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autographic work) or that Ob is the expression of a given content which in itself is the same as the genuine and authentic content of the legendary allographic expression Oa.
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In both cases, however, one feels something uncanny. A naive approach to fakes and forgeries makes one believe that the problem with fakes is to take for granted or to challenge the fact that something is the same as an allegedly authentic object. After a more accurate inspection, however, it seems that the real problem is to decide what one means by "authentic object." Ironically, the problem with fakes is not whether Ob is or is not a fake but, rather, whether Oa is authentic or not, and on which grounds such a decision can be made. |
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It seems that the crucial problem for a semiotics of fakes is not the one of a typology of the mistakes of the Claimant, but rather of a list of the criteria by which the Judge decides whether the Claimant is right or not. |
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6. Criteria for Acknowledging Authenticity |
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The task of the Judge (if any) is to verify or falsify the claim of identity made by the Claimant. The Judge can basically face two alternatives: |
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(i) Downright Forgery. Oa is largely known to exist, and the Judge has only to prove that Ob is not identical with it. In order to do so, the Judge has two further alternatives: either succeed in putting Ob in front of Oa, thus showing that they are not indiscernibly identical, or compare the features of Ob with the celebrated and well-known features of Oa in order to show that the former cannot be mistaken for the latter. |
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(ii) Ex-Nihilo Forgery. The existence of Oa is a mere matter of tradition and nobody has ever seen it. When there are no reasonable proofs of the existence of something, one can assume that it probably does not exist or has disappeared. But the newly found Ob is usually presented by the Claimant as the expected proof of the existence of the Oa. In this case the Judge should prove or disprove that the Ob is authentic. If it is authentic, then it is identical with the allegedly lost original Oa. However, the authenticity of something allegedly similar to a lost original can be demonstrated only by proving that Ob is the original. |
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The second case seems more complicated than the first. In case (i) it seems thatin order to demonstrate the authenticity of Obit was enough to show that Ob was identical with the original Oaand that |
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