Nutrition and Nutritive Soul in Aristotle and Aristotelianism

440 Pages·2020·2.197 MB·English

by  Giouli Korobili, Roberto Lo Presti

Nutrition and Nutritive Soul in Aristotle and Aristotelianism
Topics in Ancient Philosophy/
Themen der antiken Philosophie
Edited by / Herausgegeben von
Ludger Jansen, Christoph Jedan, Christof Rapp
Volume 9
Nutrition and Nutritive
Soul in Aristotle
and Aristotelianism
Edited by
Giouli Korobili, Roberto Lo Presti
With the assistance of Dorothea Keller
ISBN 978-3-11-068979-2
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-069055-2
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-069056-9
ISSN 2198-3100
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020939771
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
www.degruyter.com
Table of Contents
Abbreviations VII
Introduction IX
Aristotle
James G. Lennox
‘Most Natural Among the Functions of Living Things’
Puzzles about Reproduction asa Nutritive Function 3
Mary Louise Gill
Method and Nutritive Soul in Aristotle’s De Anima II,4 21
R.A.H. King
Nutrition and Hylomorphism in Aristotle 43
Sophia M. Connell
The Female Contribution to Generation and Nutritive Soul in Aristotle’s
Embryology 63
Andrea Libero Carbone
Why do not Animals Grow on Without End?
Aristotle on Nutrition and Form 85
David Lefebvre
Looking for the Formative Power in Aristotle’s Nutritive Soul 101
Hynek Bartoš
Aristotle and his Medical Precursors on Digestion and Nutrition 127
Giouli Korobili
Aristotle on the Role of Heat in Plant Life 153
VI TableofContents
Aristotelianism
Robert Mayhew
Reading and Sleep in Pseudo-Aristotle, Problemata XVIII,7
On the Nutritive Soul’s Influence on the Intellect, and Vice
Versa 173
Gweltaz Guyomarc’h
Dividing an Apple
The Nutritive Soul and Soul Parts in Alexander of Aphrodisias 197
Tommaso Alpina
Is Nutrition a Sufficient Condition for Life?
Avicenna’s Position Between Natural Philosophy and Medicine 221
Martin Klein
Digestive Problems
John Buridan on Human Nutrition 259
Christoph Sander
Magnetism and Nutrition
An Ancient Idea Fleshed out in Early Modern Natural Philosophy,
Medicine, and Alchemy 285
Elisabeth Moreau
From Food to Elements and Humors
Digestion in Late Renaissance Galenism 319
Bernd Roling
Standstill or Death
Early modern Debates on the Hibernation of Animals 339
Andreas Blank
Antonio Ponce de Santacruz on Nutrition and the Question of
Emergence 355
Index locorum 379
Index rerum 405
Abbreviations
AbbreviationsforancientGreekauthorsandworksfollowtheGreek-EnglishDic-
tionarybyLiddell,ScottandJones[LSJ];weusetheabbreviationJuv.toreferto
the treatise De Juventute et Senectute, De Vita et Morte, De Respiratione as a
whole.
Works by Galen and Hippocrates are being cited according to the CMG ab-
breviations as reported in Fichtner’s bibliographies (http://cmg.bbaw.de/on
line-publications/hippokrates-und-galenbibliographie-fichtner [last visited April
2020]).
Citations of scholastic works use the following abbreviations:
arg. argumentum ep. epistula
art. articulus ex. exercitatio
cap. capitulum lect. lectio
co. corpusarticuli lib. liber
contr. contradictio membr. membrum
descr. descriptio n. numerus
dist. distinctio q. quaestio
doctr. doctrina sent. sententia
dub. dubium tract. tractatus
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110690552-001

