Monsters in Early Modern Philosophy

CHARLES WOLFE; SILVIA MANZO

Springer encyclopedia of early modern philosophy and the sciences

Springer

Lugar: Cham; Año: 2021; p. 1 - 8

Monsters as a category seem omnipresent in early modern natural philosophy, in what one might calla ?long? early modern period stretching from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century, whenthe science of teratology emerges. Why should philosophy be concerned with monstersat all? If this term referred solely to mythical figures such as griffins, gorgons, or chimeras, thatis, creatures of our imagination, they would be the object of philosophical inquiries into the facultiesof the mind and their productions and, by extension, the demarcation between reason, madness,and myth.