Save

From Animal Bodies To Human Souls: (Pseudo-)Aristotelian Animals in Della Porta’s Physiognomics


In: Early Science and Medicine
Author:
Cecilia Muratori University of Warwick
c.muratori@warwick.ac.uk


Search for other papers by Cecilia Muratori in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
Download Citation Get Permissions

Access options

Get access to the full article by using one of the access options below.

Institutional Login

Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials

Login via Institution

Purchase

Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

$40.00

This article analyses the role that animals play in Della Porta’s method of physiognomics. It claims that Della Porta created his own, original, method by appropriating, and yet selectively adapting Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian sources. This has not been adequately reconstructed before in previous studies on Della Porta. I trace, in two steps, the conceptual trajectory of Della Porta’s physiognomics, from human psychology to animal psychology, and ultimately from psychology to ethics. In the first step, I show how Della Porta substantially adapts the physiognomic principle of the body-soul relationship as found in the pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomonica. In the second, I demonstrate that the real aim of Della Porta’s physiognomics is a practical one, namely understanding how to live a good life, and I explain why he refers to Aristotle in order to ground this conception.


Content Metrics

All Time Past 365 days Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 950 106 11
Full Text Views 278 6 0
PDF Views & Downloads 127 16 0