Forensik und Fiktion. Zur Geschichte von Indizien zwischen Wahr-Werden und Wahrscheinlich-Sein

What is it about?

Abstract: The ambivalent status of circumstantial evidence has been intensively discussed since the 18th century, in fiction as well as forensics. Indications are both hermeneutic and materialistic - a phenomenon of ambiguity: the conclusions to be drawn from clues are generated by an amalgam of objective promises of enlightenment and, at the same time, the opaque materiality of the surface. Neutral things, according to the forensic and juridical hope associated with circumstantial evidence, do not lie, but show (evidentia) as pars pro toto the actual facts in nuce. But every fact, every thing remains tied back to a closing instance, to the investigating and hermeneutic conclusions of thoughts: this now opens the operational field of literature. The poetic dynamics enable literature to simultaneously cope with indexed ambiguity and indeterminacy, to produce them – and to reflect on them by means of detective-investigative self-observation. Keywords: circumstantial evidence, clues, evidentia, semiotics, forensics, fiction

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Photo by Arthur Mazi on Unsplash

Photo by Arthur Mazi on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Keywords: circumstantial evidence, clues, evidentia, semiotics, forensics, fiction

Perspectives