Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Aristotle on melancholy 149Aristotle distinguishes between two types of lack of self-control: on the onehand recklessness (propeteia), and on the other hand weakness (astheneia).According to Aristotle the difference is that the weak person thinks anddeliberates, yet does not persist with the conclusions of his deliberations,whereas the reckless person does not think or deliberate at all. In bothcases this failure is caused by passion (pathos). As examples of the recklesstype of lack of self-control Aristotle mentions ‘the irritable’ (hoi oxeis ) and‘the melancholics’ (hoi melancholikoi) in lines 25ff.; both ‘do not wait forrational deliberation’. In the case of the former (hoi oxeis) this is due to theirspeed (tachutēs), in the case of the latter (hoi melancholikoi) it is due to theirintensity (sphodrotēs), that is, their inclination to follow their imagination The argument that melancholics lack rational thought corresponds tostatements of the same nature in the Parva naturalia (in particular OnDivination in Sleep) and the Eudemian Ethics. The ‘intensity’ 37 that Aristotlementions as explanation here was mentioned in On Divination in Sleep,where it was called typical for their strong imagination; in the next sentenceit is specified in the sense of their inclination ‘to follow imagination’ (cf.for this Mem. 453 a 15). The relationship between imagination and passionis not made explicit in the text of the Nicomachean Ethics, but it consistsin the fact that phantasia presents the perceived object as something tobe pursued or avoided (and therefore it can produce pleasure or pain). 38Melancholics are inclined to act upon the objects of their imaginationwithout first holding them against the light of reason This typology of lack of self-control returns in 1151 a 1–5, where thereckless are simply called hoi ekstatikoi, ‘those who are prone to get besidethemselves’. 39 Recklessness is said to be better than weakness, for a weakperson is susceptible to even slighter passions and, unlike the reckless person,does not act without prior deliberation. Further on (in 1152 a 17ff.) itis argued that someone who lacks self-control is not really evil or unjust(despite his evil and unjust actions), for he has no evil intentions: ‘for theone does not follow his intentions, yet, by contrast, the melancholic doesnot deliberate at all’. In this text ho melancholikos is therefore prototypical37 The translation by Dirlmeier (1956) 157, ‘ein unheimlich brodelndes Temperament’ is entirelyunfounded.38 Cf. Tracy (1969) 251–3 and Nussbaum (1978) 232–41.39 The ekstatikoi are also discussed in Div. somn. 464 a 25, i.e. in the same context as the melancholics,yet without being identified with them (see n. 34 above; on the relation between ecstatics andmelancholics see Croissant (1932) 38–41); ekstasis, however, is mentioned in Pr. 30.1 (953 b 14–15) asan expression of the heating of black bile. For this tendency in the chapter from the Problemata seen. 18 above.