Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Aristotle on melancholy 141seems to mean virtually the same as manikos (‘mad’) or mainesthai (‘bemad’). 12In view of these issues it will be useful to clarify Aristotle’s own conceptof melancholy. This first of all requires an analysis of all occurrences of thewords melancholikos and melaina cholē (sections 2 and 3) and an analysis ofthe role Aristotle assigns to (black) bile in human physiology (section 4).The results will enable us to gain a better insight into the relationship betweenAristotle and the Hippocratic theory of humours. In the second partof this chapter (sections 5–7) I will discuss the theory set out in Pr. 30.1and its relation to Aristotle’s concept. This will also reveal the philosophicalsignificance of the issue of melancholy: for Aristotle seems to use melancholicsto illustrate the role played by the human phusis, both in the senseof ‘natural predisposition’ and of ‘physiological constitution’, in the moral,sensitive and intellectual behaviour of man, namely what the Problematatext calls the ‘character-affecting aspect’ (to ēthopoion)ofphusis.2 melancholy in the parva naturalia andthe eudemian ethicsIn the Parva naturalia, melancholics are mentioned a few times in relation todisorders in certain psychophysical processes. At the end of On Memory andRecollection (De memoria et reminiscentia, Mem. 453 a 14ff.) Aristotle brieflydiscusses the physiological aspect of recollection, saying that recollectionis ‘something physical’ (sōmatikon ti ). Proof of this is that certain peopleare disturbed by the fact that if they are unable to recollect something,despite making a strong effort, the process of recollecting continues evenafter they stop making the effort. 13 According to Aristotle melancholicsare particularly prone to this disorder, ‘for they are particularly affectedby images’ ( ). The cause of thisdisorder is that just as someone who throws something is unable to bringthe thrown object to a halt, the process of recollection causes a bodily12 Müri (1953) 34; Flashar (1966) 37–8; Klibansky et al. (1964) 16. For the historical background to thisuse of the term, as well as the origin of the notion ‘black bile’, see also Kudlien (1967a) 75–88 and(1973) 53–8.13 ’ (453 a 16–18). The subject of is (this refers to the mentioned in line 25); belongs to The ‘disturbance’ does not so much consist in the fact that thesepeople are unable to remember something in particular (for how could this be an indication thatmemory is a physiological process?), but that they are unable to stop the process of recollection. Theanalogy in 20–1 ’ ’ clearly shows this. See Sorabji (1972a) 111–12.