- Title Pages
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Phenomenology and Psychology of <i>Erôs</i>
- 2 Between Appetite and Emotion, or Why Can’t Animals Have <i>Erôs</i>?
- 3 Mad <i>Erôs</i> and Eroticized Madness in Tragedy
- 4 Sexual Jealousy and <i>Erôs</i> in Euripides’ <i>Medea</i>
- 5 Love’s Battlefield: Rethinking Sappho Fragment 31
- 6 Monstrous Love? Erotic Reciprocity in Aelian’s <i>De natura animalium</i>
- Part II Defining <i>Erôs</i>: Philosophy and Science
- 7 Challenging Platonic <i>Erôs</i>: The Role of <i>Thumos</i> and <i>Philotimia</i> in Love
- 8 Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of <i>Erôs</i>
- 9 Sex and the City: Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno of Kition on <i>Erôs</i> and <i>Philia</i>
- 10 Stoic <i>Erôs—</i>Is There Such a Thing?
- Part III Divine Eros and Human <i>Erôs</i>
- 11 Eros in Hesiod
- 12 From the Gymnasium to the Wedding: Eros in Athenian Art and Cult
- 13 Love Theory and Political Practice in Plutarch: The <i>Amatorius</i> and the <i>Lives of Coriolanus and Alcibiades</i>
- Part IV Imagery and Language of <i>Erôs</i>
- 14 The Imagery of <i>Erôs</i> in Plato’s <i>Phaedrus</i>
- 15 The Language(s) of Love in Aristophanes
- 16 Worlds of <i>Erôs</i> in Ibycus Fragment 286 (<i>PMGF</i>)
- 17 Lamp and Erotic Epigram: How an Object Sheds Light on the Lover’s Emotions
- 18 Male Bodies, Male Gazes: Exploring <i>Erôs</i> in the Twelfth Book of the <i>Greek Anthology</i>
- References
- Index
Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of Erôs
Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of Erôs
- Chapter:
- (p.111) 8 Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of Erôs
- Source:
- Erôs in Ancient Greece
- Author(s):
Ralph M. Rosen
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This chapter investigates Galen’s attitude towards erôs, specifically in his capacity as a doctor who endorsed an essentially Platonic psychology. It focuses on Galen’s On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato (= PHP), which reveals a far more biologically-based conceptualization of erôs than Plato. Erôs for Galen was one of the more problematic of the passions that originated in the liver, but this organ also had a positive side for Galen as a nutritive force in the human body, counterbalancing the many examples of a destructive erôs that predominate in PHP. The chapter argues that, despite the fact that Galen’s notion of erôs was more physiological and less metaphysical than Plato’s, he still saw it as an important force in shaping one’s moral and interpersonal life.
Keywords: erôs, Galen, Plato, Symposium, seat of passions, desires, psychology of love
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- Title Pages
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Phenomenology and Psychology of <i>Erôs</i>
- 2 Between Appetite and Emotion, or Why Can’t Animals Have <i>Erôs</i>?
- 3 Mad <i>Erôs</i> and Eroticized Madness in Tragedy
- 4 Sexual Jealousy and <i>Erôs</i> in Euripides’ <i>Medea</i>
- 5 Love’s Battlefield: Rethinking Sappho Fragment 31
- 6 Monstrous Love? Erotic Reciprocity in Aelian’s <i>De natura animalium</i>
- Part II Defining <i>Erôs</i>: Philosophy and Science
- 7 Challenging Platonic <i>Erôs</i>: The Role of <i>Thumos</i> and <i>Philotimia</i> in Love
- 8 Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of <i>Erôs</i>
- 9 Sex and the City: Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno of Kition on <i>Erôs</i> and <i>Philia</i>
- 10 Stoic <i>Erôs—</i>Is There Such a Thing?
- Part III Divine Eros and Human <i>Erôs</i>
- 11 Eros in Hesiod
- 12 From the Gymnasium to the Wedding: Eros in Athenian Art and Cult
- 13 Love Theory and Political Practice in Plutarch: The <i>Amatorius</i> and the <i>Lives of Coriolanus and Alcibiades</i>
- Part IV Imagery and Language of <i>Erôs</i>
- 14 The Imagery of <i>Erôs</i> in Plato’s <i>Phaedrus</i>
- 15 The Language(s) of Love in Aristophanes
- 16 Worlds of <i>Erôs</i> in Ibycus Fragment 286 (<i>PMGF</i>)
- 17 Lamp and Erotic Epigram: How an Object Sheds Light on the Lover’s Emotions
- 18 Male Bodies, Male Gazes: Exploring <i>Erôs</i> in the Twelfth Book of the <i>Greek Anthology</i>
- References
- Index
