On machines and instruments (II): The world of the eye in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann

Abstract

Continuing with the subject of the previous work, this article considers the whole series of problems connected to the question of the vision provoked by the mere existence of the body of the automaton. The eyes of the android and, above all, the reactions aroused by looking at these human- shaped machines are the object of Hoffman’s reflections, from a viewpoint apparently firmly set within the Goethean concept of the «world of the eye» — Welt des Auges. Similarly, there is also an in-depth analysis from this same perspective of the instrumental approach to natural reality as it had been perceived in science since the seventeenth century.