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Galen and the Best of All Possible Worlds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. J. Hankinson
R. J. Hankinson
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Extract

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 subsequent auto 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’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , May 1989 , pp. 206 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

1 This paper is one of three related studies in Galen's teleology, and its relation to his views on anatomical practice; the latter considerations will take very much a back seat in this discussion. The others are ‘Galen explains the elephant’ (to appear in Matthen, M. and Linsky, B. [edd.], Philosophy and Biology [Edmonton, 1988])Google Scholar, and ‘Galen's anatomical procedure’ (forthcoming).

2 59 B 1, 11, 12, 14 DK; Aristotle, , Met. 13, 984b15–18Google Scholar; cf. Diogenes Laertius 2 6.

3 31 B 16, 17, 21, 26, 35, 71, 73, 75, 86, 87, etc. DK; the relative chronology of Anaxagoras and Empedocles is however controversial: see O'Brien, D., ‘The Relation of Anaxagoras and Empedocles’, JHS 88 (1968), 93–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. (edd.) The Presocraiic Philosophers 2 (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 280–1, 352–4Google Scholar. The crucial report from Aristotle's Met. 13, 984a 11 ff. (= 31 A 6 DK; cf. A 7 DK) is unfortunately ambiguous, although the most natural interpretation would have it that Anaxagoras, albeit older than Empedocles, embarked later than him on a philosophical career.

4 Cf. Laws 967b–c, an obvious allusion to Anaxagoras, and the inadequacy of his notion of the ordering Mind.

5 See De Usu Partium (UP) i.338 Helmreich: I discuss this whole passage in detail below. References to Galen are made in the standard way to the edition of C. G. Kiihn (Leipzig, 1821–33, 20 vols. in 22), in spite of the manifold inadequacies of that text, giving an abbreviation of the title of the work, Kiihn volume number in Roman, and page number in Arabic numerals. In the case of UP, I cite via the edition of Helmreich in the Teubner (Leipzig, 1907–9, 2 vols); in case of texts which do not appear in Kühn, I cite them either by reference to a Teubner edition, or to the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum (CMG).

6 Galen wrote a commentary on the dialogue; only a fragment of it unfortunately survives, and on a less interesting section of the work at that.

7 For the influential recent accounts, see Gotthelf, A., ‘Aristotle's conception of final causality’, in Gotthelf, A. and Lennox, J. G. (edd.), Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 204–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reprinted with an additional postscript from an article originally published in Review of Metaphysics 30 (1976), 226–54); Cooper, J. M., ‘Hypothetical necessity and natural teleology’, in Gotthelf, and Lennox, (edd), op. cit., pp. 243–74Google Scholar; Balme, D. M., ‘Teleology and necessity’, in Gotthelf, and Lennox, (edd.) op. cit., pp. 275–85Google Scholar; and the relevant chapters of Sorabji, R. R. K., Necessity, Cause and Blame (London, 1980)Google Scholar.

8 See also Met. 14, 985allff., 7, 988a18ff.

9 See Mackie, J. L., The Cement of the Universe (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar; and Sorabji, , op. cit., p. 156 n. 3Google Scholar, for a criticism of this view.

10 For a statement of these views, and a criticism of them, see Barnes, J., The Presocratic Philosophers (London, 1979), ii. 112–16Google Scholar; cf. Fr. 59 A 16 DK, Plutarch's story of Anaxagoras' rationalist description of the formation of a ram with a single horn.

11 Principal among the reasons being the increasing dissatisfaction in some quarters with the traditional models of scientific progress: the classic texts are Kuhn, T. S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962)Google Scholar, and (particularly for the case of Galileo) Feyerabend, P. K., Against Method (London, 1975)Google Scholar.

12 See D. M. Balme, art. cit., n. 7; and cf. Barnes, Jonathan, ‘An Aristotelian way with scepticism’, in Matthen, M. (ed.), Aristotle Today (Edmonton, 1987), 51–76Google Scholar.

13 Briefly, it may be worth saying crudely that for one event or state of affairs to be properly causal (in my sense) of another, the relation between the two of them must be such that the one brings about or maintains the other, where ‘bringing about’ and ‘maintaining’ are real and not merely epistemic relations, as those of explanation may sometimes be. But these issues are notoriously complex and controversial.

14 Sorabji, , op. cit., pp. 143–74Google Scholar.

15 Gotthelf, art. cit., n. 7 above.

16 Barnes, J., Aristotle's Posterior Analytics (Oxford, 1975), p. 222Google Scholar.

17 Art. cit., n. 7 above, and elsewhere.

18 See e.g. Met. 12 7, 1072b14ff.

19 Although this last claim has been controverted: see Rist, J. M., ‘Aristotelian Teleology’, TAPA 96 (1965), 337–49Google Scholar; on the comparative infrequency with which Aristotle does use metaphors of striving and desiring, see Allan Gotthelf, art. cit. (n. 7), 227; for examples, see de Generalione Animalium 1 23, 731a24; 2 16, 744b15; and cf. Phys. 2 8.

