Symmetry: a bridge between nature and culture

International audience; Are symmetries discovered or rather invented by humans ? The stand you may take firmly here reveals a lot of your epistemologicalposition. Conversely, the arguments you may forge for answering to this question, or to one of its numerous narrower or broadervariations, shape your whole philosophical thoughts; not specifically about science, by the way. I will try to show how physics helps to (re)consider this issue.