Ancient Philosophers on Mental Illness

This dissertation is about ancient philosophers notions of mental illness, from Plato onwards. Mental illness here means disorders that, in ancient medical thought, were believed to originate in the body but to manifest themselves predominantly through mental symptoms. These illnesses were treated by physical means, which were believed to address the bodily cause of the illness, conceived of as an elemental imbalance or a state of cephalic stricture , for example. Sometimes the mental symptoms were addressed directly by psychotherapeutic means. The first and most important question explored concerns how the ancient philosophers responded to the medical notion of mental illness, and how they explained such illnesses in their theories of physiology and psychology. Although the illnesses are seldom discussed extensively, the philosophers were well aware of their existence and regarded their occurrence an indication of the soul s close dependence on the body. This called for a philosophical account. The second question addressed has to do with the ancient philosophers role as experts in mental problems of a non-medical kind, such as unwanted emotions. These problems were dubbed diseases of the soul , and the philosophers thus claimed to be doctors of the soul. Although the distinction between mental illnesses and diseases of the soul was often presented as rather obvious, there was some vagueness and overlap. There is still a third question that is explored, concerning the status of both mental illnesses and diseases of the soul as unnatural conditions, the role of the human body in the philosophical aetiologies of evil, and the medico-philosophical theories of psycho-physiological temperaments. This work consists of an introduction and five main chapters, focusing on Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Galen, and the Sceptics, the Epicureans and later Platonists. The sources drawn on are the original Greek and Latin philosophical and medical texts. It appears that the philosophers accepted the medical notion of mental illness, but interpreted it in various ways. The differences in interpretation were mostly attributable to differences in their theories of the soul. Although the distinction between mental illness and diseases of the soul was important, marking the boundary between the fields of expertise of medicine and philosophy, and of the individual s moral responsibilities, the problematic aspects of establishing it are discussed rather little in ancient philosophy. There may have been various reasons for this. The medical descriptions of mental illness are often extreme, symptoms of the psychotic type excluding the possibility of the condition being of the non-medical kind. In addition, the rigid normativeness of ancient philosophical anthropologies and their rigorous notion of human happiness decreased the need to assess the acceptability of individual variation in their emotional and intellectual lives and external behaviour.

The North in the Old English Orosius : A Geographical Narrative in Context

This doctoral dissertation examines the description of the North as it appears in the Old English Orosius (OE Or.) in the form of the travel accounts by Ohthere and Wulfstan and a catalogue of peoples of Germania. The description is discussed in the context of ancient and early medieval textual and cartographic descriptions of the North, with a special emphasis on Anglo-Saxon sources and the intellectual context of the reign of King Alfred (871-899). This is the first time that these sources, a multidisciplinary approach and secondary literature, also from Scandinavia and Finland, have been brought together. The discussion is source-based, and archaeological theories and geographical ideas are used to support the primary evidence. This study belongs to the disciplines of early medieval literature and (cultural) history, Anglo-Saxon studies, English philology, and historical geography. The OE Or. was probably part of Alfred s educational campaign, which conveyed royal ideology to the contemporary elite. The accounts and catalogue are original interpolations which represent a unique historical source for the Viking Age. They contain unparalleled information about peoples and places in Fennoscandia and the southern Baltic and sailing voyages to the White Sea, the Danish lands, and the Lower Vistula. The historical-philological analysis reveals an emphasis on wealth and property, rank, luxury goods, settlement patterns, and territorial divisions. Trade is strongly implied by the mentions of central places and northern products, such as walrus ivory. The references to such peoples as the Finnas, the Cwenas, and the Beormas appear in connection with information about geography and subsistence in the far North. Many of the topics in the accounts relate to Anglo-Saxon aristocratic culture and interests. The accounts focus on the areas associated with the Northmen, the Danes and the Este. These areas resonated in the Anglo-Saxon geographical imagination: they were curious about the northern margin of the world, their own continental ancestry and the geography of their homeland of Angeln, and they had an interest in the Goths and their connection with the southern Baltic in mythogeography. The non-judgemental representation of the North as generally peaceful and relatively normal place is related to Alfredian and Orosian ideas about the unity and spreading of Christendom, and to desires for unity among the Germani and for peace with the Vikings, who were settling in England. These intellectual contexts reflect the innovative and organizational forces of Alfred s reign. The description of the North in the OE Or. can be located in the context of the Anglo-Saxon worldview and geographical mindset. It mirrors the geographical curiosity expressed in other Anglo-Saxon sources, such as the poem Widsith and the Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi. The northern section of this early eleventh-century world map is analyzed in detail here for the first time. It is suggested that the section depicts the North Atlantic and the Scandinavian Peninsula. The survey of ancient and early medieval sources provides a comparative context for the OE Or. In this material, produced by such authors as Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus, Jordanes, and Rimbert, the significance of the North was related to the search for and definition of the northern edge of the world, universal accounts of the world, the northern homeland in the origin stories of the gentes, and Carolingian expansion and missionary activity. These frameworks were transmitted to Anglo-Saxon literary culture, where the North occurs in the context of the definition of Britain s place in the world.