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Berryman, Sylvia - Galen and The Mechanical Philosophy - Apeiron, 35, 3 - 2002 - 235-254
Berryman, Sylvia - Galen and The Mechanical Philosophy - Apeiron, 35, 3 - 2002 - 235-254
Berryman, Sylvia - Galen and The Mechanical Philosophy - Apeiron, 35, 3 - 2002 - 235-254
Mechanical Philosophy
Sylvia Berryman
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2 See David Balme, 'Greek Science and Mechanism II. The Atomists', Classical Quarterly 35 (1941) 23-8; Ulrike Hirsch, 'War Demokrits Weltbild mechanistisch und
anhteleologisch?' Phronesis 35 (1990) 225-44
3 David Furley, The Creek Cosmologists Vol l The Formation of the Atomic Theory and its
Earliest Critics (New York Cambridge University Press 1987); Hirsch, 'Demokrits
Weltbild'
4 IM. Lonie, 'The paradoxical text "On the Heart"', Medical History 17 (1973) 1-15 and
136-53,138; 'Hippocrates the latromechanist', Medical History 25 (1981) 113-50
5 The Greek Cosmologists, 13. See also his Cosmic Problems: Essays on Greek and Roman
Philosophy of Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press 1989).
6 The Greek Cosmologists, 1-8: the phrases are Koyre's. Furley notes that the atomists
also differ in recognizing no distinction in kind between the motion of sublunary
and heavenly bodies.
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7 The Greek Cosmologists, 8. Furley indicates that these will be discussed in volume two
of his work, which has not yet appeared.
8 See Hermann Diels, 'ber das physikalische System des Straton', Sitzungsberichte
der Pruessischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1893) 101-127,106.
9 Teleology and Mechanism: Aristotelian Biology and Early Hellenistic Medicine',
in Wolfgang Kullmann and Sabine Fllinger, eds., Aristotelische Biologie: Intentionen,
Methoden, Ergebnisse (Stuttgart: F. Steiner 1997) 183-208, 203; 'Body and Machine:
Interactions between Medicine, Mechanics, and Philosophy in Early Alexandria', in
John Walsh and Thomas F. Reese, eds, Alexandria and Alexandrianism (Malibu, CA:
J. Paul Getty Museum 1996) 85-106,96
10 On the Natural Faculties 1.12, discussed below.
11 De Homine 1.1. I owe to Paul Keyser the reference to Diodorus Siculus 1.6, which
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on the motions of material bodies alone. I shall suggest instead that the
term 'mechanistic' is better applied to those whose approach to natural
philosophy is guided by principles and techniques from what the ancients called ta mechanika or he mechanike techne, 'the mechanical art'.12
First, then, the evidence that later natural philosophy was thought to
admit of three rather than two distinct approaches. When Galen claims,
in On the Natural Faculties, that there are two main approaches to natural
philosophy, he is focusing on the view of the nature of matter and not
on the style of explanation. The difference, in his view, depends on
whether matter is taken to be unified and thus capable of acting and
being affected throughout (Nat Fac II27).13 This is one of the central ways
Aristotle distinguishes his view from the atomists: in his view, there is
no underlying substrate at which qualitative alterations turn out to be
mere rearrangement of smallest parts so as to produce apparent qualitative change at the macroscopic level. For Aristotle, as for Galen, qualitative change occurs throughout and matter does not resolve, at the
microscopic level, into discrete smallest parts of matter. The atomists, by
contrast, think that, at a microscopic level, all change involves the
rearrangement of atoms that are otherwise unchangeable.
Galen initially presents these two approaches to the nature of matter
as definitive of the two main sects of philosophers and doctors alike.
Moreover, he suggests that this division on the nature of matter aligns
with a dichotomy between those who accept and those who deny the
role of Nature as artificer and caretaker (Nat Fac II 28). One sect try to
explain all effects by the interaction of the inert primary bodies; the other
take Nature to be a causal agent that has explanatory priority and is
responsible for the form and capacities of animals and plants. As a
doctor, Galen is primarily concerned with explaining the function of
living bodies: one of the focuses of debate, for him, is on explaining the
ability of different organs of the body to attract appropriate matter and
fluids to themselves and to repel foreign matter. This seems to Galen to
be a stumbling block for those who think organisms arise without design
12 Diogenes Laertms VIII 82-3; Aristotle APo 19, 76a24; 113 78b37; Plutarch Marcellus
11
13 References to Galen's work are to Khn volume and page number, and follow the
abbreviations in Appendix 2 of R.J. Hankinson, Galen On the Therapeutic Method
Books I and (Oxford: Clarendon 1991), 238-47.
