Abstract
This paper focuses on Galen’s views about the formal cause against the wider background of his account of causation. In his works on the pulse, Galen provides an in-depth discussion of issues such as the theory of causes and the problem of definition. While Galen is inclined to incorporate Peripatetic doctrines and vocabulary, he neglects Aristotle’s formal cause both in his account of causes and in that of definition. Further parallels outside the corpus on the pulse confirm Galen’s reserved attitude towards the (Peripatetic) formal cause. In his work That the Faculties of the Soul Follow the Mixtures of the Body, however, Galen refers favourably to the Peripatetic theory of hylomorphic form. More precisely, Galen equates the Peripatetic en-mattered form with the mixture of homoeomerous bodies (the ratio or proportion of the elementary qualities in them). Here I will attempt to provide an explanation of Galen’s mixed attitude towards the formal cause and I will argue that his general position is consistent after all. In addition to this, I will try to set Galen’s position against the background of the Peripatetic debates on the status of form.
Acknowledgments
The research for this article has been carried out within the PRIN project 2017–2020 “New Challenges for Applied Ethics.” I am very grateful to Robert Vinkesteijn, who read a first draft of this article, for his extensive comments and critical suggestions. All errors are of course my own.
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Articles in the same Issue
- 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
Articles in the same Issue
- 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