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The Concept of Pneuma After Aristotle Volume Proposal: Edition Topoi

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The Concept of Pneuma After Aristotle Volume Proposal: Edition Topoi 1 The Concept of Pneuma after Aristotle Volume Proposal: edition Topoi Editors: Sean Coughlin (Berlin), David Leith (Exeter), Orly Lewis (Berlin) Aim and Scope The proposed volume is a study of the concept of pneuma in medical and philosophical thought after Aristotle. The volume brings together leading and new scholars in the fields of ancient philosophy, medicine and classics in order to examine the history of the concept of pneuma in physics, psychology, physiology, embryology and pathology. The studies in this volume address two fundamental questions concerning the concept of pneuma: (i) how was pneuma conceptualized and (ii) how was it used in explanations of the natural world. The volume, therefore, discusses (i) the various definitions of pneuma proposed by different schools – e.g. Peripatetic, Stoic, Medical (Dogmatic, Methodist, “Pneumatist”), Neoplatonist – and where and why these views intersect; and (ii) it also explores the role of pneuma in explanations of the existence, generation and maintenance of animal life, the physiological and psychological functions of the body, and the workings of the cosmos as a whole. The concept of pneuma occupies a unique place in the histories of ancient philosophy, science and medicine, both in the range of the phenomena it was used to explain and in its longevity as a useful scientific concept. Often translated as ‘breath’ or ‘spirit’, pneuma is found in explanations of just about everything in the universe: from animal generation and growth, to bodily movement, sensation and cognition; from the cohesion of inanimate objects to the order and unity of the entire cosmos. And while its details were disputed, its existence and importance were unquestioned from the time of Aristotle until it was gradually displaced by the mechanical philosophy almost two-thousand years later. In the history of the concept of pneuma, scholars consider the writings of Aristotle a turning point: he develops a complex conception of pneuma and assigns it a central role in the generation, development and workings of the body and soul. After Aristotle, the importance of pneuma in medical and philosophical thought is undisputed —during the post-Aristotelian history of pneuma, the concept is articulated and elaborated by nearly every ancient philosophical school. Yet, while it constitutes an important stage in this history, the period after Aristotle has attracted little attention. Only a handful of studies have been dedicated to particular aspects of the history of the concept in this period, e.g.: A. Debru’s Le Corps Respirant (Brill, 1996) addresses some of Galen’s conception of pneuma; D. Hahm’s The Origins of Stoic Cosmology (Ohio State University Press, 1977) addresses the Stoic use of pneuma in cosmology; and M. Osler’s Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquillity (Cambridge, 1991) contains a selection of papers looking at the early modern reception of Stoic views. W. Jaeger’s study “Das Pneuma im Lykeion” (Hermes, 1913), which is dedicated to the Aristotelian and early-Peripatetic conceptions of pneuma, includes a discussion of the ideas found in the Ps.- Aristotelian De spiritu as well as their relation to the theories of Aristotle, Praxagoras of Cos, Erasistratus of Ceos and the Stoics. The monumental study of G. Verbeke (L’evolution de la doctrine du pneuma: du stoicisme à s. Augustin, 1945) examines the history of the concept in a broader perspective and is still invaluable. Nevertheless, new sources, editions and studies in recent years give rise to the need for an additional study examining the history of the concept across different periods and traditions. The proposed volume will begin to fill this lacuna by offering a collection of studies addressing the definition and role of pneuma in the theories and epistemology of different medical and philosophical traditions. 2 The main questions the volume will address are: How is pneuma defined and conceptualized at different times and in different traditions? Which functions or capacities are assigned to pneuma in the cosmos and in living bodies? What role does the concept of “innate” pneuma play in our sources? What causal or explanatory role is assigned to it? How is it distinguished from other types of pneuma and related concepts such as innate heat and cosmic fire? What is the relation of pneuma to soul? How did changes in anatomical knowledge (e.g. the discoveries of the nerves and the arteries) influence and transform the conception of pneuma? And finally, what role did Aristotle’s doctrine of pneuma play in the shaping of later ideas? The volume will be divided into four sections: The Peripatetic Tradition; Hellenistic and Early Roman