The Concept of Complexion in Antonio da Parma's Medical Anthropology: With an Edition of Excerpts from his Commentary on Avicenna's Canon (I, 1, 3)

Résumé En

Antonio da Parma (d. 1327) was an Italian philosopher and physician, active in Bologna in the early 14th century, who is associated with what has been called the “Bolognese Averroism”. While his philosophical works are becoming better documented, his medical works are much less studied. However, his commentary on the first book of Avicenna’s Canon, written between 1310 and 1323, had a considerable impact on later commentators. The aim of this paper is to present his analysis of the notion of complexion, which is central to Antonio da Parma’s anthropology as it appears in the philosophical issues it raises, such as the possibility of defining the specific nature of the human body – as compared with other natural species – or of conceiving a scientific and universal discourse in front of the extreme variability of the body’s individual complexion, which is at the heart of medical practice. As we would like to show, taking from Galen and Avicenna their “relativistic” analysis of the well-balanced complexion, Antonio da Parma uses the idea of a latitude of individual complexion within the limits set by the natural species in order to make this picture of the human body coherent with the principles of Aristotelian natural philosophy. Doing that, he answers some major philosophical problems, such as the relationship between matter and form in a human body, the individuation of human. bodies, or the principle of identity of a singular body. After the presentation of Antonio da Parma’s positions, the reader will find a transcription of the relevant passages from his commentary on Avicenna’s Canon.