Un nouveau pouvoir pour les mathématiques. Quelques remarques sur le cursus d’études du Livre VII de “La République”

In the “mathematical curriculum” articulated by Plato in Resp. VII, Socrates and Glaucon attribute to arithmetics, “logistike” and geometry a certain “power” (“dynamis”), which is described through images, metaphors, comical sketches, references to epos and tragedy. The analysis line by line of such a description helps us to understand that we are not only in front of the first formulation of “mathematical platonism” in our philosophical tradition, but that it is part of a more extensive theorization focussed on the power – exercised by mathematics (especially by some mathematical procedures) – of mediating between senses and mind, visible and invisible, movement/temporality and eternity.