Between medicine and philosophy: Galen and the passions of the soul

In Rome in the 2nd century AD, the physician Galen, one of the most important scientists of the ancient world, conceived of the human being as an inseparable union of body and mind. Through medical science, he demonstrates that emotions, morality, and rationality itself are based on bodily processes to the extent that ‘the affections of the soul follow the mixtures of the bodies’. In the lecture, some of the central themes of Galen's medical and philosophical thought will be addressed: human nature, the link between the structure of the body and moral character, the relationship between the care of the body and the care of the mind, and the analysis and treatment of mental disorders such as depression (‘melancholia’).

Riccardo Chiaradonna is Professor of History of Ancient Philosophy at Roma Tre University. He is president of the Italian Society for the History of Ancient Philosophy and of the Roman Philosophical Society. He has studied ancient philosophical and scientific traditions with particular reference to Platonism, Aristotelianism and medicine. His publications include: Plotinus (Carocci, Rome 2009), Platonism (Il Mulino, Bologna, 2017), Ontology in Early Neoplatonism (De Gruyter, Berlin, 2023). With Paolo Pecere, he is the author of a history of philosophy textbook for upper secondary schools.

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