2022

1. From Another Lens:
The Other in Photographs as It Relates to Ethics and Empathy
Keziah Camille Rezaey
29 April 2022

2. 1
It was photography that changed the landscape of war. Through photography, the
Vietnam War, which came to be known as the “first televised war”, delivered the horrors of war
(and the ways people responded) into the homes of millions of Americans during the late
twentieth century. Due to improved cameras and increased freedoms and protections for
photojournalists, images captured from the frontlines and behind protest lines enraptured
Americans in unsettling and provoking ways to become defining shots for the era. Since the end
of the Vietnam War in 1975, conflict has still occurred around the globe, even if the manner of
combat has changed with advancements in technology and geopolitical conditions. More
recently, however, researchers have begun documenting a societal and individual desensitization
to war and general violence as it relates to increased exposure to conflict.
The Vietnam War, and following, the contemporary phenomenon of desensitization to
publicized depictions of war, violence, and death then introduces an area in which we can apply
a phenomenological analysis. Namely, it raises questions of ethics and empathy as it concerns the
epiphany of the other as a distinct “I” within a photograph. How does the other as disclosed in a
photograph change our understanding of our ethical relationship with them? How do we
empathize with the other when they are expressed through the means of photography? What
occurs when we are no longer face-to-face, no longer occupying the same space at the same
time? What of the face and the body of the dead as photographed?
Thus, this essay will examine pictorial intentionality in relation to photography, Levinas’
concept of the infinite other, Stein’s intention of empathy and the givenness of the living body,
before considering death as depicted in such philosophies. We will study how photography
changes our intentionalities targeting the other. In particular, because of the nature of pictorial
intentionality, the depiction of the other as appearing through a photograph still calls us into a

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moral relationship through the disclosure of the face. Furthermore, photography presents to us
another mode in which we can exercise the intentionality of empathy through the givenness of
the living body as it is depicted. This follows as we can understand such intentionalities to be
graded in fulfillment, playing on the absence and presence of the transcendent ego, while being
teleologically oriented towards the fully present disclosure of the limitless face and the living
body (which would be in a face-to-face interaction). The death of the other as photographed may
elicit similar moral and empathic intentions, however, this is not a response to the face or the
living body – which precisely in this case, is no longer living – but rather, invoked because of
our understanding of the transcendental ego.
In pictorial intentionality, Robert Sokolowski explains that a picture draws the object to
us as objects of similitude. The intentionality acknowledges that we are able to understand the
picture in terms of both substrate and theme, while establishing the fact that “pictorial intending
is more like a perception…we do not really see or hear it, of course, because we are given only a
picture and not the thing itself, but the way the picture is given has analogies with the way the
thing itself would be given.”1
Then in the case of the human as depicted, we are not intending the
person in the full physical presence of them, rather, the person in an absence, the person as
pictured. Yet, the other is still given to us, brought closer through the faculties of our vision,
intended as “here and now, not there and then…[the person] as he was there and then is made
present here and now.”2
This is true whether it is the other as painted, photographed, drawn, or
any other methods of depiction.
Then, when the face or the living body is depicted in our particular medium of interest, a
photograph, it is the face and the living body brought to us as it is depicted from that moment in
2
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 82.
1
Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 83.

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time. In 1936, Dorothea Lange was commissioned to document those affected by the Great
Recession. One shot, titled Migrant Mother, depicts a mother who turns away from the camera,
her face exhausted and pained as her children hold her tight. In examining that photograph, the
mother and her children are delivered to us, and in their depiction, we intend the mother’s
countenance and her children’s body language as objects of similarity to the same family alive in
1936. Though decades separate us, the other transcends and discloses them then to us now, thus,
their emotional state of being is retained, but it is not the same ontologically as their existence in
that time. A pictorial intentionality in the targeting of another person allows us to intend as if we
were face-to-face, and though there is a degree of absence, it does not imply a closure from them.
In Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, Levinas regards the face as the site in
which another human is regarded as the other, as a dative of truth, distinct from other objects.
Because personhood is transcendent, the face displays the infinite in the sensible, making it
graspable, yet retaining its unknowability to the other. It is through the face that the infinity of
the other demands justice, calling us into a moral relationship. The other is the foundation of our
freedom as humans, allowing us to engage in moral action, to act as rational agents. Because we
recognize the other as human too, yet individually distinct from us in a way which we cannot
comprehend due to its vastness, “The will is free to assume this responsibility in whatever sense
it likes; it is not free to refuse this responsibility itself; it is not free to ignore the meaningful
world into which the face of the Other has introduced it.”3
Therefore, while we are inherently
called to engage in an ethical relationship through the property of the face, we can turn away
from it only by failing to act in accordance with this responsibility, which is to not engage in
moral action.
3
Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 1980), 218-9.

