Four temperaments: Difference between revisions

* {{harvnb|Pasnau|Dyke|2010|p=52}}. "Most important of these initially was the massive Book of Healing (Al-Shifa) of the eleventh-century Persian Avicenna, the parts of which labeled in Latin as De anima and De generatione having been translated in the second half of the twelfth century."

* {{harvnb|Daly|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9aZPAQAAQBAJ&q=Ibn+Sina+Persian+polymath&pg=PA18 18]}}. "The Persian polymath Ibn Sina (981–1037) consolidated all of this learning, along with Ancient Greek and Indian knowledge, into his The Canon of Medicine (1025), a work still taught in European medical schools in the seventeenth century."</ref> polymath [[Avicenna]] (980–1037 AD) extended the theory of temperaments in his ''[[The Canon of Medicine|Canon of Medicine]]'', which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities. He applied them to "emotional aspects, mental capacity, moral attitudes, self-awareness, movements and dreams."<ref name=Lutz>{{Cite book|first=Peter L.|last=Lutz|year=2002|title=The Rise of Experimental Biology: An Illustrated History|page=60|publisher=Humana Press|isbn=0-89603-835-1}}</ref> [[Nicholas Culpeper]] (1616–1654) suggested that the humors acted as governing principles in bodily health, with astrological correspondences,<ref>Nicholas Culpeper (1653) [http://www.skyscript.co.uk/astrodiscourse.html ''An Astrologo-Physical Discourse of the Human Virtues in the Body of Man''], transcribed and annotated by Deborah Houlding. Skyscript, 2009 (retrieved 16 November 2011). Originally published in Culpeper's ''Complete Herbal'' (English Physician). London: Peter Cole, 1652.</ref> and explained their influence upon physiognomy and personality.<ref>Nicholas Culpeper, ''Semeiotica Urania, or Astrological Judgement of Diseases''. London: 1655. Reprint, Nottingham: Ascella, 1994.</ref> He proposed that some people had a single temperament, while others had an admixture of two, a primary and secondary temperament.<ref>{{cite book|last=Greenbaum|first=Dorian Gieseler|title=Temperament: Astrology's Forgotten Key|year=2005|publisher=Wessex Astrologer|isbn=1-902405-17-X|pages=42, 91}}</ref>

 

Modern medical science has rejected the theories of the four temperaments, though their use persists as a metaphor within certain psychological fields.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1037/0022-3514.55.5.836|title=Metaphorical equivalence of elements and temperaments: Empirical studies of Bachelard's theory of imagination|year=1988|last1=Martindale|first1=Anne E.|author2-link=Colin Martindale|last2=Martindale|first2=Colin|journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology|volume=55|issue=5|pages=836}}</ref> [[Immanuel Kant]] (1724–1804), [[Erich Adickes]] (1866–1925), [[Alfred Adler]] (1879–1937), [[Eduard Spranger]] (1914), [[Ernst Kretschmer]] (1920), and [[Erich Fromm]] (1947) all theorised on the four temperaments (with different names) and greatly shaped modern theories of temperament. [[Hans Eysenck]] (1916–1997) was one of the first psychologists to analyse personality differences using a psycho-statistical method called [[factor analysis]], and his research led him to believe that temperament is biologically based. The factors that he proposed in his book ''Dimensions of Personality'' were [[neuroticism]] (N), the tendency to experience [[negative emotion]]s, and [[extraversion]] (E), the tendency to enjoy positive events, especially social ones. By pairing the two dimensions, Eysenck noted how the results were similar to the four ancient temperaments.{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}}