Paul Marinescu, “All the Violence We Cannot See: The Philosophical Question of Blurring Photography”, Res Philosophica, Volume 103, Issue 1, January 2026.
This paper addresses the issue of violent images that have been subjected to a specific photographic retouching technique—namely, the blurring of certain visual information. This process is typically used in the case of mass-distributed violent images to protect the dignity of persons depicted in a state of extreme vulnerability. Taking juridical and sociological explanations as a starting point, I explore the reasons behind the visual strategies increasingly adopted by the media for photographic materials documenting violent events in recent history. Then, I highlight the philosophical stakes underlying the media’s choice to blur imagistic violence, focusing on three issues: the effect of the attenuation of visual aggressiveness on the viewer; the tension arising between the desire to see everything and the hiatus produced by blurring in the visual field; and the viewer’s forms of appropriating the content of the violent blurred images.