Abstract
This paper aims to assess the epistemological value of the notion of sympathy in Galen’s thought. It first shows that Galen makes use of two different concepts of sympathy: the ambient concept, according to which the human body manifests a harmonious part-whole relationship, and the technical concept, with which one connects two pathologies on the basis of the fact that the cause of the ailment is elsewhere than where it surfaces. Neither of these sympathies constitutes in itself a causal explanation of reality. The first merely acknowledges an obvious interrelationship, the second acts as an epistemic tool to shift the focus of diagnosis away from the place where the condition manifests itself. However, the two concepts are not absolutely unrelated; and they come together when the sympathetic paradigm is used to understand the unifying action of the psychic and natural faculties. Very significantly, Galen then provisionally defines the cause as a power or faculty (δύναμις) not out of theoretical necessity but for practical reasons.
Remerciements
Je tiens à remercier pour leurs précieuses remarques à divers moments de l’élaboration de ce texte, Ph. van der Eijk, M. Rashed, J.-B. Gourinat, les deux rapporteurs anonymes de l’article, et les participants du colloque d’Oxford sur la causalité médicale de 2016.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- In memoriam Anna Maria Ioppolo
- Ricordo di Pierluigi Donini
- Special Section: Spécificités de la causalité médicale dans l’Antiquité grecque et romaine/Particularities of Medical Causality in Greek and Roman Antiquity; Editors: Catherine Darbo-Peschanski, Cristina Viano
- Spécificités de la causalité médicale dans l’Antiquité grecque et romaine
- Introduction. La technê et la connaissance des causes : Aristote et le modèle de la médecine
- Medical Empiricism and Causation
- Aition et prophasis chez Hippocrate et Galien : deux mots pour une même cause ?
- Medical and Philosophical Causality of Nutrition. About some Hippocratic Issues
- Galen and the Formal Cause
- Aux limites de l’explication : le rôle de la sympathie chez Galien
- Articles
- The Structure of Courage in the Laches, Meno and Protagoras
- Posidonius et le traité d’Albinus Sur les incorporels
- Notes
- Filone di Larissa e l’Assioco
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- In memoriam Anna Maria Ioppolo
- Ricordo di Pierluigi Donini
- Special Section: Spécificités de la causalité médicale dans l’Antiquité grecque et romaine/Particularities of Medical Causality in Greek and Roman Antiquity; Editors: Catherine Darbo-Peschanski, Cristina Viano
- Spécificités de la causalité médicale dans l’Antiquité grecque et romaine
- Introduction. La technê et la connaissance des causes : Aristote et le modèle de la médecine
- Medical Empiricism and Causation
- Aition et prophasis chez Hippocrate et Galien : deux mots pour une même cause ?
- Medical and Philosophical Causality of Nutrition. About some Hippocratic Issues
- Galen and the Formal Cause
- Aux limites de l’explication : le rôle de la sympathie chez Galien
- Articles
- The Structure of Courage in the Laches, Meno and Protagoras
- Posidonius et le traité d’Albinus Sur les incorporels
- Notes
- Filone di Larissa e l’Assioco