Abstract
This essay explores the nature of being visible and its normative dimensions. In a first part, core traits of an anthropology of visibility are sketched, drawing mainly on Hans Blumenberg’s phenomenological studies. In a second part, human visibility is investigated regarding its implications for our self-understanding, for our relation to others, and for the publicness of our existence. Apart from Blumenberg, also Jean-Paul Sartre, Charles Taylor, Hannah Arendt are involved in this examination. In a third part, two ‘basic rights’ are brought into focus: the right to be seen and the right to remain unseen. In addition to the philosophical exploration, texts by Ralph Ellison, Elena Ferrante and Dave Eggers are discussed as literary references. In a fourth part, a performance by Marina Abramovic that thematised the connection of visibility and recognition is introduced and analysed.
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Notes
Of course, there is a broad range of discussions throughout various academic fields that do include matters of visibility, but a philosophical ‘groundwork’ on visibility is still missing. For some of the main contexts where visibility is reflected, see the following examples: Gordon (2002), Honneth (2003), Cohen (2008), Schaffer (2008) and Dolezal (2010).
General remark on citations: the French, German and Italian texts will be quoted in English if there is an English translation. Passages by Hans Blumenberg and Bernhard Waldenfels that are not yet translated into English have been translated by Marcos Guntin.
A matter that lies beyond the scope of this text is the necessity of being visible for minorities as an urgent political issue, on the one hand, and at the humdrum and occasionally desperate ‘struggle for visibility’ in the sense of having a media presence, on the other hand, as it occurs in political, economic, and even scientific milieus.
Quote translated by Marcos Guntin, English edition: Adorno 1974.
This visibility regime is, by the way, contrary to thoughts that we know from theoretical foundations of the modern state where we find the questions of ‘visibility of power’ as a kind of topos in political thought (Pye 1984).
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Acknowledgements
I cordially thank Marcos Guntin who made valuable comments on the paper and translated parts of the text, including some of the German quotations.
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Müller, O. Being Seen: An Exploration of a Core Phenomenon of Human Existence and Its Normative Dimensions. Hum Stud 40, 365–380 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-017-9433-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-017-9433-9