On the World of the Virus
John Armitage
Abstract
Abstract This short article deals with the concept of the world, and that concept's ability to engage with the impact of the coronavirus and the remaking of image theory anew. The concept of the world can, it is argued, be utilized to offer a sustained engagement with the influence of COVID-19, particularly as the concept of the world is manifested in the work of the philosopher Martin Heidegger. To understand Heidegger's work on his most important idea of the world, this article briefly looks at image theory, at Heidegger's introduction of the notion of the gigantic, at the author's own engagement with the gigantic in the microscopic image, and finally at how we can develop and revise our appreciation of the world of the virus.