Volume 3, 1998
Ancient Philosophy
Sabine Vogt
Pages 298-301
Semiotics of Human Body and Character
Aristotle’s Logical Foundation of Physiognomics
Whenever we meet an unknown person, our first judgment, even unwillingly and often subconsciously, starts from his or her external appearance. Since character can be properly recognized only from words and deeds observed over some time, at first sight we have to rely on what we immediately can see. This physiognomical first approach to each other is as old as humankind, and, though it has never been able to be proved a proper science, in everyday life we all believe in and use physioculture. The earliest extant written work on the subject is the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Physiognomonica. The author of its first part, in discussing the methodology of the art, refers to Aristotle, who develops the logical foundation of physiognomical inference: as an enthymeme, a syllogism from signs. Yet, concentrating solely on the formal logical analysis, Aristotle does not touch the central point of physiognomics; it C. S. Peirce’s discovery of the triadic relation of the sign that was able to shed new light on this central problem and to see physiognomics as a process of semiosis. Thus, Aristotle founded the formal logical basis, from which modern semiotics developed new approaches to physiognomics, taking them in account in several strands of their research.