STUDIA PHÆNOMENOLOGICA XXIII (2023) 9–14
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Phenomenologies of the Image:
Editors’ Introduction
Emmanuel Alloa
University of Fribourg
Cristian Ciocan1
University of Bucharest
Images have been a remarkably constant preoccupation for the phenomeno
logical tradition. Beginning with Husserl’s early investigation of image‑
consciousness, with its threefold conceptual articulation of material Bildding,
appearing Bildobjekt, and referential Bildsujet (Hua XXIII), phenomenological
accounts of the image can be found in the classic works of Martin Heidegger,
Jean‑Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau‑Ponty, and Eugen Fink, all the way to
current phenomenologically inspired approaches such as those of Jean‑Luc
Marion or Georges Didi‑Huberman. The plural in “phenomenologies of the
image” stresses the diversity of the aspects that these analyses have addressed:
the relationship between image and perception, image and imagination, image
and embodiment; the issue of the world‑image; and the question of the dialec
tics between the visible and the invisible. Besides such basic phenomenological
implications, the image has also been considered from an aesthetic point of
view. In its application to visual arts—especially to painting, to photography,
or to the filmic image—phenomenology has made decisive contributions to
visual studies and to the “iconic turn.” The contemporary metamorphoses of
imagineering technologies and of its correlated visualities, which profoundly
modify the very experience we have of images, nevertheless ask for a renewed
phenomenological reflection on this matter. What does it mean for the image
to be considered as an act rather than as a thing? What is implied if we think of
images in terms of correlations between an appearance and a viewing subject?
1
The editorial work for this issue is part of the research grant PN‑III‑P4‑ID‑PCE‑2020‑0791
funded by UEFISCDI.
10 Emmanuel Alloa, Cristian Ciocan
Is the space of images a space of freedom or of capture? Can phenomenological
resources help us to understand what it means to be absorbed, provoked, or
injured by images? What does it mean for an image to be moving, both in
temporal and in affective terms? What is the difference between “thematic”
images that are contemplated for their own sake and “operative” images that
serve other purposes? The questions addressed in the papers of this issue, and the
manifold angles of interrogation, follow the different stages of the phenomeno
logical tradition: Husserl and his influence; Heidegger’s turn; developments in
French phenomenology; and contemporary openings.
The first section of our dossier explores various topics related to the question
of the image as they emerged in phenomenology’s early phase, starting with
influences stemming from the work of Edmund Husserl and also engaging
other philosophers such as Eugen Fink, Ernst Cassirer, Roman Ingarden, and
Leopold Blaustein. Seyran Sam focuses on Husserl’s oeuvre in exploring the
question of imagination and of its limits. The article argues that imagina
tion evolves between a lower limit anchored in perception and an upper limit
intertwined with ideation or thinking. The author shows that the various
forms of imagination should be delineated in relation to these limits: image‑
consciousness in contrast to perception, and free phantasy with regard to
ideation. Sam contends that various forms of imagination can be character
ized in terms of their degree of freedom. Accordingly, imagination becomes
freer as it takes its departure from perception and from the contingencies of
the sensuous data, thereby moving closer to ideation, although this must still
submit to the eidetic laws of thinking. In this sense, the article argues that
free phantasy, which is the enabling condition for the intuition of essences,
has a higher degree of independence than image‑consciousness, which is still
bound to perception. In the next contribution, Lorenzo Biagini connects the
question of imagination with the dimension of language by focusing on the
difficulties raised by the linguistic “image” in Husserl’s works and on its func
tion within the project of a “phenomenology of phenomenology.” Examining
Fink’s observations on this topic, the article argues that a rigorous under
standing of phenomenological language is paramount for the endeavor of
a self‑critical analysis of transcendental experience. The figurative concepts
and their relation to pre‑predicative experience are decisive in this context.
