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Chapter 1 - Galen and the ‘Medical’ Timaeus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2020

Aileen R. Das
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Summary

Galen attempts to define the Timaeus as a medical resource to justify medicine’s right to comment on issues regarding the soul and the nature of life, to which philosophers had long laid claim. I call attention to Galen’s commentary On the Medical Statements in Plato’s Timaeus and the Arabo-Latin prologue to the Synopsis of Plato’s Timaeus to illustrate how his assertions that the dialogue contains ‘medical’ information allow him to draw more expansive boundaries for medicine. My analyses of On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato and The Faculties of the Soul Follow the Mixtures of the Body reveal that Galen advances more monopolistic claims on the soul for medicine by appealing to his anatomical expertise and the dialogue's link between bodily and psychic disease to show the pertinence of his medical expertise to psychological controversies and ethics. I conclude with a discussion of Galen's interpretation of the Timaeus' account of vegetative sensation, which posits a homology between plants and humans that he exploits to extend medicine's boundaries beyond the world of the body.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Galen and the ‘Medical’ Timaeus
  • Aileen R. Das, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Book: Galen and the Arabic Reception of Plato's <I>Timaeus</I>
  • Online publication: 30 October 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108583107.002
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  • Galen and the ‘Medical’ Timaeus
  • Aileen R. Das, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Book: Galen and the Arabic Reception of Plato's <I>Timaeus</I>
  • Online publication: 30 October 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108583107.002
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Galen and the ‘Medical’ Timaeus
  • Aileen R. Das, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Book: Galen and the Arabic Reception of Plato's <I>Timaeus</I>
  • Online publication: 30 October 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108583107.002
Available formats
×