Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

Galen and the Stoics: What each could learn from the other 423
and liver, and which focuses only on their physiological functions,
alongside the psychological functions located in the brain. 51
Conclusion
In this discussion, I have argued that, for both the Stoics and Galen, it
would have been advantageous if they had adopted aspects of each other’s
theory, if that had been chronologically possible. The Stoics would
have gained a more credible, and methodologically superior, account of
the workings of the body, and one that matched their distinctive combination
of a highly unified psychological system and a distinct, sub-psychological,
role for “nature”. Galen would have rendered his own theory
more internally consistent by combining his brain-centred psychophysiology
with the key features of the Stoic view (the combination
of unified psychology and “nature”) and by abandoning the attempted
merger of his brain-centred anatomy with the Platonic tripartite psyche.
There are signs of an alternative, more Stoicising, picture within Galen’s
other works and even sometimes within PHP. The outcome of a Stoic-
Galenic merger – had this occurred – would have been, arguably, the
most credible account of embodied psychology produced in antiquity. 52
51 See text to n. 30 above. A more minor point of difference is that the PHP passage
characterises the rational part as “divine” (V.793, 9.9.7, p. 598.29), whereas
the Prop. plac. passage declines to take a position on the question of the mortality
or immortality of the psyche. However, the latter position is standard in Galen’s
works, including PHP (it is restated in V.794, 9.9.8 –9, cf. Hankinson
2006), so Galen’s use of the Platonising “divine” is not significant here.
52 I am grateful for the helpful comments made on the oral version of this chapter
given at the Hamburg conference and also for the stimulating papers and discussion
throughout the whole conference.