Une version pervertie de la connaissance de soi : le cas d’Hostius Quadra

Abstract

Since Plato, the mirror has been serving as the metaphorical object symbolizing for the philosophical tradition the access to self-knowledge. It thus becomes associated with virtue. But a little story reported by Seneca in his Questions on nature illustrates another use of that object as it becomes an instrument of perversion. The chapter he devotes to Hostius Quadra demonstrates the devious and perverted use that can be made of a philosophical precept, transformed into an invitation to abjection.

Keywords

• self-knowledge
• exhibitionism
• mirror
• obscenity
• perversion
• pornography