Galen and the Best of All Possible Worlds

Abstract

Voltaire's Pangloss, the man who held among other things that noses were clearly created in order to support spectacles, is the very archetype of the lunatic teleologist; a caricature of sublimely confident faith in the general and undeniable goodness of the world's arrangement, a faith that managed astoundingly to survive the Lisbon earthquake and his own subsequentauto dafé. Voltaire, of course, is poking fun at such conceptions; and, no doubt, in their extreme sanguinity as well as in their apparent imperviousness to devastating empirical counter-evidence, they do seem to be eminently risible notions. In the face of them we might be tempted to abandon ‘métaphysico-théologo-cosmolonigologie’, and to agree with Candide that ‘Cela est bien dit, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin’.

Galen and the Stoics: Mortal Enemies or Blood Brothers?

“…1. 23) Other aspects of his thought that express a move towards a 'structure' approach (and which have close parallels in Stoicism) include his systematic and comprehensive teleological view of the natural world and his application of a unified framework of causal explanation; on these aspects, see Hankinson 1989 and For it was Hippocrates who first of all introduced the doctrine of the Hot, the Cold, the Dry, and the Wet; later Aristotle gave a demonstration of it. Chrysippus and his followers took it over ready-made, and did not indulge in futile strife, but say that everything is blended (kekrasthai) from these things, and that they act and react upon each other, and that nature is constructive (technikên phusin); and they accept all the other Hippocratic doctrines, except in one small matter in which they differ from Aristotle.…”

“…793-4K.) See further Hankinson 1991aHankinson : 202-6, 2006von Staden 2000: 111, Tieleman 2002b. 7) See Long and Sedley 1987 (=LS) 45 C-D, 53 B(5-9), 65 B-D (refs. to LS sections and paragraphs); also Long 1996, ch.…”

“…10) Th ere is, of course, the general point of contrast that Galen's philosophical enquiries are, ultimately, practical, in that they subserve his medical objectives, a difference I do not explore here. 11) On Galen's high evaluation -and independent or creative interpretation -of the teachings of Hippocrates and Plato, see De Lacy 1972, Hankinson 1992: 3505-8, Lloyd 1993 bodies, including human ones, are seen in Galenic and Stoic theories as constituting coherent psychophysical systems or structures, though there are important differences (underlined shortly) in the kind and degree of unity seen within these systems. Th irdly, embodied psychology and animal physiology are located in both theories within an overall account of the core principles or elements of nature.…”

Assent and Argument

“…Equally, from the point of view of ethics and politics, it is unimportant to establish whether the world had a beginning, or what the gods are like substantially, although it does matter crucially whether the world was created with divine forethought and providence or not (779-81 K.). On Galen's divine, creationist teleology, see Hankinson (1989). Galen's teleological biology is given its fullest expression in his On the Function of the Paris [ U.P.]…”

“…Plac. 900B-C = Aet.IV.ll.l-4 Diels) 57 Galen, for his part, adopted a highly detailed theological teleology: seeHankinson ( 1989) .…”