Philosophy Seminars - “Thinking with Paintings”
From Cave Paintings to Taş Tepeler (The Land of Great Transformation): An Inquiry into Images of Humans and Animals
Time: 18.30 - 20.00
Speaker: Emre Şan
The discovery of cave paintings at the beginning of the twentieth century set off a transformation as profound as the rupture that modern painting created in the nature and experience of art. The startling impact of Palaeolithic images on both modern artists and the social imaginary soon made them a focus for philosophers. In this seminar, we will set out by digging, like an archaeologist, into the famous sentence Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote about the Lascaux cave in his Eye and Mind (“From Lascaux to our day, pure or impure, figurative or not, painting celebrates no other enigma but that of visibility”). Along a line of inquiry that runs from human–animal hybrids in prehistoric art to the figure of a man carrying a leopard on his back at Karahantepe, we will pursue the following question: can we think of a counterpart to the mental transformation that Palaeolithic images created in the twentieth century through the Neolithic images of Taş Tepeler today? In approaching prehistoric art, our theoretical compass will be not signs or abstract symbols, but the uninterrupted continuity of forms of expression and figures. In this way, we will reinterpret the debate on “the lack and excess of images” that I addressed in the context of modern painting in my book On the Image (İmaj Üstüne), this time through humanity’s earliest forms of expression and the styles of prehistoric art.
Emre Şan completed his undergraduate studies at Galatasaray University and his master’s and doctoral studies at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. After his doctorate he carried out postdoctoral research at the École Normale Supérieure. His book on contemporary phenomenology was published with a preface by Renaud Barbaras and with the Institut Universitaire de France award (Paris, Mimesis, 2012). The author, whose articles in Turkish, French, English and Spanish have appeared in national and international journals and book series, works on phenomenology, philosophy of technology and image theory. Awarded the Prix Mercier, the philosophy prize given every two years by UCLouvain, Emre Şan is a professor at Istanbul 29 Mayıs University.
* The seminar will be held in Turkish. To attend this seminar, you can create your registration by using the "Register" button on the page and receive your free event invitation. Registrations will open 1 week before the event date (11.02.2027, at 18:30) and the "Register" button will become visible. Participation is limited to a quota of 70 people.
* Participants who have completed the event registration and received their invitation are kindly requested to be at the venue at least 15 minutes before the event. The doors will be closed at the event starting time.