User:Mauritso/sandbox

''This is for a schoolproject, I need to add referencing, but it isn't finished yet. It is not specifically written for wikipedia as you can see.''

Can Galen be called a philosopher?

Before we can answer that question, you”ll have to know a bit about the different schools of phlilosophy in the time that Galen lived. There where 2 big schools which are completely different and a few smaller schools. One of the 2 was empiricism and the other one is rationalism. Empiricism tells you that knowledge is based on experience which is the opposite of rationalism which is based on logical reason. There is one more school worth calling and that is the one of the methodics, the methodics think that the treatment of a problem is obvious, not based on experience, but based on reason. They do not believe in hidden states like the empricists do. Galen thinks of himself as someone belonging to no certain school and he took some of the theories from his predecessors which he thought where the ones, when he thought about it, where right. The persons where he took his ideas from were mainly Aristotle and Hippocrates. Galen’s his method is basically the theories of his predecessors with some additions and some parts left out. The fact that he chooses his believes out of other philosophic traditions makes him an eclectic philosopher, which we did not count as a “real” philosopher for a long time. Galen didn’t want to belong to a school/tradition because he knows that most people in a certain school believe things because the “teacher” said it, Galen had an aversion for that kind of behaviour. Things are not true because some authority tells you, things are true when it’s proven in a scientific way. Even the work of Plato for example wasn’t true for Galen, because he said/wrote it.

Galen always tried to bring philosophy and science closer to each other by trying to proof his theories scientifically. He also said “The best scientist is also a philosopher”. The theory of the four temperaments is one of the many examples of that. Even though he always tried to find proof for something, he believed that the emotions are located in the liver and the heart. He just couldn’t believe that this was also located in the human brain, this is one of the many things where Galen was wrong. Later much of Galen’s theories were proved wrong, but there are still things were he was right and that 1900 years ago.

Whether he is a “real” philosopher depends on what we call “real”. Not so long ago we didn’t count a eclectic philosopher as “real”, which is the reason for that we now have less information about Galen than about Plato for example. Nowadays we accept the eclectic philosophers too and we realize that the eclectic ones are the ones who can make up their own views more than the non-eclectic philosophers, because they didn’t just accept what an authority told them, but they always tried to find proof before accepting it. That is something we find more valuable now. My answer to the question would be “Yes”, because I think it is very important for one to make up his own views on things. Someone else can give you another answer, because it’s partially based on opinion.

What are the four temperaments?

Hipocrates thought that the wellness of one was dependent of the balance between four bodily fluids. The four bodily fluids are: Mucus, black gal, yellow gal and blood. Each one of the bodily fluids represents a certain kind of personality in the same order as the bodily fluids: Phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric and melancholic.

Galen added a quality to the different kinds of personalities. Mucus is cold and damp, black gal is cold and dry, yellow gal is warm and dry and blood is warm and damp. Because the balance between these four has to be equal, the treatment of all kinds of illness is adding or removing one or more of the different kinds of fluids.

Phlegmatic - Mucus - cold and damp

Phlegmatic persons are relaxed and quiet. They are happy with themselves and are a bit shy. Phlegmatic people like stability and are mostly curious, calm and attentive. They are also lazy and can be selfish.

Sanguine - Black gal - cold and dry

If you’re a sanguine person you’re mainly impulsive and pleasure-seeking. You like to be in social events like parties and you can make new friends easily. You”ll need some time alone though. You’re always late, tend to forget stuff and you’re a little bit sarcastic.

Choleric - Yellow gal - warm and dry

A choleric person is someone who is very ambitious and always tries to be the leader. They’re very sensitive to mood swings and they always try to get someone a bit of their energy. Choleric persons are very energetic and aggressive. They will (try) to dominate people in particular a phlegmatic person. Most of the leaders where/are choleric.

Melancholic - Blood - warm and damp

Melancholic persons are mostly introvert and thoughtful. They can be very creative and most of them are perfectionist. The problem with being a melancholic is that they can very quickly involve with the thing they are doing and thus forget what is happening in the real world.

To get the four in balance again you need to remove a bit of one of the fluids. Letting someone bleed is one of the options to remove blood from someone (aderlaten). There has been a long time when people believed that menstruation was a way of the human body to remove blood to re-balance the four bodily fluids. Galen advised people certain kinds of diets to re-balance the four fluids.

I did a test to discover my temperament and the outcome was that I am mostly phlegmatic (40%) and that I am almost choleric (33%).

What did Galen contribute to the science now?

Galen’s theories about the human body where taken as the truth until the 16th century when Andreas Vesalius proved that Galen was wrong with detailed anatomic research. one of the things that we still use now is the theory of the four temperaments. It’s used in the psychology as one of the many formats to classify someones personality. Another thing he discovered was the nervous system which was a system which managed all the observations, which is still proven to be true now. This is probably the biggest discovery from Galen, because it’s very useful information for science now. He also discovered that all movements and activity from the muscles are controlled by the brain. One of the reasons why his theories about the human body were wrong is because the law prohibited him from dissecting human corpses. Galen did his dissections on apes in public, sometimes the apes were still alive.