what are the main ideas of the contemporary essay about physiognomy

Physiognomy, The Beautiful Pseudoscience

How the dubious science of deducing mental character from physical appearance influenced european art and culture in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Sarah Waldorf | October 8, 2012 | 4 min read

Untitled (Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, The Vexed Man , The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA), 2008, Ken Gonzales-Day. Chromogenic print. Ken Gonzales-Day and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. © Ken Gonzales-Day

What do the expressions “highbrow” and “lowbrow” have in common with saying a woman has “mousey” features? What does Homer Simpson have to do with photographs of sculpture in profile by contemporary artist Ken Gonzales-Day? All are contemporary manifestations of an ancient pseudoscience that permeated visual culture in European history, notably in the 18th and 19th centuries: physiognomy.

In Messerschmidt and Modernity at the Getty Center, there’s a fascinating case of four books dating from 16th through the 19th centuries related to this magical pseudoscience, which assesses character and morality from outer appearance, applying the practice of “judging a book by its cover” to the human form.

Physiognomy has its roots in antiquity. As early as 500 B.C., Pythagoras was accepting or rejecting students based on how gifted they looked . Aristotle wrote that large-headed people were mean, those with small faces were steadfast, broad faces reflected stupidity, and round faces signaled courage.

David Brafman, rare books curator at the Getty Research Institute, told me that physiognomy—from the ancient Greek, gnomos (character) and physis (nature), hence “the character of one’s nature”—really became popular again in 16th-century Europe, as physicians, philosophers, and scientists searched for tangible, external clues to internal temperaments.

In the early 1600s, Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta, considered the father of physiognomy, was instrumental in spreading ideas about character and appearance in Europe. Della Porta came up with the idea for physiognomy through his alchemical experiments, in which he attempted to boil down and distill from substances their “tincture,” or pure essence. He made an analogy to the human essence, suggesting that one could deduce an individual’s character from empirical observation of his physical features. His widely disseminated book on the subject, De humana physiognomia , was instrumental in spreading physiognomy throughout Europe. Illustrations in the book depict human and animal heads side by side, implying that people who look like particular animals have those creatures’ traits.

Leonine specimens: Illustration in Giambattista della Porta’s De humana physiognomia (Naples, 1602). The Getty Research Institute, 2934-552

Images like these were powerful, and illustrations, sculptures, drawings, and other visual forms were key to the spread of physiognomy and its strange ideas.

In the second half of the 18th century, Johann Caspar Lavater became the new king of physiognomy. He blended an examination of silhouette, the profile, portraiture, and proportions into his best-selling book, Essays on Physiognomy , which included a detailed reading of the face broken down into its major pieces, including the eyes, brows, mouth, and nose. The expression “stuck-up” comes from this time, when a person with a nose bending slightly upwards was read as having a contemptuous, superior attitude.

Representative plates from Johann Caspar Lavater’s Essays on Physiognomy of “problematic” profiles and facial structures

Lavater often expressed an obvious cultural bias in his readings of the morality of people from other countries. “Lavater idealizes the familiar and praises what he knows,” wrote one critic, “but finds ‘deficiencies’ in the faces of Africans, Laplanders, and Calmuck Tartars.”

The connections between physiognomy and aesthetics were pointed in Essays on Physiognomy , as Lavater commissioned artist Johann Henrich Fuseli and poet William Blake to provide the illustrations. This artistic interest in physical appearance and character contributed to the development of theories of the ideal geometric proportions of the face in the late 18th century by theorists such as William Hogarth and Lord Shaftesbury .

Diagram of facial angles from Charles White, An account of the regular gradation in man, and in different animals and vegetables; and from the former to the latter. Illustrated with engravings adapted to the subject (London, C. Dilly, 1799). This item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Rare Books, 302625

The influence of physiognomy can be seen throughout 18th- and 19th-century European art. In the 18th century in particular, natural philosophers embraced the “ideal” features found in classical sculpture, which were mistakenly thought to represent how the ancients actually looked. The assumed cultural superiority of ancient Greece became attached to these features, which were adopted by European artists and depicted again and again. “Others”—such as Asians and Africans—were less not only less beautiful, but less moral.

Like man, like swine: Illustration in Giambattista della Porta’s De humana physiognomia (Naples, 1602). The Getty Research Institute, 2934-552

Photographer Ken Gonzales-Day examined this phenomenon in his series Profiled , an example of which is on view in Messerschmidt and Modernity . He created photographs of portrait sculptures in museum collections, both to explore the tradition of portraiture in Western art and to critique the pictorial conventions and racial profiling advanced by Lavater—who believed the profile to be the best perspective to analyze human character.

Untitled (Henry Weekes, Bust of an African Woman , based on a photographic image of Mary Seacole, and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, Bust of Mm. Adélaïde Julie Mirleau de Neuville, neé Garnier d’Isle . The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA), 2011, Ken Gonzales-Day. Chromogenic print. Courtesy of and © Ken Gonzales-Day and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles

Today, scholars are still studying the science of faces and how different traits, features, and expressions affect us. For example, it’s well established that faces with rounded contours attract us, because they signal childlikeness and evoke parental instincts. We even have a tendency to view “baby-faced” people as less likely to commit premeditated crimes. Unfortunately, if you’ve got an angular face, you’re probably a criminal.

