Abstract

Nancy's writing on the image may be understood as a critical engagement with the traditions of modern aesthetics and classical theories of art. However, the starting point for his approach to the image indicates that his writing on this topic has much wider ambitions than the treatment of a regional aesthetic topic. Nancy defines the image as a mode of access to sense. Nancy attempts an ontological rehabilitation of the image, which reiterates the precepts of his conception of being as ‘co-presence’. I will argue here that a careful study of the implications of this rehabilitation of the image can be used to clarify the significance of the tacit references that Nancy's ontology makes regarding politics.