Forme et valeur de la théorie des miroirs chez Lucrèce (De rerum natura, IV, 269-323)

• Main Author: Samuel Dumont
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: ENS Éditions 2020-12-01
• Series: Aitia : Regards sur la Culture Hellénistique au XXIe Siècle
• Subjects: Lucretius; Epicureanism; theory of vision; perception; criterion of truth; canonic
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/aitia/7791

While focusing on the specific topic of mirror images, Lucretius defends the Epicurean idea of the truth of all sensations and the importance of an education of the mind through the reasoning process of the Epicurean school. Far from being the mere appendix to a defense of a materialistic theory of shade and light, the motif of the mirror is enriched as the poet lingers over its specific features and works his way through the problems it actually poses to Epicurean epistemology. Lucretius demonstrates a perfect mastery of rhetoric, not so much in setting aside or dissolving objections than in accepting all of them, even the most difficult ones, and proving that they turn out to confirm the truth of Epicurus’ doctrine. In doing so, Lucretius does not choose to offer an austere and dogmatic account of the physical theory of mirrors, but aims at providing the reader with a vivid feeling of the life of images according to the theory of simulacra. All at once he exposes this theory, provides the reader with a thought-experiment, and sharpens the weapons he will be using against the Skeptics in a later passage of book IV (469–521), thus making the mirror not merely the object of scientific curiosity but a real instrument.