Galen is criticized for combining Plato’s tripartition-cum-trilocation of the soul, in which each part constitutes its own source of motivation, with the demand that the faculty of voluntary motion is limited to the rational part, being the only one located in the brain and having access to the relevant nerves. While scholars have concentrated on small nerves as connective organs, this paper focuses on thepneuma, blood and innate heat. When the latter is increased, the irrational parts can affect the brain’s (...) function to such an extent that the rational part’s volitions are reduced to their own desires. (shrink)

Recently, there has been a growing interest in ancient views on consciousness and particularly in their influence on medieval and early modern philosophers. Here I suggest a new interpretation of Plotinus’s account of consciousness which, if correct, may help us to reconsider his role in the history of the notion of the inner sense. I argue that, while explaining how our divided soul can be a unitary subject of the states and activities of its parts, Plotinus develops an original account (...) of consciousness that appeals to an inner sense. In contrast to ‘the outer senses’, which perceive sensible things out there in the world, this sense, for him, perceives the activities of the parts of our soul, thus enabling us to be conscious of them as a single subject. I suggest that Plotinus devises his account of this psychic power in the light of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s interpretation of the Aristotelian ‘common sense’. Since in Alexander the ‘common sense’ enables us to be conscious as a single subject of sensat.. (shrink)

This essay examines several important issues regarding Galen's depiction of the physiology of the arteries. In the process some of Galen's supporting doctrines on the blood and pulse will also be discussed in the context of a coherent scientific explanation. It will be the contention of this essay that though Galen may often have a polemical goal in mind, he correctly identifies the important and complex role of the arteries in human biological systems.

Plotinus’ outline of his method on inquiry on eternity and time in 3.7(45).1.4 includes a reference to ‘concentrated apprehensions of thought’ ([…] ταῖς τῆς ἐννοίας ἀθροωτέραις ἐπιβολαῖς […]). Scholars sometimes argue that Plotinus is here referring to the Epicurean notion of ἀθρόα ἐπιβολή (Epic., Ep. Hdt. 35.9; PHerc. 346, col. 4.24–28). I suggest instead that Gal., mm x.38 Kühn provides the closest parallel to Plotinus’ passage. Further parallels between 3.7 and Galens’ lost On Demonstration suggest that Galen, not Epicurus, is (...) Plotinus’ immediate source. (shrink)