Causality, Agency, and the Limits of Medicine

Apeiron ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Holmes
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Automatic Behavior ◽  
Medicine And Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
Causal Force ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Limits Of Medicine ◽  
Ancient Greek Medicine

Abstract The difference between ancient Greek medicine and ancient Greek philosophy has often been seen by scholars in terms of two targets of expertise: the body and the soul. In this paper, I argue that we can better understand the boundaries between medicine and philosophy in antiquity by focusing instead on the difference between causes and motivations (or causes and desires). The reason is this. It is not the case that the writers of the Hippocratic Corpus are uninterested in the soul (psychē). They are, however, reluctant to address their therapies to expressions of the patient’s own agency, despite tacitly acknowledging such agency as a causal force that cannot be reduced to the automatic behavior of the body. I go on to show how thinkers like Plato and Democritus zero in on the problem of perverted desires as part of a strategy of establishing a new domain of therapy, a domain that comes to be classified as the therapy of the soul.

Materialism in Ancient Greek Philosophy and in the Writings of the Young Marx

2000 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Burns
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractWhat is the young Marx's attitude towards questions of psychology? More precisely, what is his attitude towards the human mind and its relationship to the body? To deal adequately with this issue requires a consideration of the relationship between Marx and Feuerbach. It also requires some discussion of the thought of Aristotle. For the views of Feuerbach and the young Marx are (in some respects) not at all original. Rather, they represent a continuation of a long tradition which derives ultimately from ancient Greek philosophy, and especially from the philosophy of Aristotle. As is well known, Aristotle's thought with respect to questions of psychology are mostly presented, by way of a critique of the doctrines of the other philosophers of his day, in his De Anima. W.H. Walsh has made the perceptive observation that Aristotle's views might be seen as an attempt to develop a third approach which avoids the pitfalls usually associated with the idealism of Plato, on the one hand, and the materialism of Democritus on the other. It might be argued that there is an analogy between the situation in which Aristotle found himself in relation to the idealists and materialists of his own day and that which confronted Marx in the very early 1840s. For, like Aristotle, Marx also might be seen as attempting to develop such a third approach. The difference is simply that, in the case of Marx, the idealism in question is that of Hegel rather than that of Plato, and the materialism is the ‘mechanical materialism’ of the eighteenth century rather than that of Democritus. This obvious parallel might well explain why Marx took such a great interest in Aristotle's De Anima both during and shortly after doing the preparatory work for his doctoral dissertation – the subject matter of which, of course, is precisely the materialist philosophy of the ancient Greek atomists Democritus and Epicurus.

The Body of Western Embodiment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Interior Space ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
The Relationship

Much of western philosophy, especially ancient Greek philosophy, addresses the problems posed by embodiment. This chapter argues that to grasp the early history of embodiment is to see the category of the body itself as historically emergent. Bruno Snell argued that Homer lacked a concept of the body (sōma), but it is the emergence of body in the fifth century BCE rather than the appearance of mind or soul that is most consequential for the shape of ancient dualisms. The body takes shape in Hippocratic medical writing as largely hidden and unconscious interior space governed by impersonal forces. But Plato’s corpus demonstrates that while Plato’s reputation as a somatophobe is well grounded and may arise in part from the way the body takes shape in medical and other physiological writing, the Dialogues represent a more complex position on the relationship between body and soul than Plato’s reputation suggests.

scholarly journals Human identity in Plato’s Alcibiades I (some notes on anthropological questions in ancient Greek philosophy)

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-268
Author(s):  
Daniil Dorofeev
Keyword(s):  
Material Property ◽  
The Body ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Single Person ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The article is devoted to Plato’s Alcibiades I and explores its main question: what is your proper self? The author pays special attention to the concept of “ayto to ayto”, which he takes to mean “selfhood”. This concept is analyzed as the first fundamental philosophical form of understanding of human identity, which Plato viewed as a soul. Plato fundamentally distinguishes essence of a person (ayto to ayto) from things that belong to a person, the attributes of human being (such as his body and material property). The author explores the Platonic understanding of human identity in the context of ancient ontology and anthropology, which includes an analysis of the relationship of a single person and universal being, authentic and inauthentic Ego, the soul (mind) and the body, the significance of “care about self” (epimeilea heautou) and “cognition of self” (gnothi seautou), etc. The concept of Plato represents the first experience of comprehending the human identity ("ayto to ayto" as soul) which appears as impersonal subject and media Being, but realized in perspective of self-correlation "care of self" and "cognition of self" by particular man.

