Imagen epistémica, imagen gnóstica

Abstract

This paper proposes a distinction between epistemic image and gnostic image in order to examine the different cognitive, symbolic and existential functions of images. The epistemic image is oriented toward the rational, scientific and technical explanation of the world; the gnostic image, by contrast, refers to religious, aesthetic, mystical or symbolic forms of experience in which the image does not merely represent but also transforms the subject’s relation to meaning. Through a historical account of antiquity, Gnosticism, Christianity, the Renaissance and modern science, it is shown that these two modalities are not absolutely opposed. The culture of images is rather configured as a field of tensions, intersections and complementarities between representation and presence, objective knowledge and the experience of meaning.