Animals in the Renaissance

Abstract

Philosophical discussions of animal nature are ubiquitous in Renaissance literature. Some of them are incidental, as Renaissance philosophers tended to approach the topic of defining animal nature as a pendant to the definition of human nature. Further, in historiographical terms, the rich variety of Renaissance discourses on animals has been overshadowed by the debate on Descartes’ controversial theory that animals are senseless machines. Yet, there was a decisive rise in interest in the study of animal nature well before the mid-seventeenth century, due to two closely connected factors. First, scientific advancements in zoology and anatomy, and the beginnings of comparative anatomy, drew attention to the physical similarities between humans and (certain) animals, raising the question of whether their souls might resemble each other, too. Furthermore, the reception of ancient sources on animals, which circulated widely in the period – especially Aristotle, Pliny, Porphyry and Plutarch – reanimated the longstanding debate on whether and to what extent animals possess rationality.