something that is not present. Instead, a symbol manifests as present something that
really is present. This is seen in the original meaning of ‘symbol’. When a symbol is used
for a sign of recognition between separated friends or the scattered members of a
religious community to show that they belong together, such a symbol undoubtedly
functions as a sign. But it is more than a sign. It not only points to the fact that people
belong together, but proves and visibly presents that fact. The tessera hospitalis is a relic
of past living and proves through its existence what it indicates: it makes the past itself
present again and causes it to be recognized as valid. It is especially true of religious
symbols not only that they function as distinguishing marks, but that it is the meaning of
these symbols that is understood by everyone, unites everyone and can therefore assume
a sign function. Hence what is to be symbolized is undoubtedly in need of representation,
inasmuch as it is itself non-sensible, infinite and unrepresentable, but it is also capable of
it. It is only because it is present itself that it can be present in the symbol.
A symbol not only points to something, but it represents, in that it takes the place of
something. But to take the place of something means to make something present that is
not present. Thus the symbol takes the place of something in representing: that is, it
makes something immediately present. Only because the symbol presents in this way the
presence of what it represents, is it treated with the reverence due to that which it
symbolizes. Such symbols as a crucifix, a flag, a uniform are so representative of what is
revered that the latter is present in them.
That the concept of representation that was used above in describing the picture
essentially belongs here is shown by the closeness between representation in the picture
and the representative function of the symbol. In both cases, what they represent is itself
present. At the same time a picture as such is not a symbol; symbols do not need to be
pictorial. They perform their representative function through their mere existence and
manifesting of themselves, but of themselves they say nothing about what they
symbolize. They must be known, in the way that one must know a sign, if one is to
understand what they indicate. Hence they do not mean an increase of being for what is
represented. It is true that it is part of the being of what is represented to make itself
present in symbols in this way. But its own being is not determined in its nature by the
fact that the symbols are there and are shown. It is not there any more fully when they are
there. They are merely representatives. Hence their own significance is of no importance,
even if they have any. They are representatives and receive their representative function
of being from what they are supposed to represent. The picture also represents, but
through itself, through the extra significance that it brings. But that means that in it what
is represented—the ‘original’—is more fully there, more properly just as it truly is.
Hence a picture is equipoised halfway between a sign and a symbol. Its representative
function is neither a pure pointing-to-something, nor a pure taking-the-place-of-
something. It is this intermediate position which raises it to its own unique level of being.
Artificial signs and symbols alike do not—like the picture—acquire their functional
significance from their own content, but must be taken as signs or as symbols. We call
this origin of their functional significance their ‘institution’. It is decisive in determining
the ontological quality of a picture (which is what we are concerned with), that in regard
to a picture there is no such thing as an ‘institution’ in the same sense.
By ‘institution’ is meant the origin of the sign or of the symbolic function. The so-
called ‘natural’ signs also, e.g. all the indications and presages of an event in nature are,
Hans-Georg Gadamer 127