Philippe Grosos

French philosopher; author of Des profondeurs de nos cavernes — Préhistoire – Art – Philosophie (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 2021), a book-length philosophical engagement with prehistoric cave art. Grosos advocates a shift in philosophical interest away from attempts to decode the signification of cave paintings toward focused attention on the phenomenon of expressivity itself, together with the circumstances in which expressive intentions were carried through. His relational thinking on the genesis of expressivity is methodologically aligned with Tilley's phenomenology of landscape and Tonner's Heideggerian-existential reading, though it differs from each on the philosophical question of what the artifacts give us.

For the wiki, Grosos enters via Décarie-Daigneault 2024's articulation of the double-sided artifact: Grosos marks a distinction in Des profondeurs de nos cavernes p. 43 between the "numerous signs intentionally painted or engraved on the walls of the caves, and that have become so enigmatic for us today" and the surrounding collateral traces (footprints, handprints, soot, etc.) that accompany the artifact in its givenness. Décarie-Daigneault picks up this distinction and gives it the philosophical work of organizing a typology of encounters with traces of the past.

Key Points

  • Shift from decoding to expressivity. Grosos's central methodological move: do not try to decipher what the paintings mean; attend to the expressive act that the painting is and to the embodied lives that surrounded it.
  • The voluntary-collateral distinction. Grosos identifies two strata in the cave-art givenness: voluntary signs (intentional expression) and collateral traces (footprints, handprints, soot smudges). For Grosos, both strata help glimpse the being-in-the-world of the prehistoric makers.
  • Aligned with relational, embodied phenomenology. Grosos's methodology is in the same family as Tilley's Materiality of Stone and Tonner's Heterotopic Dwelling — accounts that read cave art through embodied, contextual phenomenology rather than semiotic decoding.
  • Anchor for the Aurignacian Croisillion footprints. Grosos cites Clottes (2001, p. 212): the footprints attributable to "a ten-year-old child in the Croisillion gallery" at the deepest end of Chauvet-Pont d'Arc. These are Grosos's paradigm of the emotion-inducing collateral trace.

Connections

  • originates the distinction taken up in double-sided-artifact — Grosos marks voluntary expression vs. collateral trace; Décarie-Daigneault makes the distinction structurally load-bearing.
  • is methodologically aligned with Christopher Tilley (The Materiality of Stone, 2004) and Philip Tonner (Heidegger, Heterotopic Dwelling and Prehistoric Art, 2018) — relational embodied phenomenology of prehistoric art.
  • is read through decarie-daigneault-2024-crooked-finger — Décarie-Daigneault appropriates and synthesizes Grosos for the cave-painting case.

Open Questions

  • Does Grosos's broader project (in Des profondeurs de nos cavernes) systematize the voluntary-collateral distinction? Décarie-Daigneault cites two passages (pp. 43, 52) and references the book's general argument for shifting attention from decoding to expressivity. Whether Grosos himself sets up the distinction as a structural typology or only marks it in passing is a question the wiki should track if Grosos is ingested directly.
  • Is Grosos drawing on MP, Heidegger, or both? The relational phenomenological methodology is plausible from either tradition. Direct engagement with the book would clarify.

Sources

  • decarie-daigneault-2024-crooked-finger — wiki's only source for Grosos. Cites Des profondeurs de nos cavernes (2021) at pp. 43 and 52 (footnotes 36, 39, 35 respectively in Décarie-Daigneault 2024).