However, the primacy of intuition over the concept, illustrated by the fact that
the concepts must render the corresponding intuitions in a quasi‑mimetic way,
is challenged by the figurative character of language. In order to point out the
nature of this “linguistic figurativeness,” Biagini explores the analogy between
image‑consciousness and language‑consciousness, underscoring the crucial
role played by the symbol in the affinity between image and sign, and finally
emphasizing the mutual determination of linguistic and intuitive moments of
experience. The question of the symbolic is equally at the core of the article
by Irene Breuer, who offers a contribution to the hermeneutics of expression
by analyzing the tension between the views of Cassirer and Husserl on the
Phenomenologies of the Image: Editors’ Introduction 11
problem of the image. Elaborating the distinction between “images as exam
ples” and “images as exemplars,” the article shows how Cassirer determines the
symbolic idea as an insight into a whole that functions as an exemplary image,
as a categorically determined singularity that carries an ideal meaning, while
for Husserl the eidetic variation is carried out on an image taken in its ideal
arbitrariness, which stands in sharp contrast to the precise determination of the
eidos. Thus, Breuer argues that while the imagistic example is for Husserl only
an arbitrary individualization of an eidos, for Cassirer the imagistic exemplar
in its uniqueness illustrates the plenitude of the meaning of the phenomenon.
With the next article, written by Witold Płotka, we move toward the influence
of Husserl’s theory of images on two Polish philosophers, Roman Ingarden and
Leopold Blaustein—both students of Husserl, although in different periods
and with dissimilar intensity: while Ingarden was an important member of
the early Göttingen Circle, Blaustein only occasionally attended a lecture
course that Husserl held in his late period in Freiburg. Moreover, Blaustein
also attended Ingarden’s own lecture courses discussing the topic of image‑
consciousness, and was equally greatly influenced by Twardowski, who was
his teacher as well. In this network of influences, Płotka examines the distinct
contributions of Ingarden and Blaustein to the phenomenology of the image,
chiefly approached in relation to painting and aesthetics, in a critical reading
of Husserl’s views. The article analyzes their descriptions of the pictorial expe
rience, showing that in examining the famous example of Dürer’s engraving
Knight, Death, and the Devil discussed in §111 of Ideas I, they also criticize
various aspects of the Husserlian theory of intentionality.
The following two articles engage with the problematic status of the image
in the framework of Heideggerian thought. César Gómez Algarra questions
whether we are dealing in Martin Heidegger’s writings after the Kehre with
a “thought without images,” with an iconophobic or iconoclastic thinking
that denies any legitimacy to the dimension of the image. The article argues
that Heidegger’s rejection of the image should be understood in light of his
constant criticism of the notion of representation. Image and representation
are intrinsically connected in the history of metaphysics, namely, in the advent
of the era of subjectivity. Likewise, an emphasis on the subjective capacity of
representing the object is a strong indication that the question of Being has
been abandoned. Gómez Algarra contends that in spite of this rejection of
images, they nevertheless permeate Heidegger’s later writings, which mobi
lize evocative and pregnant images in order to rethink the deployment of
Being. This approach opens up a new non‑imaginative experience of Being, a
radical imagination without images that no longer aims to be metaphysical or
subjective, representative, or transcendental. In the same vein, Shawn Loht
examines how despite H eidegger’s well‑known critical view of images, mainly
expressed in “The Age of the World‑Picture,” some of his other texts also make
possible the affirmation of an authentic meaning of images. Thus, the article
analyzes several positive accounts of images in Heidegger’s work. These are
12 Emmanuel Alloa, Cristian Ciocan
not restricted to his famous analyses of great paintings, such as Van Gogh’s
“Pair of Shoes” or Cézanne’s various renderings of Mont Sainte‑Victoire, but
also include a reference to the “subdued gestures” in Akira Kurosawa’s film
Rashomon. Such images, argues Loht, cannot be reduced to subjective repre
sentations, since they are no longer pictures that objects transmit to the mind,
but are on the contrary able to reveal a meaning beyond what they simply
depict. These extraordinary images bear an authentic meaning inasmuch as
they are disclosures of Being, originating in the call and the appeal of language,
in the commemorative experience of things. The article finally suggests that
this essential disclosure‑character of an originary experience is possible even
for modern technological media.