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Levinas describes art as creating a sort of facade in which objects are both seen and put
on exhibition. He writes that “the facade the thing which keeps its secret is exposed enclosed in
its monumental essence and in its myth, in which it gleams like a splendor but does not deliver
itself.”4
This description of art aligns with the Husserlian notion of pictorial intentionality, which
emphasizes the givenness of the depiction as objects of similarity, rather than the object itself.
What does this imply then when the face is presented in a photograph? The face will still display
its transcendence but in an absence. The photograph acts as the gleaming which allows us to see
the face, but it is also the container that serves as the intermediary. In emphasizing the infinity
disclosed in the face, Levinas writes “The face is present in its refusal to be contained.”5
Because
the face displays the infinite in the finite, this will still hold when the face is photographed as
“Expression, or the face, overflows images.”6
In pictorial intentionality, the face transcends,
though it additionally carries the implication that the infinite is now contained in the face as
imaged.
Because pictorial intentionality brings to us the object as it is then to us now, the face
photographed paradoxically discloses the inability to be contained in a mediated sense. There is
an absence at play as we are not intending the infinite as fully as we would when in the physical
face-to-face experience, yet the infinite is still present because of its inability to be enclosed. If
we were to describe this contradiction of the infinite, it can be likened to examining a continuous
mathematical function that is bounded to positive or negative infinity. If we set an interval and
establish limits to infinity, we can concentrate on one of the discrete points on the graph within
the interval. The photograph is the discrete point, except it would be the infinite made discrete
within its container of the point. The coordinates of the point are akin to intending the objects as
6
Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 297.
5
Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 194.
4
Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 193.

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it was then but at this moment. In 1941, photographer Yousuf Karsh was asked to take Winston
Churchill’s portrait. After plucking the cigar from Churchill’s mouth, Karsh took the picture,
which is now regarded as one of the most notable photographic portraits of all time. Karsh
describes Churchill’s belligerent face, which can be the discrete point. Due to the nature of the
face as described by Levinas, however, the point that is described as discrete is also infinite. The
photograph was taken in these conditions: Churchill had emerged after a speech with Canadian
Prime Minister Mackenzie King, Churchill had been angry at not being informed of the photo
taking, and his cigar had been freshly lit. These conditions are the coordinates in which the point
can be described. Churchill’s portrait reveals him as a human, infinite in comprehension, yet
understood within the context of the photograph.
Thus, because Levinas describes the infiniteness of the face as the basis with which we
are free and that art gives a different mode of seeing the essence of the face, in a photograph, we
are in the absence of the other, while being present in their mediated infinity. This transcendence
is not simply by merit of the pictorial intentionality, rather, because of the face. Levinas
distinguishes that “the transcendent cuts across sensibility, if it is openness preeminently…it cuts
across the vision of forms… It is the face; its revelation is speech,”7
which is followed by the fact
that “Speech cuts across vision.”8
Therefore, there is the acknowledgement that vision is a
disclosure that is like sense perception. It allows us to intend relationships between subject and
object through vision, while speech directly discloses intelligibility even if the object is not
present. Since the face-to-face encounter is described like speech, this then implies that there is a
teleology to the disclosure of the face, where in fullness, it is an unmediated disclosure of
intelligibility of the human essence. Thus, there is a graded fulfillment in intending the infinite of
8
Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 195.
7
Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 193.

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the face. This means that the infinitely discrete expression of the face in the photograph can still
call us to a moral relationship with the other, but it is done in a graded manner, not as full as an
immediate meeting.
In her essay, On the problem of empathy, Stein proposes that empathy is a distinct sort of
intentionality, where each emotion is expressed distinctly, and in that manifestation, the essence
appears. Because empathy relies on the disclosure of emotions by the other, empathy can be said
to share similarities to sense perception, but it is not to be reduced to it. Instead, empathy is
founded on sense perception. While we do need the other to be present in some manner and to
emote outwardly, empathy is not solely this outer perception as it also discloses that “The
individual is not given as a physical body, but as a sensitive living body belonging to an ‘I’, an
‘I’ that senses, thinks, feels, and wills.”9
The face-to-face with the other reveals to us that they
are datives of truth as we are, able to express emotions and rationalize. This disclosure of the
other, the distinct ‘I’, reveals intelligibility that is unlike any other objects in the world. Thus,
because empathy is founded on sense perception, while not being reduced to it, in empathy, there
too is a teleology of empathic intentionality.
Stein describes empathy as an interaction with the other as an “act which is primordial as
present experience though not primordial in content.”10
The act of empathy is primordial,
however, the content of the act is non-primordial in that it has to be given through others,
mediated through their body. Then, when considering this in relation to the pictorial
intentionality, there is an additional complexity added. Just as the non-primordial content of
memory is distinguished from empathy by the mode of such non-primordiality, the pictorial
intending of the emotions of the other has an analogous structure. It is closer to the level of
10
Stein, On the problem of empathy, 10.
9
Edith Stein, On the problem of empathy. (Washington, D.C: ICS Publications, 1989), 5.

