ABSTRACT
François Laruelle’s abstract theory of non-photography rejects the interpretative and technical categories that have hitherto laid claim to photography’s singular realism. He privileges the immanent materialities of the photograph, as opposed to its relationship to genre, representation and social particulars, and defends a new ‘science’ of photographic theory as an opportunity for theoretical speculation beyond representation. Roberts’s essay discusses the limitations of this approach, through an examination of Laruelle’s ‘non-philosophy’ and the turn to ‘scientism’ in contemporary philosophy. Roberts defends the relationship between ‘truth’ and appearance in photography as the conflicted, historical space for the asking and giving of reasons.
