Abstract

In contrast to the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, which maintains the interpretation of classical texts, I emphasize the role of images in our everyday understanding. I see the added value of images in the fact that they show the latent background, from which the manifest messages draw their actual significance. Before Thomas Mitchell’s “pictorial turn”, I referred to the iconic turn as “imagic turn” in order to emphasize the originary connection between images and magic rituals. The magical component of the hermeneutic image is to the human ability to make something absent present.