The following five contributions then explore the multifarious inquiries
into the essence of images in French phenomenology. Simone Villani and
Andrea Altobrando focus on the question of “mental images,” beginning with
Jean‑Paul Sartre’s early analysis in The Imaginary and connecting it with his
observations in the unfinished work Notebooks for an Ethics. More precisely,
the article explores the connections between imagination and desire, analyzing
how mental images articulate the experiences of desire and enjoyment, evolving
in the tension between the unreal horizon of an imagined enjoyment and its
realization in an actual experience. While the mental image initially prefigures
an imaginary enjoyment, inasmuch as it enables the imagination to produce
a fictional object to fulfill a craving, it subsequently leads consciousness to
transform the environing world in order to realize the enjoyment effectively
in an actual event. Thus, Villani and Altobrando contend that mental images
provide the connection between the imaginary and the real world by creating
instruments that are able to satisfy the desire in reality. Approaching the ques
tion of vision and the gaze in the articulation of the visible and the invis
ible, Huaiyuan Zhang explores the confrontation between phenomenology
and psychoanalysis, both undermining in different ways the visual model of
self‑reflective consciousness. The author focuses on the complex relationship
of Maurice Merleau‑Ponty and Jacques Lacan, analyzing the compatibilities
and divergences that surface in their constant dialogue. Examining Lacan’s
discussion of the specular image and of its role in the formation of the self in
the mirror stage, connected with the symbolic identification with the other, the
author analyzes his twofold criticism of Merleau‑Ponty: Lacan considers not
only that Merleau‑Ponty neglects the subject’s self‑differentiation through the
discourse of the other, since the cogito remains a presence of self to self, a way
of seeing oneself in the process of seeing oneself, but he also fails to interpret
the phenomenon of the gaze adequately. Zhang finally shows that an attentive
reading of Merleau‑Ponty’s final texts can provide an answer to this criticism,
opening a new path for the emergence of psychoanalytic phenomenology. In
the next contribution, Alex Obrigewitsch tackles the question of the literary
image as it is disclosed in the dialogue of another famous tandem within
contemporary French philosophy: Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Blanchot.
Phenomenologies of the Image: Editors’ Introduction 13
The article focuses on the relationship between phenomenology and litera
ture, emphasizing the tension between the visual image and the imaginary
image, taking the experience of writing and reading as its point of departure.
Obrigewitsch argues that the literary image, standing between reality and the
imaginary, is not reduceable to the transparency of the imaginary suggested by
the metaphor of the window, but evolves in and through an intrigue that both
presents and withdraws, serving as the appearing of an appearance without
ground. The article shows that for Levinas as well as for Blanchot, the image
is removed from any representational theory of consciousness, being the orig
inary absence‑in‑presence of a disappearance lacking any objective ground.
The relation between phenomenology and literature is finally understood in
terms of a fundamental or transcendental impossibility of essence. Erik Lind
focuses on Henri Maldiney’s phenomenology of the image, carried out in
critical dialogue both with Husserl and with Sartre. The article shows that, on
the one hand, Maldiney’s criticism aims to point out the insufficiency of the
doctrine of intentionality when it comes to considering the pictorial image in
the realm of art. On the other hand, the author argues that for Maldiney, the
image cannot be reduced to a consciousness that is itself understood as pure
negativity. Instead, it is a mode of presence, comprehended in a Heideggerian
vein that amounts to a more originary meaning of space than the one objec
tifying the world through representation, namely, the presence in the world
and the presence of the world. Discussing Maldiney’s approach to Byzantine
mosaics and Cézanne’s paintings, Lind finally explores two central notions that
are central to his phenomenology of the image: the form and the rhythm that
belong to the non‑intentional structure of the image. Thus, the extraordinary
images are able to give rise to an anti‑intentional orientation of the experience.
