Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

410
Christopher Gill
What I want to suggest in this discussion is that, underneath this antagonistic
relationship was the potential for a much more collaborative
and fruitful one. 4 More precisely, I think that each of the two theories
could have gained a good deal by adopting key features of the other
one. I think the Stoics would have improved their theory by adopting
the brain-centred picture pioneered by the Hellenistic doctors and developed
by Galen. And I think that Galen would have done much better
if he had adopted the Stoic account of the hÞgemonikon, the ruling part
or ‘control-centre’, with its unified picture of psychological functions,
in place of the Platonic tripartite psyche with three different sources
of motivation. It would have been, chronologically, just possible for
Chrysippus to have taken up the brain-centred picture; 5 and it would
certainly have been possible for Galen to have adopted, rather than rejecting,
the Stoic unified account, if he had interpreted it in a more positive
light. Indeed, I think that a combination of the two theories would
have been a very powerful contribution to ancient thinking on embodied
psychology, and that the failure of this to happen is one of the great
missed opportunities of ancient thought. Of course, this perspective on
the matter is influenced by modern assumptions, since we presuppose
the truth of the brain-centred view. But I will argue the case not by reference
to modern assumptions but in terms of the framework presupposed
by the relevant ancient theories. I focus here on the themes of
PHP 1–3 (the location of embodied psychological functions); Books
4–5 on competing accounts of psychological functions including emotions,
raise different, though related, issues. 6
Stoic psychology and Galenic anatomy
I start by outlining the advantages for the Stoics of adopting the braincentred
picture, and then make the same claim in Galen’s case. Since
this exercise is, to some extent at least, a thought experiment, I will consider
what the Stoics could have gained from Galen’s version of this picture
as well as from the version of Herophilus and Erasistratus, although,
of course, there is no way that the Hellenistic Stoics at least could have
4 For this suggestion, see also Gill 2007, 110 –111; the idea is developed more
fully in Gill forthcoming, esp. ch. 3.
5 See further on this point n. 26 below.
6 On PHP 4 – 5, see Gill 2007, 244 – 290, and Gill forthcoming, ch. 4.