Ana Carolina Pinheiro Rocha da Silveira

This research aims to critically introduce Gottfried Boehm’s theory of the image, a leading figure of German Bildwissenschaft, in light of Immanuel Kant’s theory of imagination. The study is guided by Boehm’s central question of how images, through their own inherent logic, can produce meaning, as well as by the proposition of a hermeneutics of the image that could serve as the foundation for a critique of the image. The hypothesis is that the philosophical foundations for such a hermeneutics are already outlined in Kant’s theory of imagination. The justification lies in the need to understand the image not merely as an object of art, but as a generative instance of meaning and knowledge. The methodology involves the translation and annotated analysis of four key texts by Boehm in which the notions of the iconic turn, iconic difference, and the logic of showing are particularly prominent, alongside an investigation of the theory of imagination in Kant’s Critique. By bringing these two thinkers into dialogue, the study seeks to reinscribe the image within the field of philosophy as an autonomous form of thought, challenging the traditional opposition the sensible and intelligible.