Galen and the Stoics: Mortal Enemies or Blood Brothers?
Galen is well known as a critic of Stoicism, mainly for his massive attack on Stoic (or at least, Chrysippean) psychology in On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato (PHP) 2-5. Galen attacks both Chrysippus' location of the ruling part of the psyche in the heart and his unified or monistic picture...
| Publicado en: | Phronesis Vol. 52; no. 1; pp. 88 - 121 |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Brill Academic Publishers
Feb2007
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=24195459&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 24195459 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00318868 C4M jtl: Phronesis issn: 00318868 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Feb2007 vid: 52 iid: 1 pid: 639 pub: Brill Academic Publishers artinfo: ui: 24195459 10.1163/156852807X177977 ppf: 88 ppct: 33 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 303KB tig: atl: Galen and the Stoics: Mortal Enemies or Blood Brothers? aug: au: Gill, Christopher affil: Department of Classics and Ancient History, School of Humanities, and Social Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK su: Psychology Stoics Holism Whole & parts (Philosophy) Structuralism sug: subj: Psychology Stoics Holism Whole & parts (Philosophy) Structuralism keyword: Galen holism part-whole relationship PSYCHOLOGY Stoicism ab: Galen is well known as a critic of Stoicism, mainly for his massive attack on Stoic (or at least, Chrysippean) psychology in On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato (PHP) 2-5. Galen attacks both Chrysippus' location of the ruling part of the psyche in the heart and his unified or monistic picture of human psychology. However, if we consider Galen's thought more broadly, this has a good deal in common with Stoicism, including a (largely) physicalist conception of psychology and a strongly teleological view of natural entities, shared features which are acknowledged in several treatises outside PHP. Why, then, is Galen such a remorseless and negative critic of Stoicism in PHP? Various factors are relevant, including the shaping influence on Galen of the Platonic-Aristotelian (part-based) psychological framework. But, it is suggested here, an important underlying factor is the contrast between two ways of thinking about the part-whole relationship, a 'composition' and a 'structure' approach or an atomistic and holistic approach. This contrast is most evident and explicit in one section of PHP 5, where Galen, criticising Chrysippus' holistic psychology, denies that the Stoic thinker is entitled to use the concept of part at all. But the contrast is also seen as pervading Galen's response to Stoic thought more generally, in PHP and elsewhere, in ways that inform his explicit disagreements with Stoic theory. Stoicism is presented here as having a consistently 'structure' (or holistic) approach. Galen's approach is seen as more mixed, sometimes sharing, or aspiring towards, a holistic picture, and yet sometimes (especially in PHP 5), adopting a strongly 'composition' or atomistic standpoint. This (partial) contrast in conceptual frameworks is presented as offering a new perspective on Galen's critique of Stoic psychology in PHP and on his relationship to Stoic thought more generally. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Phronesis is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Phronesis holder: Brill Academic Publishers dt: @attributes: year: 2007 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|