Periods; Galen; and Later Traditions. Section 1 addresses the immediate reception of Aristotle’s concept and the changes it underwent in the hands of Aristotle’s followers, picking up directly from the volume Aristotle and his Predecessors on Heat, Pneuma and Soul (forthcoming in Cambridge University Press). Section 2 explores how pneuma became a key feature in medical and philosophical theories outside the Peripatetic school, and how conceptions of pneuma began to change in light of new anatomical observations and theories of the soul. The papers examine this period by looking at the ideas of Cleanthes, the second head of the influential philosophical school of Stoicism, and prominent physicians of the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods: Praxagoras, Herophilus and Erasistratus, Asclepiades of Bithynia, and two prominent Pneumatist physicians, Athenaeus of Attalia and Archigenes of Apamea. The place of pneuma in the writings of physicians from the Hellenistic and Early Roman period prior to Galen is particularly important: their views are little studied, yet they are an important part of the history and necessary for understanding later characterizations of pneuma. For this reason, and due to the fragmentary nature of our sources, we believe these physicians merit sustained and independent treatment. Section 3 is dedicated to the second-century physician Galen of Pergamon: the extent of Galen’s discussion of pneuma, the role it plays in his physiology and the richness of our sources justifies a close study of his conception of pneuma. The inclusion of several papers on Galen’s ideas on pneuma will allow for in-depth studies on particular questions and topics, which are relevant to the later history of pneuma as well. Section 4 complements the discussion exploring medical and philosophical uses of the concept of pneuma in the later Greco-Roman traditions through two illustrative examples. It examines the role of pneuma in the cosmology and psychology of the Neoplatonist philosophical school through the theories of one of its most important representatives, Proclus. And it examines the physiological role of pneuma in later medical thought by looking at the 14th-century physician, John Zacharias Aktouarios, who composed an entire treatise on pneuma, related pathologies and their treatment. The volume is unified thematically as well as by a common approach to questions of textual interpretation. The interaction among these studies will provide the reader with a more complete picture and comprehensive discussion concerning how different conceptual frameworks influenced the transformation of the concept of pneuma over time. In addition, these studies will be supplemented by an extensive Introduction, composed by the editors, which will offer a synthetic discussion of the history of the concept of pneuma based on the results of the individual studies in the volume and the broader historical context. Although the chronological span of the volume is broad, the thematic scope is focused and offers a tight-knit discussion of Greco-Roman medical and philosophical traditions and discourse, especially natural philosophy. The exclusion of discussions on Jewish, Christian and Muslim ideas of pneuma is motivated by the nature of these traditions and by the scholarly state of the art in the field. Greco-Roman natural philosophy is a distinct discourse with a unique set of philosophical and medical concerns, in which pneuma plays a central role. Although the natural philosophical tradition informed monotheistic medical and philosophical traditions, it is often overshadowed, in later medical and philosophical writers, by theological considerations of pneuma. Including papers on particular aspects of pneuma in 3 the theories of the monotheistic writers would contribute little to the discussion of the Greco-Roman traditions discussed in this volume. Conversely, since it would not be possible to include many papers on each of the three monotheistic traditions, such a format would not contribute much to scholars of these other traditions either. For those scholars, the recent volume The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiquity (De Gruyter, 2014) is dedicated to the concept of pneuma in the Judeo-Christian tradition and addresses the philosophical and medical contexts of the theological discourse. The contributions to this volume are based mostly on papers presented in the conference The Concept of Pneuma after Aristotle, which took place at Exzellenzcluster Topoi in Berlin in July 2015 – the exceptions being Chapters 5 and 8, which have been added in order to offer a more complete picture of the period between Aristotle and Galen. The interrelation between the four sections in the volume and the traditions they represent was manifest in the discussions during the conference; the extensive time dedicated to comments on each
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