Representation, objectivity and the ethics of images

Giovanni Scarafile

pp. 171-206

in: Giovanni Scarafile, Leah Gruenpeter Gold (eds), Paradoxes of conflicts, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

Considering Jaspers'studies on the paradoxical nature of conflicts, I reflect on the capacity of communicative forms to provide an objective representation. In particular, my attention is devoted to the predicative intentionality of images (PII), namely the set of modalities by which an image represents. The level of accuracy of images is relevant also for a specific meaning of the ethics of communication, regarding the truthfulness of what is represented in a photograph. After an historical reconstruction of the several ways in which representation has been themed, I consider as a case study some pictures of allegedly hysterical patients, taken from the archive of the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. My thesis is that, for an adequate analysis of images, a pragmatic interpretation is necessary, able to integrate the hermeneutical approach.