Culture and image: interpretive forms and intellectual tasks

A clarifying, comprehensive, and applicative book on "Critique of Cultural Reason," addressing fundamental issues related to philosophical problems of culture and image. The book is organized into three sections: "Cultural Hermeneutics," which offers a set of tools and formulas for understanding culture based on famous models (Ernest Cassirer, Clifford Geertz, Michel de Certeau); "Iconic Philosophies," which discusses the field of image and its historical manifestations by resorting to the ideological and sectarian divide between image enthusiasts and opponents; and "Algerian Interpretations," relying on distinguished models (Malek Bennabi, Mohammed Arkoun, Bakhti Ben Aouda, Ismail Mhenana, Ahmed Delbani, Farah Masrahi), and the way in which local or global culture has been read, based on diverse perspectives. What is culture in this context? How does it manifest in history and in comparison with any prominent facts that changed the face of humanity (Renaissance, Modernity, Enlightenment)? Why does the question of culture remain one of the fundamental philosophical questions, subject to renewal and redefinition? The book depends on two methodological tools, one well-known, which is "Hermeneutics," and the other unknown, which is "Image." Hermeneutics is known in terms of its applications, historical formation, and development; it aims to understand textual or real phenomena and seeks to grasp the meaning that frames their existence, i.e., the network of links and relationships that highlight the unity of purpose and coherence of goal. The novelty in this study is that the image is not merely a subject to be treated like other disciplines, but is indeed a "method," demonstrating that the image is not only the topic that interests us through various religious and material manifestations (the question of image in Christianity, abandonment of image in Judaism and Islam, art, media, advertising, cinema, etc.), but also the motive and means for understanding living human experiences. How can the image be a method of reading rather than just a subject of study? This is what the book attempts to answer through diverse models.