or by the rearrangement of unchanging particles: he thinks the functioning of organs in a body requires special powers, dunameis, that allow
bodies to act on one another qualitatively (e.g., Nat Fac II26-30). Nature's
foresight lies in providing us with these powers. These powers are not
distinct ingredients: ascribing to an organ a power for something merely
means that the organ is able to perform that function (QAM IV 769-70).14
Nature's ability to change material qualitatively is required to provide
each organ with its powers; these powers do not admit analysis into
nonqualitative, structural properties. Organs have their own particular
homoiomerous matter,15 so that fashioning a brain or heart involves
transforming matter qualitatively to give it the natural powers of that
organ. They cannot be specified nonteleologically, i.e., in terms of material properties that do not make reference to the function of the organ in
question.
Galen thinks he can show empirically that the rival approaches are
inadequate; the lack of adequate alternative legitimates his hypothesis
of powers as primitives. Galen's opponents try to explain the phenomena by structural properties only, without acquiring qualitatively different powers. As well as minor disagreements over which phenomena
require positive explanatory resources,16 arguments that go to the heart
of the matter concern the kinds of explanatory resources required. A
general way to characterize the solutions Galen rejects is that they
depend on the structure and arrangement of the parts of the body, not
on explanatorily primitive powers. More specifically, the techniques
used parallel those found in the Hellenistic Pneumatica treatises.17
One attempt to explain organic functioning without powers hypothesizes that passageways, poroi, are the key explanatory device for the
movement of fluids in the body (Nat Fac II 80-1). Presumably this
18 Nflf Fac II64,75-76,95 For an excellent overview of this debate, see David J Furley
and J.S. Wilkie, Galen on Respiration and the Arteries Edition with English translation
and commentary of De usu respirahonis, An in arteriis natura sanguis contmeatur,
De usu pulsuum, and De causis respirationis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press 1984), 32-9. There is more to explaining why matter refills empty or emptier
spaces: see David Furley, 'Strata's Theory of Void', Cosmic Problems Essays on Creek
and Roman Philosophy of Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press 1989)
149-60; David Sedley, Thiloponus' Conception of Space', in Richard Sorabji, ed.,
Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science (London: Gerald Duckworth and
Co. 1987) 140-153; J.T. Vallance, The Lost Theory of Asclepiades of Bythma (Oxford.
Clarendon 1990); also my 'Horror Vacui in the Third Century BCE: When is a Theory
not a Theory?', in Richard Sorabji, ed., Aristotle and After, BICS s.v. II (1997) 147-57.
19 Lonie, 'Paradoxical Text'; developed further by von Staden, Teleology and Mechanism'; 'Body and Machine'; 'Andreas de Caryste et Philon de Byzance: medecine et
mecanique Alexandrie', in Gilbert Argoud and Jean-Yves Guillaumin, eds., Sei-
Galen's work that Erasistratus was interested in conceptions of the organism that might explain fluid dynamics by analogy to techniques available
in pneumatics. Von Staden has pointed to a number of linguistic parallels
between the surgical device of Andreas of Carystus and the war machinery of Philo of Byzantium: he argues that these similarities show that third
century authors saw the body in mechanized terms.20
Galen sometimes takes the reliance on structural properties and the
rejection of special powers in a theory to align with the question whether
there is design in nature: he takes the presence of special powers to show
Nature's forethought in providing organs with the means of attracting
specific fluids and repelling foreign matter. Some of Galen's opponents
are accused of seeking to explain everything by the impulses of matter
alone, bereft of craft or forethought.21 However, this alignment does not
always hold. Erasistratus is among those criticized for denying attraction, yet as von Staden has emphasized he is said to take Nature to
be craftsmanly.22 This is at first presented by Galen as a lapse of consistency on the part of Erasistratus.23 However, other passages show that
Galen recognizes a coherent third approach. Rather than viewing Erasistratus' position as a fusion of sorts, it is worth considering whether he
should better be seen as representing a third approach, which is motivated rather differently from either position in the traditional dichotomy
of 'mechanistic' and teleological approaches.
ences exactes et sciences appliquees Alexandrie (Saint-Etienne: Publications de 1'Universite de Saint-Etienne 1998) 147-72; cf. also Longrigg, Greek Rational Medicine:
Philosophy and Medicine from Alcmaeon to the Alexandrians (London: Routledge 1993),
207-9; Vallance, Asclepiades, 71. Longrigg is more sceptical, noting that the parallel
between heart and pump is imperfect: Creek Rational Medicine, 208. I thank Mark
Schiefsky for references
20 von Staden, 'Andreas et Philon', 163: he sees the cross-fertilization of ideas between
mechanics and medicine as working in both directions. Erasistratus' system has
been called 'mechanical' in other senses, e.g., Furley and Wilkie, Galen on Respiration,
32; perhaps Diels, ' ber das physikalische System', 106.
