Volume 42, Issue 1

The theme of the specificity of medical causes in the Greco-Roman world is part of a wider research project on the notion of causality, the starting point of which is Aristotle and his seminal theorisation of the four causes. It therefore seemed useful to introduce this collection with a synthetic presentation of the Aristotelian conception of medicine, which is characterised by the knowledge of causes and represents a paradigm for the other arts and practical knowledge.

The Empirical school of medicine, which arose in the third century BCE, defined itself in opposition to rationalist tendencies in medical thought. Causal explanation, which typically appeals to hidden, theoretical entities, is most at home in rationalist physiology and pathology, and much of what the Empiricists had to say about causes belongs to their anti-rationalist polemics. Over the course of the school’s history, however, some members appropriated the language and idea of cause, though always in ways that was consistent with its defining commitment to Empiricism.

This paper deals with the two notions of aition or aitia and prophasis in the Greek medical texts and asks the question of whether these words are synonymous or not. Therefore, it explores their different meanings in different contexts both in the Hippocratic and in the Galenic corpus. It also investigates how Galen understands these two notions when he reads them in the Hippocratic treatises and how he explains them in his commentaries to Hippocrates, and in particular, if he gives the same meaning to these words in his own treatises or if he uses them in a different way.

After a quick overview on the specification of the causal role of the powers or faculties (δυνάμεις) in nutrition, from the Hippocratic physicians to Galen, via Aristotle, the article defines the set of questions about this process that the Hippocratic physicians leave open. It then examines how Aristotle provides some sort of indirect physical and ethical answers, while Galen openly takes the side of reappropriating the central Stoic concept of oikeiôsis in a Platonist way.

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.

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.

The following article provides an interpretation of the structure of courage in Plato’s Laches , Meno and Protagoras . I argue that these dialogues present courage (ἀνδρεία) in the soul according to the same scheme: that there is a normatively neutral psychic state which is informed by the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) which informs this normatively neutral psychic state is called practical wisdom (which Plato refers to as φρόνησις or sometimes σοφία). This interpretation seems to negate the claim that virtue is knowledge. I will show, however, that this is not a contradiction and that virtue is in fact knowledge, despite the complex moral psychology of courage. Finally, I will argue that the conception of courage in the Republic addresses some of the problems posed by the discussion of courage in the above-mentioned dialogues.

The reference to Albinus in a refutation of Bardesanes († c. 222) by Ephrem the Syrian († 373) is not unknown to modern commentators. This text, edited and translated into English since the beginning of the twentieth century, is regularly mentioned, albeit rather cursorily, by scholars of Middle Platonism. Although much has been clarified between the first publication of the book just over a century ago and the present day, the following pages aim to continue the exploration. The aim will be to better understand what has so far remained unnoticed: the dependence of Albinus’ work on Posidonius on three crucial points: (1) his classification of incorporeals, (2) his doctrine of comprehensive representation, and (3) the deep relationship between (1) and (2).

This short paper is a critical note of the recent volume on the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus edited by A. Beghini ([Platone], Assioco. Saggio introduttivo, edizione critica, traduzione e commento , Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag, 2020). This scholar assumes the possibility of attributing the dialogue to Philo of Larissa or his circle. This hypothesis, although well argued in the book, faces some exegetical difficulties concerning the content of the dialogue and the hardly reconstructible philosophy of Philo himself. In this note I will critically discuss the conclusions reached by Beghini in his prestigious book starting from the (alleged) sceptical vein which would be present in the pseudo-Platonic work, whose dating likely presupposes (also) the Epicurean conception of death.