Samuel Lelièvre argues that a similar critical appropriation of Husserl’s theory
of image‑consciousness can equally be found in Paul Ricoeur’s writings. The
author emphasizes the crucial role the question of the image has in the whole
framework of Ricoeur’s philosophical project, since it is not only intercon
nected with his philosophy of imagination and engages the topics of percep
tion, representation, and memory, but also underlies his philosophy of action,
with its various ramifications in ethics or political philosophy. Lelièvre thereby
shows that Ricoeur’s philosophy of the image participates in the complex rela
tionship between phenomenology and anthropology, traversing a variety of
layers going from symbol to trace and sign, as well as being permeated by
influences coming from Bergson and Heidegger, Gadamer and Bachelard,
Wittgenstein and Dagognet. The article finally questions the semiotic nature
of the image, exploring the articulation of image and language and connecting
Ricoeur’s theory of the imagination with his theory of metaphor.
The final section of our dossier includes two contributions that illustrate
the further broadening of the phenomenology of the image in contemporary
thought. Two rather divergent topics are tackled, questioning on the one hand
how phenomenology is able to enrich the theological discussion concerning
14 Emmanuel Alloa, Cristian Ciocan
the old debate regarding the nature of icons in the Christian tradition, and
on the other hand, how phenomenology can approach the new types of
images created by the most advanced imagineering technologies. Stephanie
Rumpza draws on phenomenology to correct the defense of the icon found
in Orthodox thinkers such as Ouspensky and Florensky. Their opposition to
the naturalistic turn within Western aesthetics in favor of the “spiritual” icon
not only risks overlooking an essential dimension of the visibility of images,
but disregards the visibility of the world of experience as such, bypassing the
real issue: the possibility of spiritual experience. As a corrective, Rumpza first
draws on Merleau‑Ponty’s phenomenology of painting, which challenges the
false visibility of the flattened aesthetics that forgets the originary experience of
sight and returns instead to a lived experience entangled with the world. Next,
Marion’s phenomenology of Revelation opens a broader notion of experience
that can better articulate the Orthodox concern about the “spiritual” char
acter of an icon’s phenomenality. Drawing these resources together, the paper
closes with a positive sketch of the phenomenological possibility of the icon
as a spiritually revelatory image. Our dossier concludes with a contribution
devoted to the challenges that the recent developments of new technologies
address to contemporary phenomenological reflection: the experience of virtual
reality. Assuming a Husserlian background, Fabrizia Bandi explores how
image‑consciousness is enacted in the experience of VR images, questioning
the specific type of presentification that is at work here. The author investigates
the structures of the imagistic experience given as virtual reality, distinguishing
it from perception, hallucination, phantasy, dreams, and lucid dreams, and
shows that VR images cannot be reduced to simple phantasms. Tackling the
topic regarding the reality or unreality of virtual objects, the article therefore
emphasizes the elements allowing us to differentiate between VR images and
phantasy images. Bandi finally analyzes the peculiar type of image‑object that is
given in such an experience, arguing that the VR experience should be situated
between image‑consciousness and perceptual apprehension.
The texts gathered here for this special issue bespeak the relevance of the
topic of the image both for classical phenomenology and for contempo
rary phenomenology. While some hasty and superficial commentators had
written off the question, misled by Husserl’s rejection of the “image theory”
(Bildertheorie) of consciousness in the Logical Investigations, it turns out that
phenomenology can offer both a critique of representationalism (as the name
of a theory where consciousness would yield a mental image of an external
reality) and some of the richest and manifold methods to describe the realm
of image‑based appearances. It is probably no accident that phenomenology is
currently being widely rediscovered as a decisive resource for intervening in the
current debates around the “pictorial turn” and in visual studies by and large.
May the following special issue contribute to consolidating this momentum.