So even though the term “physiognomy” no longer resonates, the assumption of physical appearance as moral indicator lives on. Homer Simpson must be ugly, because he is stupid. When Dorothy asks the good “white” witch in The Wizard of Oz why she’s so beautiful, she replies, “Why, only bad witches are ugly.” Though our consumer-driven world has increasingly substituted clothing and material possessions as signifiers of character, we continue to label our fellow humans as “thick-headed,” and people get stopped on the street because they “look suspicious.”

Physiognomy is uncomfortable, messy, and often racist, but I do understand its motivation. The urge to classify, study, and categorize people is based in the desire to understand ourselves more clearly. But for every ideal form, there’s an “other” who also wants to explore herself on her own terms, without being profiled.

• exhibitions
• Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
• Getty Museum collection
• J. Paul Getty Museum
• Messerschmidt and Modernity
• Sculpture and Decorative Arts

About The Author

Sarah waldorf.

I'm the social media lead for Getty Communications. I work on digital content production for blog, social, and website, and co-manage @gettymuseum across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Comments on this post are now closed.

Fascinating. Are Ken’s works available ?

Hi Trent! Apologies for the late response. If you haven’t already hunted around, here is a link to Ken’s website! He’s got some images, texts and links on his site if you’re interested in seeing more what he’s about as an artist: http://www.kengonzalesday.com/

Physiognomy is not a pseudosciense. There is a strong correlation between attractiveness and intelligence. Because what is “attractiveness” — it is simply an aesthetic judgment of the fitness of the Race. The outward reflects the mental capacity in the majority of cases. If we do not quantify the values that we desire as a society and work to ensure the propagation of them, through our now aesthetically ignorant brainwashing those special genetic specimens will be bred out of existence.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• In the Image of Dog He Created Them… | Out of Time - [...] Della Porta’s text was influential in the ancient pseudoscience of physiognomy, the study of determining a person’s inner character…
• Project Structure: Research Point Anatomy « belleab31 - [...] also found an interesting article on physiognomy and art at http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/physiognomy-the-beautiful-pseudoscience/. Basically, this is an ancient Greek idea, that…
• “Late – Victorian fiction reworks the figure of the double in various ways in order to explore cultural contradictions and desires” Discuss in relation to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | Phen Weston - Essays - […] S., (2012) Physiognomy, The Beautiful Pseudoscience, Available at:http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/physiognomy-the-beautiful-pseudoscience/ (Accessed: 28th May […]
• Fantastically Wrong: The Scientist Who Seriously Believed Criminals Were Part Ape | Nagg - […] the related pseudoscience of physiognomy[5], which advocated judging your personality based solely on your face (a story for another…
• Week 3 Response: Physiognomy | the history of art and technology - […] “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” So we’ve been told, but how long have people been doing just…
• The Birth of the Digital Death Mask - […] as police mugshots.These cataloguing systems were based on two popular contemporary pseudosciences: physiognomy (the assessment of a person’s character…
• Find out more about about the history behind Liberty’s Fire | Lydia Syson - […] obsession with physiognomy came up in so many different texts and images – I found this Getty blog a useful introduction…
• Dracula Ch. 10-14: Science is (un)Dead | Bahnreads - […] Jonathon Harker makes a judgement of Van Helsing’s personality based on his eyebrows and Van Helsing mentions physiognomy. If…

More Stories on the Iris

How to Preserve a Piece of Abolitionist History

A Glimpse into the Sun King’s Private World

Why Is This Drawing in a Museum?

• Search Menu
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Acquisition
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Religion
• Music and Media
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Strategy
• Business Ethics
• Business History
• Business and Government
• Business and Technology
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Systems
• Economic History
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Public Administration
• Public Policy
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

Three Physiognomy: “Facing” the Past

• Published: May 2019
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

Gall considered his new science a part of physiognomy, the idea that physical features are revealing of character. This idea, accepted by Hippocrates and promoted by the Aristotelians, can also be found in Galen’s influential writings from the second century ad , as well as in later books with pictures of men having features like cows and lions and personalities to match. Lavater’s well-illustrated physiognomy books from the 1770s were still very popular when Gall developed his doctrine. But unlike his predecessors, who he depreciated, Gall focused entirely on the head, and related cranial features to distinct higher brain parts, which he associated with different functions. In brief, his physiognomy, with its emphasis on the brain and its functions, represented a major break with past formulations and was presented as revolutionary.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

• Google Scholar Indexing
• GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code

Institutional access

• Sign in with a library card Sign in with username/password Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Sign in with a library card

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Promising Future, Complex Past: Artificial Intelligence and the Legacy of Physiognomy presents the history of physiognomy—the practice of assessing one’s mental character based on physical attributes—and explores its influence on contemporary artificial intelligence and computer science technologies that gather and interpret bodily data. Now debunked as pseudoscience, physiognomy enjoyed periods of legitimacy and popularity over a history spanning millennia, influencing the fields of medicine, biology, philosophy, anthropology, psychiatry, and criminology. After serving as tool for scientific racism and eugenics, physiognomy was roundly discredited in the 20 th century. We’ve rejected the harmful aspects of physiognomy, but efforts to gain information from human physical characteristics continue with today’s technologies, which have the potential to make the world safer, improve health, and affect how we get information.