21 , Nat Fac II 80.
22 technike, Nat Fac II81. See von Staden, Teleology and Mechanism', 187-8.
23 For the extent to which Galen's criticisms of his rivals focus on the degree of
commitment to teleological explanation, see von Staden, Teleology and Mechanism', Hankinson, 'Galen and the Best of all Possible Worlds'.
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26 Translation by Singer: P.M. Singer, ed., Galen Selected Works, Translated with an
introduction and notes (Oxford Clarendon 1997), 194. Brought to you by | UNAM
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In On the Formation of the Embryo, he ultimately rejects the idea that the
techniques used by those constructing devices could be adequate as a
point of comparison, because the sequence of motions could not be made
sufficiently technike by a nonrational substance (Foet Form IV 689). The
term technike is used by Galen to describe Nature's particular ability to
make materials with the powers to produce the needed effects. He seems
to doubt that a series of local motions such as those used in human
manufacture could be sufficiently responsive and artistic technike
to account for the abilities of organisms.
The case of the development of the organism how parts of a foetus
can grow into more complex parts with the appropriate capacities is
only a more difficult case of a general problem. The same criticisms of
the technological comparison hold in the case of the functioning of a
developed organism: in both cases, the reshaping of material is insufficient to explain its powers. Galen thinks that a pre-established sequence
of cause-and-effect is inadequate to produce the technike responses of
organisms however we are to understand this term even while he
hesitates to credit parts of organisms with deliberative capacities. Some
doctors credit each muscle with conscious awareness, but both here and
in On the Useilness of the Parts, Galen rejects this idea. He thinks that
muscles are capable of technike response in a manner impossible to inert
matter, yet they do not themselves exercise the judgement associated
with art.
This is of a piece with Galen's notion of the special powers granted
by Nature to organs to perform their special functions, powers that
cannot be produced by mere rearrangements. These powers somehow
convey a selectivity to the organ, of a kind that could not be produced
by the techniques of a mechanic. This position seems to be motivated
less by a limited view of the capacities of devices and more by the notion
he shares with Aristotle, a notion that powers dependent on qualitative
changes are different in kind from those produced by structural changes,
and cannot be replaced by the latter. While he grants that there are
artificial devices displaying complex sequences of motions, Galen rejects
the claim that the techniques of the mechanikoi could illustrate how
Nature makes parts of an organism with powers suitable to their functions. Organs may not have minds of their own, but they have powers
that art cannot reproduce.
As Galen is rejecting a comparison to theatrical devices, it would be
helpful to know what kinds of devices were available. The thaumata here
are, I think, quite different from, say, the marionette (thauma) to which
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made sophisticated devices using pipes, valves, pulleys, wheels, siphons, ropes, weights.30 These sorts of contrivances seem to answer to
the description found in Galen of devices that run unassisted. The sense
in which it is fair to characterize such an account of organisms with the
modem term 'mechanistic' is that explanations of natural things rely on
the kinds of techniques available from 'the mechanical art' of the time
period in question. This usage is independent of modern assumptions
about the contents a 'mechanistic' view should have: what kinds of
properties it should attribute to matter or what kinds of laws of motion
it should endorse. Rather, it implies only that an account uses only the
techniques of mechanics ta mechanikahowever they are understood.
The attempt to rely systematically on techniques of the mechanics to
explain organisms is different from the piecemeal use of such techniques
within a ideological programme. Galen does not doubt the craftsman's
ability to build devices that help illuminate the cause-and-effect workings of organisms: he uses such comparisons himself. Technological
comparisons are common: for example, he compares the point of attachment of tendons to the technique used in marionettes (UP III 48,262), in
order to show that Nature designed us well. Comparisons to the joinery
found in pulleys and pivots appear in descriptions of the articulation of
joints (Mot Muse IV 410); the spine is compared to a keel (UP III 179; IV,
42), the skull to a helmet (UP III 661), the articulation of connecting bones
to the meshing of two serrated saws (UP III 689). He writes favourably
of the well-tested methods of the 'architect' (Pecc Dig V 99-100),31 a
discipline that includes mechanics and pneumatics,32 and endorses the
kinds of demonstrations made by 'architects' using devices for predicting eclipses and constructing various mechanical and pneumatic devices
(Pecc Dig V 68-9; Lib Prop XIX 40).33
Galen does not object to the use of methods from the sciences. Nor
does he reject the comparison to devices or to the techniques used in
constructing them, if it is made in order to exhibit the skill and
forethought of Nature's designs. The architect, after all, might be
imitating nature (UP III 561). What he rejects is the idea that the kinds
of techniques available to human craftsmen, who like the sculptor can
only reshape and position materials without changing their nature,
could adequately account for natural processes and obviate the need
for powers. His continued emphasis on the need for qualitative transformation and special powers, then, aligns with his rejection of the
idea that the techniques available from human technology pneumatics and mechanics could be adequate. Galen even concedes that
organisms are like devices in operating by themselves without minds
(UP IV 156-7); but they are unJike devices in that their powers require
more than mere rearrangement of materials. The techniques of the
craftsmen won't do.