20 In Galen on Psychology, Psychopathology, and Function and Diseases of I he Nervous System (Basel, 1973), pp. 13–18Google Scholar.

21 Cf. Galen's, ascription of arrangement to mind, and not to chance: UP i.342Google Scholar Helmreich, a passage discussed in more detail in Section 5; and cf. PHP v.783–6Google Scholar.

22 See May, M. T., Galen on the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body (Ithaca, 1967), pp. 9–12Google Scholar. In this context it is worth recording Hume's reading of Galen's teleology in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Pt. 12: Hume clearly takes the Galenic account of the anatomical complexity of the human body in Foet. Form, to show that the animal kingdom is directly created and providentially ordered (I am indebted to my colleague David Norton for drawing my attention to this passage).

23 See further, n. 30 below.

24 See Alexander, of Aphrodisias, de Fato 8, 172.17ff.Google Scholar, Bruns; the passage appears in Sharpies, R. W., Alexander of Aphrodisias on Fate (London, 1983), pp. 184–5Google Scholar.

25 For a detailed analysis of this aspect of Aristotle's teleology, see Kullman, W., Wissenschaft und Methode (Darmstadt, 1974)Google Scholar; and also Sorabji, op. cit., pp. 155–6.

26 Lennox, J. G., ‘Theophrastus and the limits of teleology’, in Fortenbaugh, W. W. et al. (edd.), Theophraslus of Eresus (New Brunswick, 1985), pp. 143–64Google Scholar.

27 Moraux, P., ‘Galen and Aristotle's De partibus animalium’, in Gotthelf, A. (ed.), Aristotle on Nature and Living Things (Pittsburgh, 1985), pp. 327–14Google Scholar. The extent and nature of Galen's, reliance on his predecessors is the subject of my article ‘Galen's philosophical eclecticism’, forthcoming in Haase, W. (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romische Well, ii.36.4Google Scholar.

28 The Libyan ostrich is a particularly extreme example of animals that, in Aristotle's language, ‘equivocate’ (epamphoterizein) between one genus and another; he deals with it at the very end of PA (4 13, 697b14ff.). On the notion of equivocation in general, see Lloyd, G. E. R., Science, Folklore and Ideology (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 44–52Google Scholar.

29 On the function of the terms telos and skopos in later Greek philosophy and science, see Striker's, Gisela illuminating article ‘Antipater, or the art of living’, in Nussbaum, M. and Schofield, M. (edd.). The Norms of Nature (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 185–204Google Scholar. Galen does not invariably distinguish between telê and skopoi: see de Causis Procatarcticis (Caus. Proc.) vi.57, = CMG Supp. ii. 15.3–8, and cf. my remarks ad loc. in my forthcoming edition, translation, and commentary of this text, Galen on Antecedent Causes. Where he does, he adopts a version of the distinction close to the Stoic account discussed by Striker (and cf. SVF iii. 3): ‘The aim (skopos) of medical science is health; its goal (telos) is the achievement of it’ (On Sects for Beginners i.64 Kühn).

30 References to the Demiurge are too ubiquitous in UP to be worthy of individual note; and I take them to show unequivocally that, at least at the time he wrote that work (it was begun at the end of Galen's first Roman period in about A.D. 165, and completed after his return to Rome between 169 and 175: see May, op. cit., n. 22 above, pp. 3–4; Ilberg, J., ‘Über die Schriftstellerei des Klaudios Galenos’, Rheinisches Museum 44 (1889), 210–19)Google Scholar he subscribed to a directed teleology.

31 E.g. by Peck, A. L. in his Loeb Classical Library version of PA, p. 101Google Scholar.

32 May, op. cit., n. 22 above. May's translation is invaluable, although I think it is a pity she chose the word ‘usefulness’ to translate Galen's chreia, a word which may be rendered variously as ‘function’, ‘purpose’, ‘end’, ‘need’, ‘use’, and even ‘reason’ (perhaps ‘function’ is the least misleading general translation in Galenic contexts: see Siegel, op. cit., n. 20, p. 30). Galen frequently uses the term to refer to final causes: see in particular Caus. Proc. vii.68–90, = CMG Supp. ii.17.28–22.11; see also my remarks ad loc. in my Galen on Antecedent Causes, op. cit., n. 29 above. For a general account of chreia in Galen, see the essay ‘“Use” and “activity”’, in Furley, D. J. and Wilkie, J. S., Galen on Respiration and the Arteries (Princeton, 1984), pp. 58–69Google Scholar.

33 See e.g. On the Therapeutic Method x.36–7 Kühn, Google Scholar.

34 For discussion of the implicationsof this and other passages for Galen's theology, see Walzer, R., Galen on Jews and Christians (Oxford, 1949), pp. 18–37Google Scholar.

