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Theoria et Historia Scientiarum

Language in Humans and in Other Animals. Fabrici d’Acquapendente at the Crossroads between Medicine and Philosophy
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Language in Humans and in Other Animals. Fabrici d’Acquapendente at the Crossroads between Medicine and Philosophy

Authors

  • Stefano Gensini Department of Philosophy, Sapienza, University of Rome
  • Michela Tardella Istituto per il Lessico Intellettuale Europeo e Storia delle Idee (ILIESI)-CNR, Rome

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12775/ths.2016.002

Keywords

Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente, history of linguistic ideas, phonetics, animal communication, aristotelianism

Abstract

In this paper we give a comprehensive account of the three treatises that Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (1533–1619), an anatomist from that stronghold of naturalistic-experimental Aristotelianism known as the School of Padua, devoted to language topics. In De larynge (1600), the author described the structure and the functions of the breathing/phonatory apparatus from a comparative point of view, in order to identify both the analogies and the differences existing between humans and other animals. In De locutione (1601) Fabrici put forward a ‘philosophical’ analysis of speech, taking into account both its physical-articulatory features and its specific role in human life. In the third treatise, De brutorum loquela (1603), Fabrici, while re-discussing the Aristotelian distinction between phoné and diálektos, ascribed non human animals a peculiar kind of articulation going hand-in-hand with their states of mind. In so doing, Fabrici paved in advance the way for an alternative to Descartes’ distrust of the animal mind and its possibile linguistic counterparts.

References

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Theoria et Historia Scientiarum

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Published

2016-12-19

How to Cite

1.
GENSINI, Stefano and TARDELLA, Michela. Language in Humans and in Other Animals. Fabrici d’Acquapendente at the Crossroads between Medicine and Philosophy. Theoria et Historia Scientiarum. Online. 19 December 2016. Vol. 13, pp. 17-33. [Accessed 7 July 2025]. DOI 10.12775/ths.2016.002.
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