Abstract

With the help of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein the problem of image and language and, related to that, the problem of ethics and aesthetics is developed. The train of thought begins with the early Wittgenstein, who can be seen as a ‘logoclast’ - ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’ - seeing possibilities for showing the ethical and the religious in art. Via Kierkegaard’s critique of the aesthetic image we then come to a critique of the shared presupposition of ‘logoclasm’ and ‘iconoclasm’, namely that image and language are two separate ways, a right and a wrong one. The critique of this presupposition leads us to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, where we find a fundamental qualification of the separation of word and image, and to a more complete Kierkegaard, where neither language nor image have exclusive rights. The ways are not separate and it is not true that one of them is right and the other wrong; moreover, there are no two great ways; image and language, both with Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, are each exceedingly diverse