Toucher par la vue: Platon, Aristote, Plotin sur la lumière et le sensible by Vasiliu, Anca;

Long description:

La lumi√®re est l√†, mais en elle-m√TMme qui la voit ? Conditionnelle pour tout ce que la lumi√®re n‚Äôest pas‚Äîle visible, l‚Äô√TMtre, la vie, la pens√©e‚Äîsa ph√©nom√©nalit√© s‚Äôav√®re immanente √† la saisie sensible, tandis que la lumi√®re elle-m√TMme demeure √©trang√®re √† tout ce qu‚Äôelle d√©voile. La conna√Ætre exige de saisir son effet, √† la fois unique et multiple, √† travers le rendu infini du visible et de l‚Äôanim√©. Cette pierre m‚Äôest lumi√®re (lapis iste ‚Ķ mihi lumen est), disait un philosophe irlandais √† la crois√©e de l‚ÄôAntiquit√© tardive et du Moyen √Çge. C‚Äôest en regardant que l‚Äô≈ìil recouvre la puissance du fiat lux : il engendre la visibilit√© comme expression universelle de l‚Äô√TMtre, en laissant se r√©v√©ler en m√TMme temps la lumi√®re comme condition transcendante de l‚Äôapparaissant.
Platon, Aristote et Plotin évoquent la lumière en parlant du toucher qui définit la vue. C’est l’expérience sensible la plus directe qui conduit à saisir la lumière en tant que principe du vivant et condition de l’intellection. À l’aube de l’histoire prémoderne, deux de leurs héritiers tardifs, Dante et Marsile Ficin, décrivent la lumière comme ce qui se tient au-delà des aspects tout en les déterminant. Avant Kepler et Newton, la lumière est irréductible au phénomène physique. Pour saisir les enjeux de ce statut aporétique aux conséquences fondatrices pour la philosophie, relisons le Timée, la République, le Phèdre, le Banquet, le De anima aristotélicien, ainsi que certains traités de Plotin.

Light is present, yet who sees it in itself? It is the condition for everything it is not—for the visible, for being, for life, for thought. Luminous phenomena are immanent to sensible apprehension while light remains wholly foreign to everything that it reveals. Knowing it requires that one grasp its effect, at once singular and manifold, through the infinite unfolding of the visible and the living. “This stone is light to me” (lapis iste … mihi lumen est), said an Irish philosopher situated at the crossroads of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It is by seeing that the eye recovers the power of the fiat lux: the eye constitutes visibility as the universal expression of being, while at the same time allowing light to be disclosed as the transcendent condition of appearing.
Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus evoke light by speaking of the kind of touch that defines sight. It is the most immediate sensible experience that leads to the apprehension of light as a principle of life and a condition of knowledge. At the dawn of premodern history, two of their later heirs, Dante and Marsilio Ficino, describe light as that which stands beyond appearances, and yet determine them. Prior to Kepler and Newton, light is irreducible to a merely physical phenomenon. To grasp the stakes of this aporetic status, whose consequences are foundational for philosophy, let us read once again the Timaeus, the Republic, the Phaedrus, the Symposium, Aristotle’s De anima, as well as some of Plotinus’ treatises.