I need to clarify something.
 
> Edward R. O'Neill wrote:
>
> > In other words, it's a question of paradigms, not of which
> > argument is better.  Yes, you can insist that Bergson would
> > make a better basis for talking about spectatorship, but
> > people aren't going to turn around and do it because there's
> > something larger than an argument:  that's a paradigm, and a
> > paradigm decides what arguments are relevant.
 
Ed Owens wrote:
 
> All that said, is this necessarily the best approach to take to something like
> film criticism or film theory?  To blindly attach ourselves to the "dominant
> paradigm" regardless of what better tools may be available to us?  I think
> not.
 
I was not suggesting that paradigms should be adhered to
without questioning them.  The original question was about
why phenomenological and other approaches had been less
dominant.  In the passage above, I was trying to explain why
the phenomenological approaches had not gained the upper
hand; I was not urging 'blind' adherence.
 
In other words, I was urging a certain view of intellectual
history, not making a case for one argument over the other.
Indeed, one way of stating my point is that it is *never* a
question of simply deciding which theory is better, because
this has already to some extent been pre-decided.
 
I hope this helps.
 
Sincerely,
Edward R. O'Neill
UCLA
Sociology/General Education
 
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