Exhibition Program

Lead Exhibit Specialist

Erika Mills

Exhibit Specialist

Guest Curator

History of Medicine Division, NLM

Susan L. Speaker, PhD

Subject Matter Expert

Sameer Antani, PhD

Lister Hill Center for Biomedical Communications, NLM

Creative Services

Astriata, LLC

Web Design and Development

Baltimore, MD

HealyKohler Design

Exhibition Design

Washington, DC

Special Acknowledgements

History of Medicine Division

Jeffrey Reznick, PhD

Nicole Baker

Librarian, Web Programs

Laura Hartman

Sr. Cataloger, Rare Books and Early Manuscripts Section

Elizabeth Mullen

Manager, Web Development and Social Media

Stephanie Tarn

Contractor, Rare Books and Early Manuscripts Section

Kristi Wright

Kenneth Koyle

Deputy Chief

Allison Cao

Pathways Intern, Web Programs

Holly Herro

Sr. Conservator, Rare Books and Early Manuscripts Section

Krista Stracka

Cataloger, Rare Books and Early Manuscripts Section

Office of Computer and Communications Systems

Winston Churchill

Office of Engagement and Training

Kathel Dunn

Ellen Thieme

Jane Markowitz

Wellcome uses cookies.

Lavater, essays on physiognomy, 1789-1798.

• Digital Images

Available online

• This image (Full size) ( JPG )
• This image (760px) ( JPG )

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

You can use this work for any purpose, including commercial uses, without restriction under copyright law. You should also provide attribution to the original work, source and licence. Read more about this licence .

Lavater, Essays on Physiognomy, 1789-1798 . Wellcome Collection . Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) . Source: Wellcome Collection.

Selected images from this work

About this work, description.

• JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
• EPB 32422/D/1

Permanent link

• Utility Menu

Jeffrey R. Wilson

• Montaigne on Physiognomy

Michel de Montaigne, Essays (1571-92; p. 1580-95; trans. John Florio, 1603):

We attribute sauage shapes and ougly formes vnto diuels. As who doeth not ascribe high-raised eye-browes, open nostrils, a sterne frightfull visage, and a huge body vnto Tamburlane, as is the forme or shape of the imagination we haue fore-conceiued by the bruite of his name? (“Of Repenting,” 454)

Meet we sometimes with crooked, deformed, and in body mishapen men, without falling into rage and discontent (“Of the Arte of Conferring,” 523)

Socrates hath been a perfect patterne in all great qualities. I am vexed, that ever he met with so vnhansome and crabbed a body, as they say he had, and so dissonant from the beauty of his minde. Himselfe so amorous and so besotted on beauty. Nature did him wrong. There is nothing more truly semblable, as the conformity or relation betweene the body and the minde. (“Of Phisiognomy,” 595-96)

This superficiall ill-favourdnesse, which is notwithstanding to the most imperious, is of lesse prejudice vnto the state of the minde: and hath small certainty in mens opinion. The other, by a more proper name called a more substantiall   deformity, beareth commonly a deeper inward stroke….As Socrates said of his, that it justly accused so much in his mind had he not corrected the same by institution. But in so saying, I suppose, that according to his wonted vse, he did but jest: and so excellent a mind, did never frame it selfe. (“Of Phisiognomy,” 596)

Yet me thinkes, that the same feature and manner of the face and those lineaments, by which some argue certaine inward complexions, and our future fortunes, is a thing that doth not directly nor simply lodge vnder the Chapter of beauty and ill favourdnesse; no more than all good favours, or cleerenesse of aire, doe not alwayes promise health; nor all fogges and stinkes, infection, in times of the plague. (“Of Phisiognomy,” 596)

If my countenance had not answered for me, if the ingenuity of mine inward intent might not plainely have beene disciphered in mine eyes and voice, surely I could never have continued so long, without quarrells or offences: with this indiscreete liberty, to speake freely (be it right or wrong) what ever commeth to my minde, and rashly to judge of things. (“Of Phisiognomy,” 599)

There are some fauourable Physiognomies. (“Of Phisiognomy,” 596)

A mans loòke or aire of his face, is but a weake warrant; notwithstanding it is of some consideration. (“Of Phisiognomy,” 596)

To prognosticate future successes of them, be matters I leave vndecided. (“Of Phisiognomy,” 597)

Those which we call monsters are not so with God, who in the immensitie of his worke seeth the infinitie of forme therein contained. (“Of a Monstrous Child,” 399)

