Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity: Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease

by Philip J. van der Eijk

• ISBN13: 9780521142977
• ISBN10: 0521142970
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-10
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This work brings together Philip van der Eijk's previously published essays on the close connections that existed between medicine and philosophy throughout antiquity. Medical authors such as the Hippocratic writers, Diocles, Galen, Soranus and Caelius Aurelianus elaborated on philosophical methods such as causal explanation, definition and division and applied key concepts such as the notion of nature to their understanding of the human body. Similarly, philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle were highly valued for their contributions to medicine. This interaction was particularly striking in the study of the human soul in its relation to the body, as illustrated by approaches to specific topics such as intellect, sleep and dreams, and diet and drugs. With a detailed introduction surveying the subject as a whole and an essay on Aristotle's treatment of sleep, this wide-ranging and accessible collection is essential reading for the student of ancient philosophy and science.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Note on translations

Note on abbreviations

Introduction

Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of Carystus:

The 'theology' of the Hippocratic treatise On the Sacred Disease

Diocles and the Hippocratic writings on the method of dietetics and the limits of causal explanation

To help, or to do no harm: principles and practices of therapeutics in the Hippocratic Corpus and in the work of Diocles of Carystus

The heart, the brain, the blood and the pneuma: Hippocrates, Diocles and Aristotle on the location of cognitive processes

Aristotle and His School:

Aristotle on melancholy

Theoretical and empirical elements in Aristotle's treatment of sleep, dreams and divination in sleep

The matter of mind: Aristotle on the biology of 'psychic' processes and the bodily aspects of thinking

Divine movement and human nature in Eudemian Ethics 8.2

On sterility ('Hist. an. 10'), a medical work by Aristotle?

Late Antiquity:

Galen's use of the concept of 'qualified experience' in his dietetic and pharmacological works

The Methodism of Caelius Aurelianus: some epistemological issues

Bibliography

Index of passages cited

General index

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