Physiognomy

Physiognomy (Gk. physis, nature and gnosis, knowledge) is a pseudoscience, based upon the belief that the study and judgement of a person's outer appearance, primarily the face, reflects their character or personality. Up until the time of English King Henry VIII, its validity was so widely assumed that it was taught in universities and was an everyday concept that had developed into a regular Middle English word spelled fisnamy or visnomy. After that time, scholastic leaders settled on the more erudite form 'physiognomy' and began to discourage the whole idea of 'fisnamy'.

Related Topics:
Gk. - Pseudoscience - Face

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There are 2 different general types of physiognomy. Those are:

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• absolute predictive physiognomy, in which there are believed to be invariable 100% correlations between physical features (especially facial features) and character traits; this has been disproven
• scientific correlation physiognomy, in which there are believed to be rough statistical correlations between physical features (especially facial features) and character traits due to a person's physical preferences that are caused by corresponding character traits, such that gene mixing causes the correlations; this type of physiognomy is therefore based on genetic determinism of character
 
Physiognomy: Ancient physiognomy ►