Wee call that against nature, which commeth against custome: There is nothing, whatsoever it be, that is not according to hir. Let therefore this vniversall and naturall reason, chase from vs the error, and expell the astonishment, which noveltie breedeth, and strangenes causeth in vs. (“Of a Monstrous Child,” 399)

If we terme those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attaine, how many such doe daily present themselves vnto our sight? (“It is Follie to Referre Truth or Falsehood to our Sufficiencie,” 87-88)

Whilst a man endevoureth to finde out causes, forcible and weighty ends, and worthy so great a name, hee looseth the true and essentiall. They are so little, that they escape our sight. (“Of the Lame or Cripple,” 580)

All these miracles and strange events, are vntill this day hidden from me: I have seene no such monster, or more expresse wonder in this world, then my selfe. With time and custome a man doth acquaint and enure him selfe to all strangenesse : But the more I frequent and know my selfe, the more my deformity astonieth me: and the lesse I vnderstand my selfe. (“Of the Lame or Cripple,” 580)

The croked man doeth it best ….I would have saide, that the loose or disjoynted motion of alimping or crooke-backt Woman, might addesome new kinde of pleasure vnto that businesse or sweet sinne, and some vn-assaid sensuall sweetnesse, to such as make triall of it: but I have lately learnt, that even ancient Philosophy hath decided the matter: Who saith, that the legs and thighs of the crooked-backt or  halting- lame, by reason of their imperfection, not receiving the nourishment, due vnto them, it followeth that the Genitall partes, that are above them, are more full, better nourished and more vigorous. Or else, that such a defect hindring other exercise, such as are therewith possessed, do lesse waste their strength and consume their vertue, and so much the stronger and fuller, they come to Uenus sportes. (“Of the Lame or Cripple,” 582-83)

In few, there is no constant existence, neither of our being, nor of the obiects. And we, and our judgement, and al mortal things els do vncessantly rowle turne and passe away. Thus can nothing be certainely established, nor of the one, nor of the other; both the judging and the judged being in continuall alteration and motion. Wee have no communication with being; for every humane nature is ever in the middle betweene being borne and dying; giving nothing of it selfe but an obscure apparance and shaddow, and an vncertaine and weake opinion. (“An Apologie of Raymond Sebond ,” 340)

• Ajax in Elizabethan Literature
• Ajax in Greek Literature
• Ajax in Latin Literature
• Ajax in Stuart Literature
• Apoplexy in Shakespeare
• Apoplexy in the Elizabethan Age
• Apoplexy in the Renaissance
• Assheads in the Sixteenth Century
• Bastards in Shakespeare
• Bastardy in the Elizabethan Age
• Bastardy in the Jacobean Age
• Bastardy in the Renaissance
• Black Skin in Early English Literature
• Black Skin in Renaissance Italian Literature
• Black Skin in Shakespeare
• Black Skin on the Elizabethan Stage
• Black Skin on the Jacobean Stage
• Blindness in Shakespeare
• Cannibals in the Renaissance
• Epilepsy in Shakespeare
• Falstaff’s Sources in Early English Literature
• Gluttony in Tudor Literature
• Henry IV’s Apoplexy in the Tudor Chronicles
• Henry V’s Face in Early English Literature
• Hubert de Burgh in Early English Literature
• Jews in Shakespeare
• Jews on the Early English Stage
• Julius Caesar’s Epilepsy in Early English Literature
• Lameness in Shakespeare
• Margaret of Anjou in Early English Literature
• Midas’s Transformation
• Miracles in Shakespeare
• Monstrosity in Shakespeare
• Monstrosity in the Elizabethan Age
• Montaigne on the Cannibals
• Mutilation in Shakespeare
• Obesity in Shakespeare
• Old Age in Shakespeare
• Physical Deformity in Shakespeare
• Physical Deformity in the Elizabethan Age
• Physical Deformity in the Jacobean Age
• Physical Deformity in the Renaissance
• Physical Deformity on the Elizabethan Stage
• Physical Deformity on the Jacobean Stage
• Rape in Shakespeare
• Richard III’s Deformities in Tudor Literature
• Rosacea in Early English Ballads
• Rosacea in Early English Literature
• Rosacea in Early English Medicine
• Savages in Shakespeare
• Stigma in Early English Literature
• The Andronici in Early English Literature
• The Elderly in Shakespeare
• The Jew’s Nose and Clothes in Early English Literature
• The Miracle at St. Albans in Early English Literature
• The Paphlagonian King
• The Weird Sisters in Early British Literature
• Thersites in Elizabethan Literature
• Thersites in Greek Literature
• Thersites in Latin Literature
• Thersites in Renaissance Literature
• Ugliness in Shakespeare
• Ugliness in the Elizabethan Age
• Witches in Shakespeare
• Witches on the Jacobean Stage
• Wounds in Classical Literature
• Wounds in Shakespeare
• Wounds in the Corpus Christi Cycles

LAVATER, Johann Kaspar (1741-1801)

Essays on physiognomy, designed to promote the knowledge and love of mankind.. illustrated by more than eight hundred engravings.. executed by, or under the inspection of, thomas holloway. translated from the french by henry hunter..