The Technology of Happiness: Philosophy, the Body, and Ghaz?l?’s K?m?y?-yi sa??dat

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-139
Author(s):  
Robert Landau Ames
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy

This article suggests a repositioning of philosophy’s disciplinary boundaries in terms of the analyses of ancient Greek philosophy carried out late in the career of Michel Foucault, which, under the influence of Pierre Hadot’s conception of philosophy as a way of life, set out to highlight "the care of the self" as the practical core of the Ancient philosophical enterprise. In light of this shift in disciplinary boundaries, the article seeks to deepen the ongoing reconsideration of Ab? H?mid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghaz?l?’s position vis-à-vis philosophy by highlighting the role of the body and self-care in his ethical writing. Though recent scholarship has come to reject the notion that Ghaz?l? simply did away with philosophy in Islam, even the studies of his constructive incorporation of Avicennan thought have stopped short of highlighting bodily discipline as a central feature of spiritual exercise across these categories.

scholarly journals Milos N. Djuric: Life and philosophical views

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 37-52
Author(s):  
Boris Milosavlјevic
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
The Difference

Important for understanding the philosophical views of Milos N. Djuric (1892- 1967), apart from his writings, is to take into account his biography and to establish the facts of his life based on historical sources, particularly archival material and memoir notes left behind by his contemporaries. The central question as far as his intellectual evolution is concerned is the difference between his panhumanism in his youth and his later pedagogical work on ancient Greek philosophy. Although he was a proponent of intutitionism and a critic of neo-Kantianism, Djuric, unlike some of his philosophical contemporaries of the interwar period, did not reject logic or give himself completely over to spontaneous associations in his philosophical reflections. Djuric was a man of his times and his philosophical views should be understood in the context of contemporary philosophical thought.

FORGOTTEN UNITY OF BODY AND SOUL AND THE NEED FOR A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF SPORT

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2523-2529
Author(s):  
Slobodan Marković ◽  
Zoran Momčilović ◽  
Vladimir Momčilović
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Constructive Dialogue ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Sport ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Present Text

This text is an attempt to see sport in different ways in the light of ancient philosophical themes. Philosophy of sports gets less attention than other areas of the discipline that examine the other major components of contemporary society: philosophy of religion, political philosophy, aesthetics, and philosophy of science. Talking about sports is often cheap, but it does not have to be that way. One of the reasons for this is insufficiently paid attention to the relation between sport and philosophy in Greek. That is it's important to talk about sports, just as important as we are talking about religion, politics, art and science. The argument of the present text is that we can try to get a handle philosophically on sports by examining it in light of several key idea from ancient Greek philosophy. The ancient Greeks, tended to be hylomorphists who gloried in both physical and mental achievement. Тhe key concepts from Greek philosophy that will provide the support to the present text are the following: arete, sophrosyne, dynamis and kalokagathia. These ideals never were parts of a realized utopia in the ancient world, but rather provided a horizon of meaning. We will claim that these ideals still provide worthy standards that can facilitate in us a better understanding of what sports is and what it could be. How can a constructive dialogue be developed which would discuss differences in understanding of sport in Ancient Greece and today? In this paper, the authors will try to answer this question from a historical and philosophical point of view. The paper is divided into three sections. The first section of the paper presents two principally different forms or models of focus in sport competitions – focus on physical excellence or focus on game. The dialectic discourse regarding these two approaches to physical activity is even more interesting due to the fact that these two models take precedence over one another depending on context. In the second section of the paper, the focus shifts to theendemic phenomenon of the Ancient Greek Olympic Games, where the topic is discussed from the perspective of philosophy with frequent historical reflections on the necessary specifics, which observeman as a physical-psychological-social-spiritual being. In the third section of this paper, the authors choose to use the thoughts and sayings of the great philosopher Plato to indicate how much this philosopher wasactually interested in the relationship between soul and body, mostly through physical exercise and sport, because it seems that philosophers who came after him have not seriously dealt with this topic in Plato’s way, although they could.

The Philonic God of Revelation and His Latter-Day Deniers

1960 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. A. Wolfson
Keyword(s):  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
As If

Philo, professionally, was not a teacher of philosophy. He was a preacher, a preacher on biblical topics, who dispensed his philosophic thoughts in the form of sermons. And because he was not professionally a teacher of philosophy, some modern students of his works say that he was not a philosopher. For nowadays, as we all know, to be called philosopher one must be ordained and one must be hired to teach philosophy and one must also learn to discuss certain hoary problems as if they were plucked yesterday out of the air. Some say that Philo was an eclectic. But there is one eminent authority who would begrudge him even the title of eclectic without further qualification, for, after all, eclecticism is the name of a reputable system in ancient Greek philosophy. The eclecticism of Philo, our eminent authority says, “is that of the jackdaw rather than the philosopher.” But, while we may deny Philo the honorific title of philosopher, with the privilege of wearing ostentatiously a special garb like that affected by ancient Greek philosophers, we cannot deny him the humbler and more modest title of religious philosopher. As such, Philo was the first who tried to reduce the narratives and laws and exhortations of Scripture to a coherent and closely knit system of thought and thereby produced what may be called scriptural philosophy in contradistinction to pagan Greek philosophy.

scholarly journals O método ético da Eudêmia

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 130
Author(s):  
Mariane Farias de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The State ◽  
State University ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
Aristotle's Ethics

Tradução do artigo "Eudemian Ethical Method", de Lawrence Jost, publicado originalmente em Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy IV: Aristotle's Ethics edited by John P. Anton and Anthony Preus, the State University of New York Press ©1991, State University of New York. A tradução foi feita sob supervisão do orientador prof. Dr. José Lourenço Pereira da Silva (UFSM).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document