Article ID: CBB880632681

From Animal Bodies To Human Souls: (Pseudo-)Aristotelian Animals in Della Porta’s Physiognomics (2017)

unapi

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.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB880632681/

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Authors & Contributors
Rusu, Doina-Cristina
Jalobeanu, Dana
Bragagnolo, Manuela
Verardi, Donato
Clementina Gily Reda
Dominik Berrens
Concepts
Physiognomy
Natural magic
Experiments and experimentation
Formulas, recipes, etc...
Natural philosophy
Philosophy
Time Periods
17th century
16th century
Renaissance
Early modern
Medieval
14th century
Places
Italy
Naples (Italy)
Bogotá (Colombia)
England
Central America
South America
Institutions
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome)
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