London: T.Bensley for John Murray, H.Hunter and T.Holloway, 1792 [watermarked 1804]. Three volumes in five, large 4to. (13 1/8 x 10 3/4 inches). 3 engraved title vignettes, 173 plates by William Blake (1), Thomas Holloway and others, after Henry Fuseli and others, about 361 engraved text illustrations (one on India paper mounted) by Blake (3), Thomas Holloway and others after Fuseli and others. Scattered foxing.

Item #32388

Price: $2,800.00

Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Knowledge

• Vincenzo Mele 4  
• First Online: 13 January 2023

251 Accesses

Part of the book series: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms ((MAENMA))

This chapter analyzes the method employed by Benjamin in his writings on the arcades and the city. Benjamin—similar to Simmel—uses a neo-Kantian lexicon and would have preceded his work on the passages of Paris with a gnoseological premise ( Erkenntniskritische Vorrede ) along the lines of his study on the German Trauerspiel. These reflections on the theory of knowledge comprise the features of the “historical-sociological physiognomy” through which Benjamin intended to interpret the social and cultural phenomena of the city of Paris, which would produce a reflection on the concept of history that constitutes Walter Benjamin’s theoretical testament.

[A] mode of historical science which fashions its object not out of a tangle of mere facticities but out of the numbered group of threads representing the woof of a past fed into the warp of the present. —Benjamin 2006a [1937], p. 269

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution .

Buying options

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Benjamin began his university studies in April 1912 at the Albert Ludwig University in Breisgau, one of the oldest and most renowned German universities. He matriculated in the department of philology and in the summer semester attended a variety of lecture courses. Among them was “Introduction to Epistemology and Metaphysics” taught by the prominent neo-Kantian philosopher Heinrich Rickert. In fact, Benjamin’s philosophical and aesthetic research of the following decade can be considered as significant moments of adherence to and estrangement from the orbit of neo-Kantianism of Rickert and Hermann Cohen, professor of philosophy in Marburg (Eiland and Jennings 2014 , pp. 32–33).

Benjamin’s intention was, in the words of a letter to Gerhard Scholem, dated October 22, 1917, to “comprehend [Kant] with the utmost reverence, looking on the least letter as a tradendum to be transmitted (however much it is necessary to recast him afterwards)” (Adorno and Scholem 1994, pp. 97–98).

In a short juvenile essay published under a pseudonym in 1913 in the Berlin journal Der Anfang , titled “Experience” ( Erfahrung ) and showing his lifelong concern with this theme, Benjamin attacks the philistine “bourgeois” notion of experience, understood as the outgrowing of youth, in the name of a higher, more immediate experience of the “inexperiencable” (EW, 117). This importance of the not-yet cognitive experience will be attested by Benjamin’s enduring concern with dreams and waking, as well as with myth, surrealism, hashish, the world of childhood.

Simmel’s critique of Kant’s concept of experience was inspired by Hermann Cohen’s influential book, Kants Theorie der Erfahrung , 2nd ed., Berlin, 1885 (on Simmel’s original relationship with neo-Kantianianism see Podoksik 2016 ). Scholem and Benjamin attended Cohen’s lessons in Berlin and read Kants Theorie der Erfahrung : “We were full of respect and indeed reverence for this figure; thus we approached our reading with great expectations … But Cohen’s deductions and interpretations seemed highly questionable to us.” Benjamin complained about the “transcendental confusion” of his presentation and termed the book “a philosophical vespiary” (Scholem and Benjamin 1982 , pp. 58–60, quot. in Eiland and Jennings 2014 , p. 102). Although Cohen’s rigid rationalism, dualism, and optimism seemed disputable for Benjamin, he would soon find many inspirations for the development of his own way to criticism from Cohen’s philosophical interpretation of biblical messianism in his Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism (1919) (ibid.).

Adorno had described these essential features of Benjamin’s thought in the fundamental Profile dedicated to him: “the core of Benjamin’s philosophy is the idea of the salvation of the dead as the restitution of distorted life through the consummation of its own reification down to the inorganic level. ‘Only for the sake of the hopeless are we given hope’, is the conclusion of the study of Goethe’s Elective Affinities paradox of the impossible possibility, mysticism and enlightenment are joined for the last time in him. (Adorno 1981 [1967], p. 240).

With the German word Gehalt , Benjamin seems to mean something other than the current meaning of “content.” An important confirmation of this is provided by a series of aphorisms that appear in One-Way Street , where he states: “In the artwork, content and form are one: meaning [ Gehalt ]”; and immediately afterwards: “Meaning is the outcome of experience” (SW 1, p. 459). Given the originality of meaning that Benjamin assigns to this terminology, which is directly related to his theory of experience (as we will see later), this’ choice seems the most appropriate.

