@article {Shogimen:2007:0143-781X:208,
title = "'HEAD OR HEART?' REVISITED: PHYSIOLOGY AND POLITICAL THOUGHT IN THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES",
journal = "History of Political Thought",
parent_itemid = "infobike://imp/hpt",
publishercode ="imp",
year = "2007",
volume = "28",
number = "2",
publication date ="2007-01-01T00:00:00",
pages = "208-229",
itemtype = "ARTICLE",
issn = "0143-781X",
url = "https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/hpt/2007/00000028/00000002/art00002",
author = "Shogimen, Takashi",
abstract = "Medical metaphors pervade medieval European political writings. No attempt has been made to establish the relationship between bodily imageries of the political community and anatomical and/or physiological knowledge. A survey of bodily metaphors shows that the primacy of the head of the body politic was challenged at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by an alternative view: the pre-eminence of the heart. This coincided with the penetration of Aristotelian physiology into scholastic medicine, which triggered debates over the most important member of the body natural: is it the head or the heart? The medical inspiration for the conceptualization of the body politic illustrates the great impact of the 'Aristotelian revolution' in medieval political thought.",
}