35 These are the supposed constituents of the foetus for Galen as well as for Aristotle: On the Natural Faculties (Nat. Fac.) ii.85Kiihn, Google Scholar.

36 For the comparison of the sun with the eye, cf. Plato, . Rep. 508a–bGoogle Scholar.

37 As I characterise it, EIR bears a strong formal resemblance to Lindsay Judson's concept of the Insulated Realisation Manoeuvre, which he considers vitiates Aristotle's treatment of the modalities: but I don't have the space to detail that resemblance here. See Judson, L.. ‘Eternity and necessity in Aristotle's de Caelo'’, in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, i (1983), 217–55Google Scholar.

38 Most notably in the article of Cooper, cited above, n. 7 above.

39 That Lakatosian language is deliberate, for reasons that will emerge later on.

40 See Elements according to Hippocrates i.413–508Kühn, Google Scholar.

41 These are not isolated claims: see also PHP v.443, 447ff. Galen presumably has in mind slave-dealers who commend their wares solely on the grounds of their superficial physical attractiveness, and not because of their strength, or agility, or whatever; otherwise the point he is making would be somewhat obscure.

42 The story here, which I do not have the space to fill out, would presumably be broadly Aristotelian, resting on a hierarchy of excellence of psychic functions, starting with nutrition and ending with contemplation.

43 Cf. UP i.338–9 Helmreich, Google Scholar.

44 Cf. ib. 35–6, 38–9, 132 Kühn.

45 For this late addition to the canonical Peripatetic four causes, see Caus. Proc. vi.60–4, = CMG Supp. ii.15.35–16.37; see my notes ad loc. in my forthcoming Galen on Antecedent Causes (op. cit., n. 29 above); and my ‘Galen's theory of causation’, forthcoming in Haase, W. (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romische Welt ii. 37 1Google Scholar.

46 This language, ὡν οὐκ ἂνευ, deliberately recalls Plato's account in the Phaedo; cf. Caus. Proc. vii.84, =CMGSupp. ii.20.39–21.2; see also Lloyd, G. E. R., Magic, Reason and Experience (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 53–4Google Scholar. And it is instructive to compare the types of explanatory category invoked by Galen here, with Plato's distinction between ‘intelligent’ and ‘divine’ causes on the one hand, and ‘necessary’ and ‘co-operative’ ones on the other: see above, p. 208.

47 I discuss this passage in detail in ‘Galen explains the elephant’, and ‘Galen's anatomical procedure’ (n. 1 above); in the former I also discuss how the final two of those reasons differ from one another.

48 I examine in detail one particular case in point in my paper ‘Galen explains the elephant’, art. cit. (n. 1 above).

49 One might however claim that there was a legitimate sense of ‘waste’ such that something could only be said to be wasted if as a matter of fact something better could (for a causal sense of ‘could’) have been done with it: in that case, there will be no waste materials, provided that the Demiurge maximises the possible material potential of the world. However, as Galen allows, he may not quite manage to achieve even that.

50 See in particular Tim 75a–c, where Plato implicitly allows that there might be better logically possible arrangements of things if ‘nature which has arisen and been nourished along with necessity’ did not preclude the possibility of having a hard, sinewy and fleshy organ which could also perceive acutely; as such a combination is precluded, there is a necessary choice to be made between durability and intelligence in the case of the human head; and nature has opted for intelligence at the expense of durability.

51 These cases are further mentioned at UP i. 60–1 Helmreich, Google Scholar, and in On the Causes of Diseases vi. 862Kühn, Google Scholar.

52 Galen's attitude to redundancy is interestingly paralleled by that of Wallace, who also held that there could be no evolution of a functionless structure: see Gould, S. J., ‘The evolution of the human brain: Darwin and Wallace’, in his collection The Panda's Thumb (New York, 1980), p. 51Google Scholar.

53 In ‘Galen explains the elephant’ (n. 1 above).

54 Much of the original work for this paper was done while I was researching my doctoral thesis: a very early version of some of the arguments of Section 4 appeared there, and I am grateful to my supervisor, Myles Burnyeat, and to my two examiners, Richard Sorabji and David Sedley, for discussing these issues with me; I am further indebted to the Editors of CQ for their remarks. I should also like to thank the participants of a conference that took place in May, 1987, in Edmonton, where I read one related paper, and to the members of the McGill History and Social Studies in Medicine Unit seminar, where I read another, for stimulating discussions which helped me to clarify some of my ideas. In virtually its final form, the paper was read to the Classics Department at Berkeley on February 1st, 1988, and am grateful in particular to Tony Long and Alan Code for their comments; finally, on 22nd April, 1988,1 read it to the Philosophy Department at the University of Texas at Austin; on that occasion I benefited particularly from the incisive remarks of Hans Kamp and Ed Allaire, although I fear I have not been able to do justice to all the issues they raised. Those must wait for another time.