In On Semblance Benjamin expressed the same conception of criticism as “mortification” in another way: “No work of art may appear completely alive without becoming mere semblance, and ceasing to be a work of art. The life quivering in it must appear petrified and as if spellbound in a single moment. The life quivering within it is beauty, the harmony that flows through chaos and—that only appears to tremble. What arrests this semblance, what holds life spellbound and disrupts the harmony, is the expressionless [ das Ausdruckslose ]. That quivering is what constitutes the beauty of the work; the paralysis is what denies its truth” (Benjamin 1996c [1919–20], p. 224).

This observation first appeared in the collective volume Zur Aktualität Walter Benjamins , edited by S. Unseld, Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp Verlag, 1972, which takes its title from the article by Habermas himself ( Bewußtmachende oder rettende Kritik—die Aktualität Walter Benjamins , pp. 175–223. English trans. Consciousness-Raising or Redemptive Criticism: The Contemporaneity of Walter Benjamin , in «New German Critique», Spring, 1979, No. 17, pp. 30–59). This essay has had a certain resonance in criticism, as evidenced by the works of Tiedemann, Dialektik im Stillstand , R. Wolin, Walter Benjamin. An Aesthetic of Redemption , New York, Columbia University Press, 1982, S. Buck-Morss, Dialectics of Seeing and (even in polemical terms) in the works of M. Löwy.

This quotation from the Arcades Project actually comes from the preparatory notes to the Trauerspiel book ( GS I: 953–954). In these notes Benjamin added: “Only for this reason can it fulfil the concept of authenticity” (ibid., p. 954).

“Original leap” is in fact the etymological meaning of the German word for “origin.”

As Wolin accurately states: “The work of art as origin: therein lies the telos of Benjamin’s conception of criticism. If it is grasped as authentic, it will contain, represented as if in foreshortening, the entire past and subsequent history of an art form within it, magically collected as if it were a totality, a focal point” (Wolin 1994 , p. 98). Or a “monad,” we could also say, using the Leibnizian concept that Benjamin himself takes up in the Erkenntniskritische Vorrede .

Especially in the second part of the book, titled Allegorie und Trauerspiel , Benjamin makes ostentatious use of allegorical technique, which is manifested especially in the “surprising” use of quotations, constructed according to the model of allegorical images. By means of the “mortification” of the original context in which they are found, individual phrases or sentence fragments are extracted and rearranged so that, like the signifying images of allegory, they gather around a center; finally, his own thought is added to them, without, however, forcing the individual elements into a continuum . The quotations stand in place of the images, they are pictura , to which the meaning is attributed by means of a sentence placed as a subscripto . Benjamin himself therefore operates as an allegorical writer, the figure of the sage par excellence in the Baroque era.

GS I, 3, pp. 935–936, a statement present in the original unpublished draft of the Erkenntniskritische Vorrede , which contains some clarifications and repetitions useful for understanding the final version.

Benjamin’s judgment on Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal return will become even more drastic and liquidating. In his Notes and Materials of the Passagenwerk , it is assimilated to the various “phantasms” in which the nineteenth century represented historical temporality. In an era in which the greatest instability and uncertainty of the productive system was affirmed, due to its cyclical crises, the idea of happiness as prefigured in the conception of the eternal return seemed to be the mere wishful thinking of a bourgeoisie that was losing control of the social system it had created: “The idea of the eternal recurrence conjures the phantasmagoria of happiness from the misery of the Founders Years” (Benjamin 2002 , p. 116).

Benjamin in fact stated: “If the object of history is to be blasted out of the continuum of historical succession, that is because its monadological structure demands it. […] It is owing to this monadological structure that the historical object finds represented in its interior its own fore-history and after-history. (Thus, for example, the fore-history of Baudelaire, as educed by current scholarship, resides in allegory; his after-history, in Jugendstil .)”.

Benjamin ( 2002 , p. 4) quotes the motto “Each epoch dreams the one to follow. [Chaque époque rêve la suivante]” in the 1935 exposé .

In fact, Rolf Tiedemann states that “the prolegomena to a materialist physiognomy that must be drawn from the Passagenwerk are among Benjamin’s most significant conceptions. […] If its realization would have been sufficient for the purpose, that is what the program promised; if physiognomics would have fulfilled its materialist tasks, only the realization of the Passagenwerk could have confirmed it” (Tiedemann 1983 , p. 29). Of the same tenor are the affirmations of W. Menninghaus: “the greater innovative force of the thought benjaminian on the myth consists in his late physiognomic sociology, in his aesthetics of the world-social life. In it … [one has] the anticipation of the foundation of a new form of social theory and of the utilization of the (mediated) immediacy of the everyday” (Menninghaus 1986 , p. 113).

Ibid., p. 595.

Particularly significant in this regard is the famous letter (dated July 1916) to his friend, the philosopher Martin Buber, in which Benjamin, in order to justify his refusal to collaborate with the political journal “Der Jude,” enunciates in this way his own conception of the relationship between politics, language, and history: “My concept of objective and, at the same time, highly political style and writing is this: to awaken the interest in what is denied to the word; only where this sphere of speechlessness reveals itself in unutterably pure power can the magic spark leap between the word and the motivating deed, where the unity of these two equally real entities resides ” (Benjamin 1994 , p. 80; author’s italics). On the relationship between language and history in Benjamin, which we have left in the background of our analysis, see the fundamental work of G. Agamben, Language and History in Benjamin (Agamben 1988 ).

