Charlatanism

I am a charlatan, ladies and gentlemen; indeed, I am nothing else than a charlatan. But what I do, it is well done. Please, come in: it is free. I give money to the poor; only the rich have to pay. And when they do, they pay for all." (Lessona 1884, 84; translated by Irina Podgorny) With these words from the 1860s, Guido Bennati (1827-1898), an ambulant quack from Pisa, introduced himself at his arrival at the market places in the Italian Piedmont. By calling himself a charlatan, Bennati did not disqualify his art. He called his profession by its real name, and he underscored its value: he was a self-styled practitioner in the lower regions of the medical profession who, in Italy, during the time of the Risorgimento, were still licensed to sell some kinds of external remedies and to perform external operations. They seemed to be making themselves heard everywhere. From England to Italy, from France to Spain and the Americas, markets and newspapers were filled with their advertisements and remedies. "Charlatan," while a profession, meant something different in other linguistic contexts. Just across the border, in France, the journalist and writer Jean-Baptiste Gouriet (1774-1855) had published a compilation of the most famous charlatans that visited Paris from ancient times to the present day. In so doing, he specified that the term included the jugglers, jokers, jesters, operators, acrobats, crooks, swindlers, soothsayers, card-pullers, fortune-tellers and all the characters who have made themselves famous in the streets and public squares of Paris. Gouriet connected their stories to the history of theatre, entertainment, and illusion, but also to their use of the public space and their itinerant life (Gouriet 1819). Traveling from one marketplace to another, dealing in exotic objects and remedies, organizing shows and exhibitions, performing miraculous healings by appealing to the curative power of words and liniments, charlatans have infested Paris and traversed Europe at least since early modern times. The category included advocates for the elegant dog, the sage donkey, and the talking horses, a conversation thatas Daniel Gethmann shows in his article belowmade its way into the scientific debates of the twentieth century. In that sense, tracing the history of charlatans and talking horses can be a means of seeing and understanding the changing frontiers of science. As Nathalie Richard develops in her epilogue, the science of modern charlatans syncretizes elements of a popular culture that-far from having "no history"-is rather constituted with elements borrowed from the cutting edge of the modernity of its time. As the classic mountebank he was, Bennati arrived in the Italian towns accompanied by a parade of exotically dressed musicians and entertainers (Fucini 1921, translated by and quoted in Gambaccini 2004, 200). Like many other European traveling doctors, Bennati appealed to "drum and trumpet" theater performances, old routines that in the nineteenth century had incorporated the "ethnographic parade," in the style of Phineas Taylor Barnum's circus, which originated in the US as traveling medicine shows: the association of a "doctor" with a Native

Titolo della tesi:

Buonafede Vitali detto l'Anonimo. Ciarlataneria e medicina nell'Italia del primo Settecento


La tesi propone uno studio approfondito della figura di un celebre ciarlatano del Settecento, considerato come un caso paradigmatico, capace di rivelare alcuni interessanti e trascurati aspetti epistemologici, istituzionali e sociali della medicina e della scienza del tempo.
Il primo capitolo procede a una ricostruzione della vita dell'Anonimo e della rete di relazioni che egli seppe tessere in Italia e in Europa. Il secondo è dedicato a un esame della trattatistica medica d'età moderna, volto a stabilire il ruolo del ciarlatano nella tradizione testuale nota come "letteratura degli errori popolari".  Il terzo capitolo ripercorre la genealogia e le caratteristiche dei saltimbanchi con cui l'Anonimo ripetutamente si confrontava e individua nell'uso dell'astrologia e dei rimedi chimici gli elementi fondamentali della tradizione terapeutica da essi rappresentata.  Il quarto analizza le istituzioni e le leggi che, nei principali stati italiani, regolamentavano la pratica della medicina e, mediante il sistema delle "patenti", anche il ruolo - marginale ma non trascurabile - dei ciarlatani. Il quinto capitolo esplora la natura dei "secreti", cioè dei medicamenti perlopiù di origine minerale e preparati con procedimenti chimici, che le "patenti" autorizzavano i ciarlatani a vendere. Il sesto capitolo, infine, analizza le azioni tipiche del ciarlatano sulla piazza e l'intrecciarsi in esse di  strategie proprie del teatro, del commercio e di una tradizione medica popolare che enfatizzava l'appello all'esperienza.

