Più o meno razionali. Le bestie parlanti di Porfirio

As recently demonstrated by C. Muratori in Renaissance Vegetarianism. The Philosophical Afterlives of Porphyry’s On Abstinence (2020), the Renaissance debate about the philosophical justification of vegetarianism is often based on Porphyrian sources. In this paper, the attention is dedicated to the question of rationality/irrationality of animals and to the correlative problem whether it is morally acceptable to eat them, with a special focus on Montaigne and Campanella. Montaigne develops the possibility, shown by Porphyry, to win Aristotle, traditionally considered a great opponent to the theories of animal rationality, to the vegetarian side. Campanella, on the contrary, while acknowledging the rationality of animals, ends up juxtaposing Porphyry and Aristotle; in addition, he does not justify – against Porphyry – the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat. The aim of this paper is showing how Aristotle’s legacy in the Renaissance, mediated by Porphyry, leads to a complex game of balance and negotiation.