Article ID: CBB449232524

Notomisti, filosofi, «cacciatori di teste»: Gall, Kant e i primordi della frenologia (2011)

unapi

In 1798, the German physician and anatomist Franz Joseph Gall, after his transfer to Vienna, published a pioneer paper that gave rise to the Scha¨dellehre (skull–doctrine): a new discipline (today better known under the spurious name of phrenology) aimed at the study of the functional relations between mental faculties, cerebral areas, and skull bumps. During that same period (1796-1798), several Kantian texts began to circulate, in which – polemicizing with J.C. Lavater, and S.Th. Soemmerring – some anthropological and psychological issues, present also in Gall’s paper (e.g., ‘‘the inner and outer side of man,’’ ‘‘skull morphology,’’ ‘‘the organ of the soul,’’ etc.) were dealt with, but in an independent way. Kant will come to know of the Scha¨dellehre only in the last years of his life, showing an unexpected interest in the subject. Proof of this may be found not only in the testimony of his Tischgenossen (table friends), but also in some posthumous notes (AA XV/2, AA XXI: 1802-1803), which are the object of a still controversial interpretation. In 1804, upon the death of the philosopher – on the background of the striking contemporaneous occurrence of the so-called ‘‘skull hunt’’ (Scha¨deljagd), raging at that time in the Austro-German area – also Kant’s skull, like those of other prominent figures, became the object of a phrenological investigation, as Gall had for a long time been hoping.

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Authors & Contributors
Eling, Paul
Finger, Stanley
Whitaker, Harry A.
Beierholm, Simon
Gonia Jarema
Thomassen, Jacob Lauge
Concepts
Phrenology
Neurosciences
Brain localization
Psychology
Brain
Science and culture
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
17th century
Places
Germany
France
Netherlands
Denmark
Great Britain
Vilnius (Lithuania or Poland)
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