Essay on Galenic Medicine

Matter is defined by Lucretius as a primordial entity free of void and decay; they are the atoms that create entities. Atoms and primordial entities are synonymous with each other: the solidity of matter is called “procreant atoms, matter, seeds of things, or primal bodies, as primal to the world” (107-108). Lucretius uses all these words, emphasizing the simplicity of his philosophy. This simplicity is explained as he declares: “primal bodies are solid, without a void” (596). Because he believes that all entities are composed of primal bodies and a void, the primal body must be free of any void, thus giving substance to the object. He declares that entities are composed: “partly primal germs of things, and partly unions deriving from the primal germs” (566-567). This definition states that all matter consists of atoms, which, when combined, form molecules. Molecules, as defined by science, are the “unions” of atoms. This scientific principal is further explained: “So primal germs have solid singleness, which tightly packed and closely

The logic and principles of medieval medicine shaped those of Modern medicine. Never was there a more efficient method perfected, so much that it remained through history through so many hundreds of years. Today’s concepts of diagnosis, relationships with the church, anatomy, surgery, hospitals and training, and public health were established in the Middle Ages.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was the author of 450 books on a wide range of subjects. Many of these concentrated on philosophy and medicine. In Avicenna’s text, he begins explaining that every knowledge has a subject matter, and the subject matter of the understanding of nature is the sensed body since it falls into change (Avicenna Pg. 1). Nature is everything that issues its act without deliberation and desire. Avicenna 's understanding of the subject-matter of physics differs from Aristotle 's, given that Avicenna’s “Physics" is committed to the explanation of the natural body and its principles, which are the matter and the form of the particular body, and considers the form of corporeality in itself. What is the relation of nature to form and

Matter is often defined as mass that can be physically observed by the senses, it can be measured scientifically and is tangible , it could be said the material world unlike aspects of social worlds is less abstract and easier to define, for example a building which comprises of bricks, wood, metal and other materials built into a specific shape compared to a community which can relate to people of the same place or shared values or interests or all. That is not to say that matter just is, it too can have agency and varying meanings dependent upon the

We are introduced to the Forms in Plato’s dialogue the Phaedo. The Theory of Forms says that

Books Zeta, Eta and Theta, together form the central part of the Metaphysics, with a focus on their general topic ‘substance’: its classification and relation to matter and forms, to actuality and

He moved to Rome and became a famous doctor to the Roman Emperor. There he wrote over 60 works on medical practice which became the accepted textbooks on medicine during that time period. Galen’s ideas and methods were very useful, but he also made many mistakes. Though he dissected some human bodies many of his ideas on human anatomy were based on dissections of various

You see through the ages of philosophy there have been many debates and opinions. Yet it is those opinions that are the most radical that demand the most attention. On that note, we will address two radical philosophizers: Spinoza and Hobbes. Specifically there theory's pertaining to matter and the mind-body problem posed by Descartes. As such we will first address Hobbes then move to Spinoza and end with a combined statement on matter. Therefore we must begin by introducing Thomas Hobbes.

In the beginning of Metaphysics VII, Aristotle asks again; what is substance? We know that substance is the base of all things that exist, that part is

He was born in Athens into a very wealthy family and as a young man

In The Physics Aristotle deduces that there must be two main principles of change. These principles are 1) matter and 2) form. Matter stays the same in general composition throughout change much as a rock would stay the same even after being broken into several small pieces. Form, however, is what changes through various processes.

Plato was interested in how we can apply a single word or concept to many words or things. For example how can the word house be used for all the individual dwellings that are houses? Plato answered that various things can be called by the same name because they have something in common. He called this common factor the thing’s form or idea. Plato insisted that the forms differ greatly from the ordinary things that we see around us. Ordinary things change but their forms do not. A particular triangle may be altered in size or shape but the form of a triangle can never change. Plato concluded that forms exist neither in space or time. They can be known not only by the intellect but also by the senses. Because of their stability and perfection, the forms have greater reality than ordinary objects observed by the senses. Thus true knowledge is knowledge of the forms.

In its detailed state, the Canon of Medicine had influenced other physicians to investigate and inquiry upon its works. For instance, the text has impacted physician Thomas Aquinas of Naples, Italy; after it was made part of the curriculum. In his education of philosophy, Aquinas had read translations of Avicenna’s work that included comprehensive commentators and remarks on Aristotle's lost work. With the Latin West’s increasing contact with the Arabic world in between the twelfth and thirteenth century, the lost works of Aristotle and Arabic ideas of medicine were reintroduced into the European universities. Aquinas followed Avicenna’s idea of the common sense (or the faculty of the interior sense that synthesize all the senses).

Perhaps Boyle’s most interesting and influential contribution was his ‘corpuscular or mechanical hypothesis’, probably the fullest and most detailed development of physical atomism up to his time. His work on this begins in earnest in The Sceptical Chymist (1661) but it receives its clearest exposition in The Origin of Forms and Qualities (1666), and he returns to it in many of his later works. A useful summary of its basic principles is to be found in his About the Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical Philosophy (1674).

It is also important to say that he also believes the soul is the form of the body in part, because the soul is the organization of the parts the body, the body is matter and it or soul is the form-the actual living body. To reiterate this point Aristotle offers us the example of a corpse and a bronze or wooden hand and states that these are not forms as they “lack the potentiality to perform the function of a hand”.7this would also suggest that once we are dead we undergo a material change which stops function and makes us akin to a statue. Aristotle then goes on to discuss matter which he says is “the matter that is the subject necessarily has a certain sort of nature....fire has a hot and light nature”8. He states that matter is what earlier philosophers focused on and it was how they explained the order of the world. Aristotle however does not believe that this is the way in which we should study nature, he believes we should ask what gives each natural substance its characteristic and we should look at “how each thing has naturally come to be, rather than how it is...then state their causes”9. Therefore he concludes that a prior observational investigation is best and that we should study the form.