Introduction
1 Aristotle
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (online version), in contemporary
English usage the word ‘nutrition’ carries four meanings:
1. The action or process of supplying, or of receiving, nourishment or food.
2. That which nourishes; food, nourishment.
3. Thestateorconditionofbeing(wellorbadly)nourished;aperson’sstateof
health considered as a result or indicator of (good or bad) nourishment.
4. Thebranchofsciencethatdealswithnutrition(sense1)andnutrients,esp.
in humans; the studyof food and diet.
Inlightoftheabovedefinitions,‘nutrition’seemsanappropriateEnglishrender-
ingfor the Greek words τροφή or τὸ τρέφειν/τρέφεσθαι,which are used byau-
thorsofthe5thand4thcenturiesBCEtorefertoprocesses,activitiesorfunctions
related to nourishment, or even to kinds of food or nutriment that are able to
nourishorprocuresustenance.Thetermθρέψιςisnotattestedbeforethe2ndcen-
tury CE. In Galen θρέψις is acknowledged as one of the three main activities
(ἐνέργειαι)ofnature–theothertwobeinggrowthandgeneration(Defacultati-
bus naturalibus I,5, K. II,10).
Specifically, rendering 4 resonates with what in Hippocratic texts is some-
timesreferredtoasdietetics,thatis,thatpartofthemedicalart(andnotscience)
which deals with diet (δίαιτα).The gradual development of dietetics into a cor-
nerstoneofmedicinewassetoffbymedicalideasofthattimewhichareclosely
akin to rendering 3, most notably the belief that a person’s state of health de-
pends heavily on the food (s)he consumes. In one of its two main meanings
(theotherbeing‘rearing’,‘bringingup’),τὸτρέφειν,apartfromtheactofnour-
ishing, refers to the substances that are able to nourish (so, rendering 2). Now
concerningnutritionasabodilyfunctionrelatedtoasetofindividualphysiolog-
ical activitiesof certain body parts,Aristotleseems todeserve, at least to a cer-
tain degree, credit for being the first to explicitly make such a progress (cf. de
Partibus Animalium ΙΙ,3, 650a9; ΙΙΙ,14, 674b10, 19). Of course the ancients did
not talk about metabolism, in the strict biochemical sense of the word, nor
didtheyreflectonmattersrelatedtotheenergyvalueoffood.Theydidnonethe-
lessspeakofassimilationoffoodasasortofchangetakingplaceduetomutual
interaction,insomecasesofopposite,whileinothersoflikequalitiesorpowers.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110690552-002
X Introduction
Intheplaceofthebrain,someofwhosenetworksarenowadaysconsideredtobe
associated with the control of feeding,the ancients put the soul.
Aristotlewasthefirsttosystematicallydescribeaparticularpartofthesoul
as responsible for the physiological process of nutrition. This is the nutritive
part,which is acknowledged as the necessary and sufficient condition for life,
and is therefore held to be shared by all living beings,plants, animals and hu-
mans.Nevertheless,aswillbecomeclearfromthecontributionstothisvolume,
nutrition is far from being the only act in which the nutritive soul, biologically
speaking,manifestsitself.Breathing,cooling,growth,reproductionand,toacer-
tain degree, sleep and vigilance are directly connected to nourishment from
food,whichexplainswhytheyallfallwithinthenutritivesoul’srealmofrespon-
sibility.Aristotledidnot,thus,singleout,say,a‘breathing/cooling’ora‘forma-
tive’psychicpart,butrathersubsumedtherespectivefunctions,alongwithava-
rietyofotherfunctions,undertheumbrellaofthenutritivefaculty.Andhedidso
notonlybecausethesefunctionsarecommon,asherepeatedlyinsists,toallliv-
ingthings,butalsobecause,inordertobeperformed,theremustbesomeform
of direct interaction between them and phenomena occurring during the nutri-
tive process.
Overarchingly, addressing the fundamental problems concerning the nutri-
tive part of the soul as well as the variety of physical manifestations it directs
liesatthecoreofthisvolume.Itsprincipalaimistohighlightthemuch-neglect-
edmultifacetednessofthe‘lowest’partofthesoulanditsphysiologicalaspects,
thus opening the wayfor further investigation of Aristotle’s and his successors’
viewsonthesubject.Dividedintotwosections,‘Aristotle’and‘Aristotelianism’,
eachmade upof8freshcontributions,thisvolumelaysnoclaim toanexhaus-
tivecoverage.Thevarietyofdigestiveresidues,thecontributionofevaporationto
thenutritiveprocessasawhole,oreventheroleofheatandcoolinginanimals
thatdonot respireareonlyafewexamples of themany topics that aredirectly
related to nutrition and nutritive soul and need further clarification.
The contributions to this volume centre around two crucial research topics
which have greatly troubled thinkers since antiquity, and over which floods of
inkhavebeenpoured:therelationshipbetweenbodyandsoul,andthepartition
ofthesoul.Itistruethatthenutritivesoulanditsphysicalmanifestationshave
notbeendiscussedintherelevantliteratureasadequatelyastheothertwoparts
ofthesoul,theperceptiveandtherational,althoughithasbeenalmosttwode-
cades since Richard King established the breadth of the subject area and high-
lighted its importance. In his monograph Aristotle on Life and Death, King ex-
plores the last part of Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia, namely the part that deals
withtopicssuchasthelengthoflife,youth,oldage,life,deathandrespiration,
whichheseesasacontinuationandcompletionofthediscussionofthenutritive