This point is brought home most vividly in a passage where Galen
might seem to be endorsing a 'mechanical' account of the parts of the
body.34 In de Usu Partium, he compares the distinct organs of the body
to the self-moving constructions of Hephaestus in Iliad 18,414ff., which
tells of bellows that work themselves, golden handmaidens and tripods
that enter the assembly of the gods by themselves. Galen calls these
creations autokineta (UP III 268), which seems to suggest that each part
of the body is analogously capable of self-starting. These creations,
however, are not examples of mechanical technology of the techniques available to human craftsmen but require the special power
of the god. Although Galen says that the construction of the devices
(kataskeue, UP III 268) is important, he thinks that they are not mechanically contrived but have been given divine powers.35 Although he
compares the coordinated functioning of parts of the body to a city,36
for natural order, see G.E R. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy (New York Cambridge
University Press 1966).
37 )
(UP , 268; cf. // 18, 419-20). J.D. Bruce notes that they are intelligent:
'Human Automata in Classical Tradition and Mediaeval Romance', Modern Philology 10 (1913) 511-26,512.
41 Teleology and Mechanism', 207 However, this alone would not distinguish him
from Galen: see Hankinson, Cause and Explanation, 388-91.
42 See Des Chene, Spirits and Clocks, 14
43 The criticisms of Erasistratus by Anonymous Londinensis rely on effects outside the
body, i.e., in inanimate things ( , 20; XXVI44,51;
XXVII1 (Jones).
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tion.^ The idea that the construction of a complex explains its ability to
realize beneficial functions via a sequence of necessary causal interactions does not exclude the idea that the complex is designed: the function,
not the origin of the complex, are at issue.
Galen's 'third school' try to employ the kinds of devices that can be
constructed merely by reshaping the material to explain the functioning
of human beings. His trichotomy in fact echoes Robert Boyle's understanding of the explanatory approaches available in the seventeenth
century.46 Boyle, who is interested in ancient philosophy and medicine,
presents a rather Galenic reading of the prevailing 'Aristotelian' approach to teleology. Boyle is concerned that the idea of Nature's constant
forethought seems to impute mind to Nature, or at least the idea of an
immanent guide capable of constant intervention and direction of natural processes towards their goal. The alternatives to this immanent
teleology are, in Boyle's eyes, two: the atomist attempt to leave out
design altogether, and the mechanical philosophy. This third approach
does not deny that there is design in nature, but takes the designer to
have built a world that works unassisted, like a machine.47
I have been suggesting that, in ancient natural philosophy, there is
evidence of not two but three distinct approaches to explanation. I also
suggest that the third alternative has a claim to be called 'mechanistic'.
Besides those ideologists who posit irreducible differences in kind between different substances, and the atomists, who take all change to be
reducible to the rearrangement of smallest parts and all macroscopic
structures to occur without design, a third school take natural things to
work by means analogous to the techniques of 'the mechanical art'. The
evidence in Galen suggests that interactions between mechanics, philosophy and medicine in the period after Aristotle opened up a new
conceptual approach, one whose motivation was different in kind from
that of ancient atomism. Some doctors looked to the available mechani-
45 I argue that the heuristic use of this comparison to existing technology can function
ahead of theoretical understanding of mechanics: 'Ancient Automata and Mechanical Explanation', in preparation.
46 On his reputation as a leading representative of the mechanical philosophy, see
Marie Boas Hall, The Mechanical Philosophy (New York: Amo Press 1981)
47 Robert Boyle, A Free Inquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature, Edward B.
Davis and Michael Hunter, eds., (New York: Cambridge
University Press 1996).
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48 This paper was written during a period of generous support from Center for
Hellenic Studies and The Ohio State University. I am grateful to Jim Hankinson,
who first introduced me to Galen, to Sean Kelsey, Paul Keyser, Tim O'Keefe and the
anonymous reviewer for searching comments and criticisms on earlier versions of
this paper. All errors are of course my own.
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