Euree Song

The purpose of this paper is to explore Galen’s theory of the brain as the seat of the rational soul. Galen, a philosopher-physician, claims that the brain, not the heart, is the central organ of the human body, in which the mind is located, on the basis of anatomical observations and physiological theories. With this, he enters a long-standing philosophical debate about the question of whether and where the mind is to be located. Interestingly, he believes that he is defending Plato’s position against Aristotelian and Stoic theory of the heart as the seat of the mind. In this paper, I discuss his main arguments and presuppositions for his Platonic position, while highlighting some features of Galen’s reception of Plato’s philosophy. Particular attention is paid to Galen’s attitude to the Platonic doctrine of the incorporeality of the rational soul. In scholarship it has been suggested that Galen espouses the anti-Platonic conception of the rational soul as a sort of mixture in the body. I raise some objections to this interpretation. In conclusion, I show that Galen cannot help but be agnostic on the substance of the rational soul, given the empirical limits of scientific psychology as he conceives it.

This chapter discusses Plotinus’ concept of nature. After a brief summary of the many meanings of the Greek term physis in Plotinus, I focus on the concept of nature as a maker of the physical world, while clarifying the way in which nature makes bodies, particularly living bodies. In this context, nature is often presented as the lowest ‘power’ or ‘part’ of World-Soul. Plotinus distinguishes nature as a physiological principle from soul in the proper sense, which is identified as rational soul. Plotinus’ description of nature as ‘an image of soul’ suggests that the nature making our body is not our rational soul, which is called ‘we’, i.e., our individual self.

This chapter explores Plotinus’ concept of ‘ascent’ (anabasis, anodos). The ascent of the human soul to its divine origin is a leitmotif that runs through Plotinus’ writings, which is connected with his ideal and method of philosophical education. Attention is paid to the way in which Plotinus develops a comprehensive concept of ascent by drawing on Plato’s ideas and images. Plotinus speaks of the ascent of the soul from the sensible to the intelligible, which culminates in union with the Good itself. The upward movement of the human soul conceived as an assimilation to God turns out to be an inward movement which consists in the realization of an ever deeper self.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate the relationship between soul and body in Plotinus in the light of his teleology of nature, in which his conception of providence plays a crucial role. Particular attention is paid to Plotinus’ attempt to dismantle traditional mythical, often anthropomorphic, notions of providence. This demythologization of providence is embedded in a general strategy which can be described as a “naturalization of providence”. As a first step, I outline the providential care of the soul for the body, in which the teleological framework emerges. It is then shown how the traditional, especially Platonic, views of “divine” providence are to be naturalized in Plotinus’ concept of the “law of nature”. On this basis, I finally suggest that in Plotinus “human” providence, expressed in the soul’s care of the body, is a case of “natural” providence.