DREAM, IMAGE AND SENSATION IN EPICURO'S THEORY OF SENSITIVE PERCEPTION

Abstract

Based on the understanding of paragraphs 32 and 51 of Book X by Diogenes Laércio: Life and doctrines of distinguished philosophers, a theory of sensitive perception and image in Epicurus' thought. However, seeking to demonstrate the epistemic process of sensations (αἰσθήσεις), initiated in the “imagetic projections” (φανταστικὰς ἐπιβολὰς), that is, in the detachment of the surfaces of the composite bodies through the constant movement (κίνεσις) of the atoms, Epicuro, unpretentiously, fundam nature of the “dream” (ὄναρ) as a derivation of the images (εἴδωλα) of the bodily beings that affect the soul “during sleep” (καθ 'ὕπνους) and, therefore, are true dreams: for “it moves [the mind] , and, what is not [μὴ ὄν] does not move it ”. In this sense, it breaks with a long tradition that dreams are divine manifestations, as expressed in the Vatican Sentence 24, therefore, they do not need interpretations, but are explained as “representations” (φαντάσματα) of the sensitive ones arising during the sleep that they form in the soul through the anticipations kept in the understanding, that is, they are representative images of the phenomenal world, therefore, there is only a dream of what is perceived.