Desde hace un siglo se han propuesto varios dispositivos (imanes, bobinas, electrodos, antenas) para el tratamiento electromagnético del agua. En comparación con los métodos tradicionales de tratamiento del agua, se dice que son económicos, de fácil uso, y que prácticamente no re-quieren mantenimiento. Comúnmente, los proveedores los recomiendan para aplicaciones tan diversas como regar los cultivos, abrevar el ganado y controlar el sarro en las tuberías... ¿Cómo pueden resolver problemas tan distintos? De acuerdo con una revisión de la literatura, existen muchas dudas en cuanto a la utilidad de los aparatos electromagnéticos que se venden para el tratamiento del agua. Hasta la fecha, no ha sido posible definir con claridad las condiciones de uso que logren los beneficios mencionados.

Philosophers know a great deal about how reasoning can go wrong but very little about what can go wrong with the conclusions that philosophers try to establish by their reasonings.  It is Stove’s great merit that he tackles the latter problem directly, though a certain dogmatism in his approach and a contemptuous attitude towards the ‘great’ philosophers have almost certainly led to a neglect of his work.

This paper inquires into the appropriateness of the label ‘neo-positivist’ that he applies to his own position and considers his view that there are probably, but not certainly, innumerable ways in which a philosophical claim can be wrong, mistaken, untrue, absurd even.  An attempt is made to relate our lack of knowledge here to the Chomsky/McGinn thesis that there may be kinds of problem with which the human intellect is just not equipped to deal.

This writer wrote the following with regard to that freak in an article:
Professor Zizek in a video, on Think Big, “The Purpose of Philosophy is to Ask the Right Questions”, May 28, 2013 stated that:

“I’m not saying -- I’m not a philosophical megalomaniac -- that philosophy can provide answers, but it can do something which maybe is even more important, you know?  As important as providing answers and a condition for it, maybe even the condition, is to ask the right question.”

I have a very serious issue with this utterly controversial and myopic contention of the said person.

If philosophy cannot provide all the answers and its only purpose is for people engage in philosophy or in philosophizing is/are merely to ask the correct questions or to pose the right query, then what kind of purpose or use is that?

I can detect a certain degree of contradiction to the contention of the said professor. To restate: if philosophy cannot provide all the answers and its purpose is only to reduce those people engage in philosophy to ask the right questions, then how the hell those ‘philosophers’ arrive at the right questions if they did not subjected themselves to a vigorous philosophical reflections and rigid mental exercises?

Hence, in the end this freak is not engaging in philosophy, a kind of philosophy whose aim is to change the world, not merely to interpret endlessly and ask some impertinent questions and irrelevant queries, but merely a Rightist Sophist, worst, a Sophist of the worst kind ever. Shame on him and shame on all those bloody bastard idiots of the lowest order ever who believes in the utterly idiotic pronouncements and puerile views of this bastard charlatan!

Relazione alla XXXIX Tornata degli Studi Storici dell'Arte Medica e della Scienza (39th International Conference on History of Medicine and Science), Fermo 14-15 settembre 2018, organizzata dallo Studio Firmano per la storia dell' Arte medica e della Scienza.

Among the 'professional' charlatans of the sixteenth century, the figure of Jacopo Coppa stands out. Doctor, poet, performer and publisher of both his and other authors' works, Coppa spent his life travelling throughout the peninsula, advertising his medical skills and selling his products in the piazzas. Despite the existence of several documents that bear witness to Coppa's life and professional career, it is difficult to capture the real nature of his activity. By reconsidering the relevant documentation — including Coppa's edition of Ludovico Ariosto's Erbolato and his own poetical works — the article focuses on the rhetorical strategies that characterized the performances of the charlatan as well as his self-promotion. In particular, the analysis of Coppa's Lamento della Virtù will confirm the charlatan's familiarity with techniques typical of contemporary mountebanks and street singers. Finally, the study of a previously unknown broadside ascribed to Jacopo Coppa and concerned with the advertisement of a miraculous nostrum, will illuminate the way in which charlatans promoted both themselves and their products during their public performances.