Francisco Sanches

Francisco Sanches (* 1550 in Tui in Galicia, † November 16, 1623 in Toulouse) was a philosopher and physician.

Life and work

He was born in Tui and was baptized in the Portuguese city of Braga on July 25, 1551. His father was the António Sanches and his mother, born Filipa de Sousa. His ancestors came from a Sephardic religious environment.

By the age of twelve he lived in Braga and then moved with his parents in the French city of Bordeaux, to escape the Portuguese Inquisition. He studied at the Collège de Guyenne. This was studied the same college at the previously his mother's distant cousin Michel de Montaigne 1539-1546.

From 1569 he continued his studies in Rome, Montpellier and Toulouse. In 1575 he became a professor at the University of Toulouse.

In his work he argued for a pragmatic renunciation of excessive claims to truth. He presents in his book Quod Nihil Scitur, which he wrote in 1576 and published in 1581, with the arguments of classical skepticism is that the Aristotelian method has no scientific knowledge can be gained about nature.

Sanches fundamental criticism of the perfect syllogism was that the logical procedures would only lead to completely incomprehensible terms, led exemplified the concept of existence. For a scientific proof of the premises principles would have to be true and first sentences.

Works (selection)

• Carmen de Cometa. 1577.
• Quod nihil scitur. To 1581.
• De divinatione by somnum, ad Aristotelem. 1585th
• Opera Medica. 1636, with the following parts: De Longitudine et Brevitate vitae, liber.
• In lib. Aristotelis Physiognomicon, Commentarius.
• De Divinatione by Somnum.
• Quod Nihil Scitur, liber.