16 Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity
Fortunately, there have recently been some encouraging signs of interest,
such as the greater scholarly appreciation of Aristotle’s awareness of, and re-
ceptivity to, Hippocratic and other medical literature (such as Diocles), the
interest taken in early Peripatetic physiological ideas, theopusculaand frag-
ments of Theophrastus, Strato, and theProblems(Problemata physica), and
in the Anonymus Londiniensis.^24 Still, the subject of Aristotle’s relationship
to medicine is a vast area, and the study of the role of Aristotelianism in
the development of ancient medicine is still in its infancy. Such a project
would first of all have to cover the reception, transformation and further
development of medical knowledge in the works of Aristotle and the early
Peripatetic school. This would comprise a study of Aristotle’s views on the
status of medicine, his characterisation of medicine and medical practice,
and his use and further development of medical knowledge in the areas of
anatomy, physiology and embryology; and it would also have to comprise
the (largely neglected) medical works of the early Peripatos, such as the
medical sections of theProblemataand the treatiseOn Breath, as well as the
works of Theophrastus and Strato on human physiology, pathology and
embryology. It would further have to examine the development of medical
thought in the Peripatetic school in the Hellenistic period and the reception
of Aristotelian thought in the major Hellenistic medical systems of Praxago-
ras, Herophilus, Erasistratus and the Empiricists. Thirdly, it would have to
cover the more striking aspects of Galen’s Aristotelianism, such as the role
of Aristotelian terminology, methodology, philosophy of science, and tele-
ological explanation in Galen’s work; and finally, it would have to consider
the impact of developments in medicine after Aristotle – for example the
Alexandrian discoveries of the nervous system and of the cognitive function
of the brain, or the medical theories of Galen – on later Aristotelian thought
and on the interpretation of Aristotle’s biological, physiological and psy-
chological writings in late antiquity by the ancient commentators, such as
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Simplicius and John Philoponus, or
by authors such as Nemesius of Emesa and Meletius of Sardes. This is a
very rich and challenging field, in which there still is an enormous amount
of work to do, especially when artificial boundaries between medicine and
philosophy are crossed and interaction between the two domains is con-
sidered afresh.
In the present volume, chapter 9 is a first step towards such a reassess-
ment. It is concerned with what I claim to be an Aristotelian discussion
(^24) In addition to older studies by Flashar ( 1962 ) and ( 1966 ) and Marenghi ( 1961 ), see the more recent
titles by King, Manetti, Oser-Grote, Roselli, Fortenbaugh and Repici listed in the bibliography.