Imagem e imaginação: aproximações entre a ciência da imagem de Hans Belting, a antropologia histórica de Dietmar Kamper e a filosofia budista vajrayana

Abstract

This doctoral research proposes an approximation between the anthropology of images in Hans Belting and Dietmar Kamper with the Vajrayana Buddhist philosophy. We began by tracing the field of study of image theory that was consolidated by Gottfried Boehm and W.J.T. Mitchell, and highlighted the interdisciplinary and intercultural characteristics of what is known today as image science (Bildwissenschaft). As we observed, Belting’s proposal takes into account such characteristics and points out the need to investigate both the production of endogenous and exogenous images from the anthropological point of view, when the objective is to understand the role of images for human communication. Next, we investigated the proposal of Kamper’s historical anthropology, which considers the growing abstraction of cultural processes through the progressive widening of the gap between humankind and their bodies, with consequent weakening of the senses due to excessive exposure to media images, resulting in an immanence of the imaginary. As an alternative to abstraction, Kamper proposed the method of Body-Thinking (KörperDenken) and, for the immanence of the imaginary, the power of the imagination (Einbildungskraft). In parallel, we note that the philosophy of Varjayana Buddhism deals with images and imagination in an alternative manner, and uses elaborate visualization practices as a form of mind training. We defend the hypothesis that Buddhist philosophy contributes to the anthropology of images by exposing the paradoxical and interdependent condition of body, image and imagination both at the theoretical and practical levels. As such, we investigated the triangulation of media-imagebody, and the importance of looking at the relationship between exogenous and endogenous images according to the anthropological science of images proposed by Hans Belting and Norval Baitello Junior. The concept of Body-Thinking and the power of the imagination will be presented in regard to the historical anthropology of Dietmar Kamper and Christoph Wulf. For an understanding of Vajrayana Buddhism and its theoretical proposal of the use of images and the imagination, we begin with authors belonging to the tradition itself, mainly Patrul Rinpoche, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse and Tarthang Tulku, besides external commentators, such as Herbert Guenther, Ana Paula Gouveia and Geoffrey Samuel