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absence that the content of memory has, however, it occurs in the same mode as empathy. If the
content of empathy is non-primordial in that it is given through the mediated fully-intended
other, then the other as depicted means that the intention is less filled, mediated through the other
as pictured. When given the other through the photograph, we are not fully present to their given
emotions, thus, there is some sort of absence.
What about the living body as depicted? In the pictorial intentionality, the living body is
still given. Stein describes the body as being irreducible in that “it is always ‘here’ while other
objects are always ‘there’.”11
Consider a photograph in which the subject is only a hand.
Immediately, we would associate the hand to be of someone's body. Even in the absence of the
living body depicted, it is given that the hand comes from the body of the other. Reasonably, we
will not think of the photograph of the hand as a depiction of a hand that is cut off from the body.
In the photograph of the hand, the body is there, in the photograph, thus bringing it here, to us
who intend the photograph. Therefore, the living body can still be intended photographically, it is
just absent from us in the direct experience.
Therefore, because empathy is founded on sense perception, and that pictorial intending
of empathy also carries the same structure of having a primordial experience but primordial
content, while still giving the living body, the pictorial intentionality of empathy also has a
graded fulfillment. The pictorial intentionality still carries the characteristics of empathy, taking
on a more absent intentionality due to the nature of how the other is presented. Therefore, in
viewing the photography of a person, we can still empathize with them. Because they are absent,
however, we cannot empathize with them as fully as we can in the face-to-face experience. Thus,
we see in both Levinas and Stein that entering a moral relationship or exercising an empathic
intention with the other as they are depicted is possible. It occurs in a graded fulfillment, thus,
11
Stein, On the problem of empathy, 42.

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because we are more absent from the other by merit of not being face-to-face, we cannot engage
morally or empathize as fully as we would if we were in the full presence of the other.
Now, the discussion turns to death. If it is possible that we might be called to act ethically
or empathize with the other insofar as they are pictured, what of death? Can we still be called to
moral action by the face made barren? If the dead body can no longer provide a physical means
of emoting, can we still empathize?
On the question of empathy, it is not possible. There is no physical mechanism in which
the one who has passed can disclose their emotions, therefore, we cannot take the emotions of
the other. Stein makes it clear that “ a body without an ‘I’ is utterly impossible. To fantasize my
body forsake by my ‘I’ means to fantasize my living body no longer, but a completely parallel
physical body, to fantasize my corpse. If I leave my living body, it becomes for me a physical
body like others…”12
As it relates to moral action, however, depictions of death do somehow
invoke some sort of moral action. It is a provocation, an alert to human rationality. Why is this
so? Levinas states that “To kill is not to dominate but to annihilate; it is to renounce
comprehension absolutely. Murder exercises a power over what escapes power. It is still a power,
of the face expresses itself in the sensible, but already impotency, because the face rends the
sensible.”13
Therefore, death is a contradiction. It is the paradoxical concept of the rendering of
the infinite as sensible to no longer sensible. And because the face no longer acts as the
disclosure of the infinite, where is this call to morality coming from?
The key to this is Levinas’ use of the word ‘impotency’ in his discussion of death.
Impotency implies that the body, and accordingly, the face was once in fact potent. In life, the
infinite was fully present. In death, however, the infinite has no way of being disclosed, yet, we
13
Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 198.
12
Stein, On the problem of empathy, 47.

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are fully knowledgeable of the fact that the one who has passed had once rendered the infinite.
Thus, it follows that this can be attributed to the transcendental ego. Because the ego is
transcendental, even if we have passed on from this world and our way of understanding it is
gone, we can still be recalled in the memories or imaginations of the other agents of truth we
encountered. We can never step into the body of someone who has passed and replicate the
intentionalities that they had enacted, therefore we mourn them in this sense. The world as they
saw it is lost. Sokolowski gives the example of the young soldier who has passed, stating that
“the picture of someone who died before his time may, by the very absence of a future, give us
an impression of what the responsible ego is…”14
In their absence, we still obtain an impression
of their ego which lingers precisely because they engaged in relationships with others and the
world. At the same time, the body has become an object, just as Stein writes, because it is unable
to render the infinite as sensible or express emotions. Therefore, this call to morality comes from
the recognition that the infinitely potent has been made impotent.
Thus, it is the structure of a graded fulfillment that allows us, datives of truth, to be called
into moral relationships and to empathize with the other insomuch as they are depicted in a
photograph. Because pictorial intentionality discloses the object as portrayed as an object of
similitude, it can still describe how the infinity of the face and the outer perception of emotions
are conveyed so as to reveal the essence of personhood. For both Levinas and Stein, the
photographic medium puts us in the absence of a direct experience with the other. However, that
does not mean we no longer engage in the moral relationship or the empathic intention. In fact, it
is the opposite. Because humans stand as the unparalleled harbingers of truth, as paradoxes of the
infinite in finite, and as the transcendental in the grounded world, we know this to be true.
14
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 121.

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Works Cited
Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay of Exteriority. Dordrecht: Springer
Netherlands, 1980
Sokolowski, Robert. Introduction to Phenomenology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2017.
Stein, Edith. On the problem of empathy. Washington, D.C: ICS Publications, 1989