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

by Philip J. van der Eijk

• ISBN13: 9780521818001
• ISBN10: 0521818001
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-05-30
• 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	ix
Note on translations	xiii
Note on abbreviations	xiv
Introduction	1	(44)
I HIPPOCRATIC CORPUS AND DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS
1 The 'theology' of the Hippocratic treatise On the Sacred Disease	45	(29)
2 Diocles and the Hippocratic writings on the method of dietetics and the limits of causal explanation	74	(27)
3 To help, or to do no harm. Principles and practices of therapeutics in the Hippocratic Corpus and in the work of Diocles of Carystus	101	(18)
4 The heart, the brain, the blood and the pneuma: Hippocrates, Diocles and Aristotle on the location of cognitive processes	119	(20)
II ARISTOTLE AND HIS SCHOOL
5 Aristotle on melancholy	139	(30)
6 Theoretical and empirical elements in Aristotle's treatment of sleep, dreams and divination in sleep	169	(37)
7 The matter of mind: Aristotle on the biology of 'psychic' processes and the bodily aspects of thinking	206	(32)
8 Divine movement and human nature in Eudemian Ethics 8.2	238	(21)
9 On Sterility ('Hist. an. IO'), a medical work by Aristotle?	259
III LATE ANTIQUITY
10 Galen's use of the concept of 'qualified experience' in his dietetic and pharmacological works	279	(20)
11 The Methodism of Caelius Aurelianus: some epistemological issues	299	(29)
Bibliography	328	(51)
Index of passages cited	379	(17)
General index	396