Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

236 Aristotle and his schoolIt is perhaps significant that passages like the ones discussed were usedby writers such as the Peripatetic author of the Physiognomonica – whomay well have been Aristotle himself – in support of their assumption ofthe fundamental correspondence between mental dispositions and bodily states ; 100 again, theword dianoia is used here, although it is very difficult to decide whetherit refers to intellectual capacities alone or has a wider meaning of ‘mentaldispositions’ (as the sequence of the passage in Physiognomonica shows,where the author refers to or just to . Tobesure, in the Physiognomonica intellectual capacities are rarely referred to, 101and the author mainly deals with moral dispositions and characteristics.He refers to stock examples such as drunkenness and illness, and he alsouses love, fear, pleasure and pain as examples of how emotional statesmay influence the condition of the body, thus indicating that there is areciprocal relationship between body and soul. 102 In doing so, the authoris in accordance with genuine Aristotelian doctrine, for example with whatwe read about the bodily aspects of emotion in Movement of Animals,where Aristotle says that heat and cold may be causative – in the sense of‘efficient causality’ – of emotions, or accompaniments of emotions, but healso acknowledges that emotions in their turn may produce heat or cold inthe body. 103Thus to dismiss works such as the Physiognomonica (and parts of theProblemata) as un-Aristotelian 104 on the strength of their alleged ‘materialistic’doctrine of the soul and of the intellect in particular, ignoresthe presence of a number of passages in genuine Aristotelian works inwhich very similar views are being expressed. 105 The purpose of the presentchapter has been to draw attention to these passages and to encouragestudents of Aristotle’s psychology and ‘philosophy of mind’ to takethem into more serious consideration. In particular, it should be askedto what extent these passages present a challenge to the doctrine of the100 Phgn. 805 a 1ff.; cf. the ancient commentaries on De an. 403 a 16 referred to above (n. 53). Onphysiognomics see Barton (1994), ch. 2 (with abundant bibliography).101 813 a 29; 813 b 7ff. Cf. 808 b 10. 102 805 a 3ff.103 De motu an. 701 b 17ff.; 702 a 3ff.104 I have occasionally referred to passages in the Problemata in the footnotes to show how certaintenets vaguely alluded to in Aristotle’s genuine works are elaborated there, although I am aware thatthis work is of a later date; the question of to what extent Problemata can be used to reconstructAristotelian views on which the authentic works provide only fragmentary information deservesfurther examination.105 See Solmsen (1950) 463–4, who uses the word ‘materialistic’ in connection with the passages in Part.an. 648 a 2ff. and 650 b 19ff. about the cognitive role of the blood.