A metafísica do tempo oculta atrás da gare Saint-Lazare

Abstract

This article exploits, from a temporal perspective, the photograph Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, by Henri Cartier-Bresson. In this photograph, we can notice a clear position statement regarding the status of the present and the temporal flow. Cartier-Bresson’s photograph seems to suggest that the present of reality is a punctate present, offered in a split second, within the elongated present of consciousness. I intend to suggest that there is a tension between a phenomenology and metaphysics of time in this approach. Through this tension, I intend to exploit the metaphysics of time, which derives from this position statement. This will allow us to retrace Cartier- -Bresson’s aesthetics according to a non-cumulative temporality, observed in Zeno’s archer paradox, which always divides time into temporal atoms. We will observe this concept unfolding in the way how Bertrand Russell assigns to reality the temporal structure of photographic film, breaking with the idea of persistent entities, numerically identical. According to Russell, each thing in reality is a series of entities, succeeding each other in time. Finally, I also intend to show how the photograph’s temporal intentionality might be thought of from this viewpoint and propose another way of thinking of intentionality beyond Cartier-Bresson’s aesthetics of the “decisive moment”.