Aither 19/2018:46-83 | DOI: 10.5507/aither.2018.003

Aristotle and Physiognomy

Tomáš Vítek

Filosofický ústav, Akademie věd České republiky, v. v. i.

The main question this article is trying to answer is why Aristotle did not write any treatise on physiognomy similar to one published under his name by an unknown Peripatetic thinker. Aristotle includes in his theories and writings a considerable amount of coherent views and partial theses that were in line with some older and generally accepted preconceptions - e.g. about the innate inferiority of women and barbarians, or about the ontological superiority of hot over cold. These [preconceptions] were also shared by physiognomists, including the author of the Physiognomonica. It seems, however, that he never attempted to create one consistent and comprehensive theory based on these observations and views. This may be partly that he did not accept the main preconception of physiognomists about an innate and unchangeable correspondence between appearance and character. The chief factor, however, was probably the fact he did not believe that physiognomy can be transformed into a science. He himself was able to prove scientifically a correspondence between traits of character and appearance only on the level of a species, but not on the level of the individual. In Analytics Prior, moreover, he conditioned the legitimate practicability of physiognomy by four conditions from the area of logical argumentation which, however, physiognomy could not fulfil for the most part.

Published: March 30, 2018  Show citation