Habermas’ judgement is harsher than that of his teacher Adorno. Although he was never admiring of Benjamin’s “immediacy,” Adorno stated in the aphorism of Minima moralia titled Legacy : “Benjamin’s writings are an attempt in ever new ways to make philosophically fruitful what has not yet been foreclosed by great intentions. The task he bequeathed was not to abandon such an attempt to the estranging enigmas of thought alone, but to bring the intentionless within the realm of concepts: the obligation to think at the same time dialectically and undialectically” (Adorno 2005 , pp. 151–152).

This relationship between art, utopia, and politics, demonstrating the solid link between Benjamin’s early reflections on art and The Arcades Project is beautifully expressed in a fragment from Notes and Materials : “In every true work of art there is a place where, for one who removes there, it blows cool like the wind of a coming dawn. From this it follows that art, which has often been considered refractory to every relation with progress, provides its true definition. Progress has its seat not in the continuity of elapsing time but in its interferences—where the truly new makes itself felt for the first time, with the sobriety of dawn” (Benjamin 2002 , p. 474).

The Theses on the Concept of History were not meant for publication as separate essay. In an April 1940 letter to Gretel Karplus Adorno Benjamin affirmed that they can “leave the door wide open for enthusiastic misunderstandings” (GS I, p. 1227). Whether the now extensive international literature on Walter Benjamin has avoided these “misunderstandings” is obviously a matter of debate—especially political debate—as we shall see in the next section.

Symons confuses this significant quote by Benjamin in the Arcades Project when he states: “In The Arcades Project … Benjamin describes the concept of culture that also underlies Simmel’s philosophy as something that ‘has … favored the cause of barbarism’” (Symons 2017 , p. 153). As seen, Benjamin’s actual quote says actually the opposite. This misunderstanding—which nevertheless continues the tradition of critical theory’s preconceived hostility toward Simmel as a “scapegoat” (Landmann 1967 )—doesn’t invalidate Symons’ insightful comparative interpretation: it may just attenuate his negative judgment over “unity” and “continuity” in Simmel’s view of life (that was not shared by Benjamin).

With regard to this essay, published as an anticipation of the work on the Passagenwerk at the urgent request of Max Horkheimer and the Institute for Social Research, Benjamin stated that it contained “a certain number of important considerations on dialectical materialism that are in tune with my work” (Benjamin 1994 [1937], p. 240).

One of the simplifications of Agamben’s synthesis consists in basing his analysis on the deep-rooted prejudice that attributes to the Greeks exclusively a cyclical conception of time and to Christianity an exclusively linear conception. More careful historiographic analyses have shown that this is not the case at all: one cannot extend what philosophers thought to what ordinary people thought at the time of the Greeks and early Christians. But for these clarifications see A.M. Iacono, “Modernità, Progresso, Futuro,” pp. 18–20, introduction to the Italian translation of B. de Fontenelle, Digressione sugli antichi e sui moderni , Pisa, ETS, 2019 (English edition, de Fontenelle [1688] 1970 ).

It remains to be defined whether to Agamben’s suggestive reconstruction we should not add a further investigation on the concept of Jetzt-zeit , which seems to be analyzed in a key too close to Martin Heidegger’s philosophy, from which Benjamin, as revealed in a fragment of the Passagenwerk , took care to clearly distinguish himself (see Benjamin 2002 , pp. 462–463).

The term in German means salvation and is conceptually related to the notion of “redemption” ( Erlösung ). In Jewish apocalyptic and in the Gnostic-Neoplatonic traditions, to which Benjamin seems to refer, redemption refers to the restoration of an original paradisiacal state in conjunction with the coming of the Messiah. In this restoration, things reassume their proper and original mutual relations, and the distortion caused by the “dream condition of the world” is overcome. The phenomenal world is thus “saved” from the condition of “guilt” in which it finds itself after the original sin and the consequent “fall” from earthly paradise (on this see B. Witte, Paris—Berlin—Paris: Personal, Literary and Social Experience in Walter Benjamin’s Late Works , in “New German Critique,” 39, Fall, 1986, p. 57).

The Kabbalah (which literally means “reception” or “tradition”) is the set of exoteric and mystical doctrines that were born within Judaism by elaborating original interpretations of canonical texts and over the centuries, also through the influence of external religious worlds, developing a symbolic and doctrinal universe of great complexity. For the importance of this tradition of thought in Benjamin, especially with regard to his theory of knowledge and his conception of history, we refer to Wolin, An Aesthetic of Redemption , cit. (especially pp. 31–63), M. Löwy, Redemption and Utopia. Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe , Verso Books, New York 2017, as well as Buck-Morss, Dialectics of Seeing , quot., in particular pp. 228–252, where the relevance of Kabbalistic theory for the theory of dialectical images, central to the Passagenwerk , is precisely traced.

