with deduction and induction – as well as defined ideas like icon, index and symbol which have been discussed in the field of media studies in relevant literature, although not under-stood in the way it was meant by Charles Sanders Peirce. Concerning photography, Peirce refers to a primary and a secondary object, that is to say the object being photographed and the photograph itself – impulsed by the reality of dynamic objects – and considers signs quasipropositional in the case of sensual knowledge. In doing so, it concerns the generation of meaning within the semiotic triangle composed of the representamen, the object and the interpretant. In connection with what-has-not-yet-come-to-significance, Peirce uses the concept of surprise – also used by the French literary theorist Roland Barthes (1915-1980). This semiotic approach differs from sémiologie, the linguistic theory of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) who developed a dyadic approach of signs as a language system (French: langue). From its very beginning, photography has never played such a major role in special fields as in astronomy. The second part of the forthcoming essay gives epoch-marking examples showing the importance of photography in this field – beginning with the proof of the existence of sun protuberances by Warren De la Rue (1815-1889), continuing with the corroboration of Einstein´s Theory of Relativity, and furthermore, the modelling of the expanding universe and, in this regard, the future development of photographic recording of electromagnetic waves. (Abstract by author)

Sprache, Format, Material, Ausgabe/Auflage

Deutsch

- Kerschbaum, Franz, - Gutachter*in
- Gabriele Jutz - Betreuung (akadem. Abschlussarbeit)
- Eva-Maria Stadler - Vorsitz