Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

224 Aristotle and his schoolin De an. 3.3, Aristotle says that animals perform many actions inaccordance with imagination, some animals, such as the beasts ,because they have no intellect (i.e. they have nothing else to guide theiractions except for imagination), others, such as humans, because thinking is ‘overshadowed’ by emotion, disease or sleep(De an. 429 a 5–8). 64 At Part. an. 653 b 5, mental disturbances are said to occur as a result of the brain’s failure to cool the bodily heat. In hisdiscussion of the diaphragm in Part. an. 672 b 28ff., Aristotle remarks thatreasoning and perception are ‘evidently confused’ by the presence of a warm, moist residual substancein the neighbourhood of the diaphragm:This is why it [i.e. the diaphragm] is called phrenes, as if it had some part inthinking . Yet it does not have any part [in thinking], but being close to[parts] that do have part [in thinking], it evidently causes a change of the intellect .This is one of the very few places where Aristotle says something aboutthe place where thinking – if it is anywhere – is located, or at least aboutbodily parts that partake in reason; the passage points, not surprisingly,to the heart, although this is not directly stated and there may be othercandidates as well. 65In other passages, we are told that within the human species, age isa factor that influences an individual’s intellectual capacities: very youngpeople do not yet have the power to think, they are similar to animals (Hist.an. 588 a 31ff.; cf. Part. an. 686 b 23ff. discussed above); similarly, old age isaccompanied by a decay of thinking (Pol. 1270 b 40 and, more hesitantly,De an. 408 b 19–31). 66 The influence of age and descent on64 Physical factors as disturbing agents in the process of rational deliberation about the right way ofaction are also mentioned several times in Aristotle’s discussion of and pleasure in Eth. Nic. 7(1147 a 13–14; 1147 b 7; 1152 a 15; 1154 b 10). What part they play in practical reasoning, i.e. to what extentAristotle believes the actualisation of the right premises in a practical syllogism to be dependent onphysiological conditions (‘deliberations’ () being ‘kicked away’ () by physicalmovement, cf. Eth. Nic. 1119 b 10; 1175 b 3ff.; Eth. Eud. 1224 b 24), deserves further examination (cf.Gosling 1993).65 It is striking indeed that although in later doxographical literature Aristotle is always credited withholding a cardiocentrist view on the seat of the intellect, there is surprisingly little in his works toconfirm this interpretation (only Pr. 954 a 35 speaks of a , which is probably the heart;elsewhere in the Problemata, however, the intellect is located in the head, 916 b 16). Cf. Mansfeld(1990) [and ch. 4].66 A striking passage on the correlation between age and intelligence is Pr. 30.5, where issaid to be the only intellectual activity which is present to us by nature, whereas the other forms ofwisdom and skill are brought about by human effort (955 b 26–7; cf.Eth.Nic. 1143 b 7–9).