Abstract

This paper endeavors to look into the physiognomical syllogism as occurring in Avicenna’s different summae and to tentatively discuss possible reasons for its select occurrence in some of them and not others, as well as possible implications of this selectiveness. These occurrences are in principle reducible to two different textual versions. Further, it will be argued that the inclusion of this syllogism might be connected with a certain nearness of the respective works to Aristotle, due to an assumed personal disfavoring of this syllogism by Avicenna. However, there is also some evidence for Avicenna’s usage of the ps.-Aristotelian Physiognomics.