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La lumi鋨e est l? mais en elle-m瘱e qui la voit ? Conditionnelle pour tout ce que la lumi鋨e n'est pas--le visible, l'皻re, la vie, la pens嶪--sa ph幯om幯alit?s'av鋨e immanente ?la saisie sensible, tandis que la lumi鋨e elle-m瘱e demeure 彋rang鋨e ?tout ce qu'elle d憝oile. La conna褾re exige de saisir son effet, ?la fois unique et multiple, ?travers le rendu infini du visible et de l'anim? Cette pierre m'est lumi鋨e (lapis iste ... mihi lumen est), disait un philosophe irlandais ?la crois嶪 de l'Antiquit?tardive et du Moyen 櫂e. C'est en regardant que l'oeil recouvre la puissance du fiat lux: il engendre la visibilit?comme expression universelle de l'皻re, en laissant se r憝幨er en m瘱e temps la lumi鋨e comme condition transcendante de l'apparaissant.
Platon, Aristote et Plotin 憝oquent la lumi鋨e en parlant du toucher qui d嶨init la vue. C'est l'exp廨ience sensible la plus directe qui conduit ?saisir la lumi鋨e en tant que principe du vivant et condition de l'intellection. ?l'aube de l'histoire pr幦oderne, deux de leurs h廨itiers tardifs, Dante et Marsile Ficin, d嶰rivent la lumi鋨e comme ce qui se tient au-del?des aspects tout en les d彋erminant. Avant Kepler et Newton, la lumi鋨e est irr嶮uctible au ph幯om鋝e physique. Pour saisir les enjeux de ce statut apor彋ique aux cons廦uences fondatrices pour la philosophie, relisons le Tim嶪, la R廧ublique, le Ph鋄re, le Banquet, le De anima aristot幨icien, ainsi que certains trait廥 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.
