On Image and Sign: Aby Warburg about Symbolic Production

Abstract

Peirce’s semiotics and his contribution to pragmatism are well known.Warburg’s fame, however, has been for long limited to the history of art andthe Fiorentin Renaissance. Our argument is that they shared a commonconcern at the turn of the 20th century. Both questioned the symbolic processat the foundation of all knowledge. Their common stake was to understandthe production of intelligibility through sophisticated and specific means,drawing evidence from both cognitive and anthropological data. Once suchaffinity is verified, we get a new insight into an ongoing process of modernity.Another conception of action (agency) clarifies what the linguistic turn, first,and then the imagetic turn, have tried to explain but failed to do so. Thiswould be a sound response to those who are disarmed by the peremptoryargument of technology.