We use here a famous expression of Adorno’s, referring to the essay Das Paris des Second Empire bei Baudelaire , which Adorno refused to publish in the “Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung” because it lacked theoretical mediation.

Bibliography

Adorno, T.W. 1981. Prisms . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Google Scholar  

———. 2005. Minima moralia. Reflections on a damaged life . London/New York: Verso Books.

Adorno, T.W., and Scholem, G. 1994. The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin: 1910–1940 . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Agamben, G. 1988. Language and History in Benjamin. Differentia: Review of Italian Thought 2: 169–183.

———. 2007. Infancy and History. On the Destruction of Experience . London/New York: Verso Books.

Benjamin, W. 1994. The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin. 1910–1940 (Ed. T.W. Adorno and G. Scholem). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

———. 1996a. Goethe’s Elective Affinities. In Selected Writings. Volume 1: 1913–1926 , ed. M. Bullock and M.W. Jennings, 297–360. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

———. 1996b. The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism. In Selected Writings. Volume 1: 1913–1926 , ed. M. Bullock and M.W. Jennings, 116–200. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

———. 1996c. On Semblance. In Selected Writings. Volume 1: 1913–1926, ed . M. Bullock and M.W. Jennings, 223–225. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

———. 2002. The Arcades Project (Ed. H. Eiland and K. McLaughlin). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

———. 2006a. Eduard Fuchs, Collector and Historian. In Selected Writings. Volume 3: 1935–1938 , ed. M. Bullock and M.W. Jennings, 260–304. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

———. 2006b. On the Concept of History. In Selected Writings Vol. 4, 1938–1940 , ed. H. Eiland and M.W. Jennings, 389–400. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

———. 2019. The Origin of German Trauerspiel (Ed. H. Eiland). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Caygill, H. 1998. Walter Benjamin. The Colour of Experience . London: Routledge.

de Fontenelle, B.L.B. 1970. A Digression on the Ancients and Moderns. In The Continental Model , ed. S. Elledge and D. Schier, 358–372. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Dodd, N. 2008. Goethe in Palermo: Urphänomen and Analogical Reasoning in Simmel and Benjamin. Journal of Classical Sociology 8.

Eiland, H., and M.W. Jennings. 2014. Walter Benjamin. A Critical Life . Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Frischeisen-Köhler, M. 1920. Georg Simmel. Kant-Studien 24: 1–51.

Article   Google Scholar  

Gassen, K., and M. Landmann, eds. 1958. Buch des Dankes an Georg Simmel . Duncker & Humblot.

Ginzburg, C. 1989. Clues, Myths and the Historical Method . Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Gorz, A. 2011. Critique of Economic Reason . New York: Verso Books.

Habermas, J. 1979. Consciousness-Raising or Redemptive Criticism: The Contemporaneity of Walter Benjamin. New German Critique 17: 30–59.

———. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action. Reason and the Rationalization of Society . Boston: Bacon Press.

Iacono, A.M. 1996. Modernità, Progresso, Futuro. In B. de Fontenelle, Digressione sugli antichi e sui moderni , 7–16. Roma: Manifestolibri.

Illich, I. 1973. Tools for Conviviality . New York: Harper & Row.

Landmann, M. 1967. Georg Simmel als Prügelknabe (Erwiderung auf Delius und Adorno). Philosophische Rundschau 14: 258–274.

Lijester, T. 2012. Walter Benjamin’s Concept of Critique. In Conceptions of Critique in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy , ed. K. de Boer and R. Soderegger, 156–174. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230357006_10 .

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Löwy, M. 2005. Fire Alarm. Reading Walter Benjamin’s ‘On the Concept of History’ . New York: Verso Books.

Lukács, G. 1962. The Meaning of Contemporary Realism . London: Merlin Press.

Mele, V. 2015. “At the crossroad of Magic and Positivism”. Roots of an Evidential Paradigm through Benjamin and Adorno. Journal of Classical Sociology 15 (2): 139–153.

Menninghaus, W. 1986. Schwellenkunde. Walter Benjamins Passage des Mythos . Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.

Mičko, M. 2010. Walter Benjamin und Georg Simmel . Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Podoksik, E. 2016. Neo-kantianism and Georg Simmel’s interpretation of Kant. Modern Intellectual History 13 (3): 597–622.

Scholem, G., and W. Benjamin. 1982. The Story of a Friendship . London: Faber.

Symons, S. 2017. More than life. Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin on Art . Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.

Tiedemann, R. 1983. Dialektik im Stillstand. Versuche zum Spätwerk Walter Benjamins . Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.

Wolin, R. 1994. Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption . Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Political Science, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Vincenzo Mele

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter.

Mele, V. (2022). Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Knowledge. In: City and Modernity in Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18184-9_8

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18184-9_8

Published : 13 January 2023

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-031-18183-2

Online ISBN : 978-3-031-18184-9

eBook Packages : Social Sciences Social Sciences (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research