Chapter 2 Matter as a Mirror: Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance ...

Matter as a Mirror 91
Like matter, the shadow is not completely deprived of being, the
image in the mirror remains “a something” leading a life of its own. Here it
becomes obvious that mirrors do not merely reflect, they also have the capacity
to retain the forms they receive, like a womb. Actually, this is the obvious
conclusion to be drawn from Ficino’s cosmology: we just have to remember
that each hypostasis first behaves like a mirror/shadow/matter collecting the
higher influence which it then independently transmits to the next lower
echelon of being down to the bottom of creation. The process of creation thus
requires that each hypostasis retain the images from above, transform them,
and then reflect them onto the level beneath.
It is interesting to note that the passage cited above stands in pointed
contradiction to modern readings of Plato’s doctrine of idola, such as Irigaray’s.
According to her interpretation, Plato’s myth of the cave was designed
to rule out any sort of transformation occurring in the process of projection
and reflection. 138 I do not wish to discuss Irigaray’s reading here, 139 but I would
stress that according to Ficino the image in the mirror remains a “something”
leading a life of its own. Ficino consequently parallels the qualities of matter
beant, sicut mathematica suum.” According to Michael Allen, the source is Proclus (1970)
II, 98–100. Allen (1989) 169 further argues: “It follows from the whole set of negative
hypotheses in the Neoplatonist’s Parmenides […] that, since the One exists both absolutely
and immanently, then not only do the realms of Mind, of Soul, of the corporeal forms, and
of body itself exist but also, in an unitary if unsubstantial way, does the realm of shadows
and of dreams; and it exists immediately subordinate to the realm of corporeal forms and
material species upon which it directly depends and of which it is an imitation.” For a
parallel comment, see Appendix in Timaeum 40, OO 1473: “Quae [sc. imagines] quidem
nimis exilem habent essentiam, ut non aliter palam ostentare se oculis possint, quam in
corporibus specularibus aequabiliter stabilitae, redintegratae, illustratae, pristinam vim
quandam modumquae formae, unde processere, recipiant.”
138 Irigaray (1985) 309–310: “No proper value will be put upon the specular inversion
that [this kind of] projection erases by magic. Being, Good, Truth, the power of the
Father are in no way amenable to being turned around. They go on and are eternally made
manifest in their rectitude. With no back side or flip side. And the receptacle, the place of
becoming, remembers nothing. Otherwise it would — perhaps — bear witness to the irreducible
inversion that occurs in specula(riza)tion and in the re-production of any imprint,
[…] even ideal ones. It must absolutely, not be known how much the procreation of the
‘son,’ of the logos by the Father owes to inversion. Nor that the mother is the place where
that inversion occurs.” See also Irigaray (1985) 331–333.
139 Actually, Plato discusses the inversion that takes place in the mirror; see Timaeus
46C and especially Theaitetus 193D.