Kristina
CHEW The Physical Deformity of the Fetus and
the Intelligence of the Soul in the Hippocratic writers
and Aristotle
In
Plato's Timaeus, stupidity is described as a
disease of the soul (88b). Such a soul lacks reason and
is thus classified as the lower type of soul that is
subject to the appetite, to hunger. Regimen I from the Hippocratic
corpus explains a lack of intelligence in the soul as a
disease and, more specifically, as a disease of the body.
The level of intelligence that the soul has is connected
to the constitution of the body. By analyzing the
description of the development of the fetus and of the
soul in the Hippocratic writers and in Aristotle's Generation
of Animals,
I will consider whether the development of the fetus is
concurrent with the development of the soul in antiquity.
I will seek to answer such questions as: to what extent
is the level of intelligence the soul can attain
connected to its physical constitution and to its form?
to what extent are the development of the soul and the
form of the fetus coextensive?
I
will first consider explanations for the physical
deformity of the fetus and the intelligence of the soul
in the Hippocratic corpus. "On the Seed" attributes
physical deformity in a child either to an external cause
(the mother is struck in the region of her womb) or to an
internal one (the embryo is constricted in the womb and
some body part does not develop normally). I will relate
the Hippocratic writer's explanations of the causes of
physical deformity to the development of the soul's
intelligence in Regimen I and to Aristotle's view on
the embyro and the soul in the Generation
of Animals. In Regimen I.xxxv,
the intelligence of the soul (phronesios
psyches),
as well as the lack of intelligence (aphrosynes), is determined by the
balance of the humors and, specifically, of fire and
water. The soul with the greatest intelligence (phronimotath), with the best memory (mnemonikotate), is the result of fire at
its moistest and water at its driest. Cognitive
difference results from an imbalance; similarly in "On
the Seed," the deformed fetus inhabits a womb that is out
of proportion for it and so constricts its development.
The
connection between the body of the fetus and the phronesis
of the soul will be further examined by relating
Aristotle's views on embryology and the soul to consider
to what extent the form of the fetus is connected to its
the form of its soul. In the Generation of Animals Aristotle describes the embryo as having a soul
(B3, 736a33-736b16). Indeed, the embryo
has all forms of the soul as described in On the Soul--nutritive,
perceptive, and rational--in potentiality but not yet in
actuality. The question is, if the fetus is deformed--in
particular, if it is deformed in its intellect or noesis and is cognitively
disabled--does it still possess the potentiality for the
three aspects of the soul? When the fetus is physically
deformed, is this the result of a deformity of the soul,
of a lack of intelligence and cognition? Does physical deformity presuppose a lack of
phronesis and of noesis,
of intelligence and intellect, and can it then be
described as a deformed soul?
In
closing, I will again refer to the Timaeus in noting how the language
used to describe the development of the fetus in the
Hippocratic writers parallels that used to describe the
growth of the soul into its "lordliest" (kyriotatos) form in Plato's dialogue.
Abstracts
Index