Der Begriff der Physis bei Galen vor dem Hintergrund seiner Vorganger (review)

Φύσις, which appears once in the Odyssey (10.303), is one of the most frequently used words in ancient Greek, particularly in scientific writing. Used by the pre Socratics, it is found 618 times in the Hippocratic Corpus and, according to my own calculations, 623 times in the three great biological treatises of Aristotle (H.A., P.A., G.A.). As there is no complete index or concordance for Galen, we do not know the exact number of times that it occurs in the works of the physician of Pergamum, and we shall not know it even after reading the thesis of Franjo Kovaĉić submitted in 1998 to the Faculty of Philosophy of the Universität Albert Ludwig of Freiburg. This is all the more regrettable because Φύσις, as the author demonstrates, is a polysemic word used thousands of times by Galen.

In his first chapter, Kovaĉić draws up a long status quaestionis: he has examined scores of books by scholars, from the middle of the nineteenth century until today, about the meaning of Φύσις—first as a Demiurge (it seems that only R. E. Siegel [1973] insisted on the "atheistic trend" of the physician), and then as an immanent principle in embryology, in theories of reproduction, and in psychology (in the ancient meaning of the word). He points out the similarities between all these historians but also underlines their differences of judgment; finally, he concludes in favor of new research, which is bound to prove very interesting because there exists no complete monograph about Φύσις in the work of Galen. On p. 49, he insists on the necessity of discovering the sources that Galen used for the elaboration of his work (as already announced in the title of the book). Thus, in chapter 2, which concerns the concept of Physis in embryology, he indicates as sources the pre-Socratics, but above all the Hippocratic physicians, Plato, and Aristotle. Galen, he says, does not slavishly copy his sources; rather, he explains them, sometimes contradicts them, and finally constructs a system of his own. Kovaĉić gives the Greek texts in footnotes, but never translates them; he only comments on them. On p. 87, at the end of chapter 2, he establishes a hierarchy of Φύσις in three steps distinguished orthographically: "Die Physis als das dem Individuum immanente Agens wollen wir als Φύσις schreiben; die Physis als das koinÚn als Φύσις; die Physis als den göttlichen Demiurg als ΦΓΣΙΣ." This triple distinction is maintained throughout the text.

In chapter 3, the author studies the immanent Physis in physiology; in chapter 4, in the theory of the soul. Kovaĉić, a philosopher more than a philologist, never gives the variants of the manuscripts for the texts he proposes, but he generally uses the best scientific editions. On p. 91, it should be noted that in the quotation of De victu 1.6.2 (Littré, 6.478) the author omits several words (). On p. 138 n. 234, he writes that "nach den Hippokratikern ist der Gesundheitszustand des Menschen von der Zusammensetzung der vier Grundqualitäten abhängig, vor allem der Elemente Feuer und Wasser," and he refers to the De victu 1.32.1–6, the "Hippocratic" treatise mostly quoted here but stating a quite isolated theory. I notice the same thing on p. 144, where he writes: "Nach den Hippokratikern haben die Götter die Physis geordnet." This assertion is peculiar to On Regimen (= De victu) 1.11 (L 6.486), but when he writes that, according to Galen, "[Physis] hat den Aspekt der Providenz und besitzt Wissen und Fertigkeit aus sich selbst (αὐτόματος πίσταται), ohne gelernt zu haben (ἀδίδακτος)" (p. 144), he must recall that this idea has been already expressed in the Epidemics 6.5.1 (L 5.314).

In chapter 5, the author studies the concept of Physis in the meaning of Demiurge. In the final pages he points out that...