Immagine o persona? Edmund Husserl al museo delle cere

The essay addresses the issue of pretence in hyperrealistic representations from a phenomenological point of view, focusing on the contrast between perception and image consciousness. I will show how the paradigmatic example of waxworks gradually became a veritable leitmotif in Husserl’s thought, suitable for symbolizing the transformation of an image phenomenon in an ordinary perceptual apprehension furnished with normal belief. What happens when we see mannequins as if they were real human beings? How is it that we suddenly realize we are merely dealing with images? And above all: after discovering that we are facing wax figures instead of human beings in flesh and blood, can we really say that we were previously wrong?