Abstract

The description of vision occurs in the Timaeus in 45b-47b, following a double pattern characteristic of this dialogue: The physicist first gives a mechanical explanation of sight that involves two fluxes of light, that of the eye and that of the body in the field of vision. He then goes on to give a functionalist explanation that puts vision at the source of the sciences of astronomy, mathematics, and even philosophy. In this complex passage of the Timaeus, vision is a power that informs us how an affection, that gives rise to sensations, could give rise to knowledge. This article begins by investigating the main ideas in passage 45b-47b of the Timaeus and goes on to explain what is at stake in competing interpretations concerning the role of vision in thought in this particular passage. It argues that, through a constitutive dualism between the sensible and the intelligible – implying an epistemological gap – vision is an instrument towards the intelligible.