Editing Galen (section)

==Philosophy==
{{See also|Philosophy of medicine}}
[[File:Statue of Galen of Pergamon.jpg|thumb|upright|Modern statue of Galen in his home town, [[Bergama|Pergamon]]]]

Although the main focus of his work was on medicine, anatomy, and physiology, Galen also wrote about logic and philosophy. His writings were influenced by earlier Greek and Roman thinkers, including [[Plato]], [[Aristotle]], the [[Stoicism|Stoics]], and the [[Pyrrhonism|Pyrrhonists]]. Galen was concerned to combine philosophical thought with medical practice, as in his brief work ''That the Best Physician is also a Philosopher'' he took aspects from each group and combined them with his original thought. He regarded medicine as an interdisciplinary field that was best practiced by utilizing theory, observation, and experimentation in conjunction.

Galen combined his observations of his dissections with Plato's theory about the soul. Plato believed that the body and the soul were separate entities, rivaling the Stoics.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Roberts|first=Eric J.|date=1905|title=Plato's View of the Soul|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2248426|journal=Mind|volume=14|issue=55|pages=371–389|doi=10.1093/mind/XIV.3.371|jstor=2248426|issn=0026-4423}}</ref> Plato proclaimed that the soul is immortal, so it must exist before one is born, beyond the human body.<ref name=":2"/> This influenced Galen's thinking that the soul had to be acquired because the soul does not always reside within the human body. Plato's influence in Galen's model showed itself most prominently in what Galen dubbed arterial blood, which is a mixture of nutritious blood from the liver and the vital spirit (the soul) which was attained from the lungs. The vital spirit within this medium was necessary for the body to function and eventually completely absorbed. This process was then repeated indefinitely, according to Galen, so that the body could be replenished with the soul, or the vital spirit.

Several schools of thought existed within the medical field during Galen's lifetime, the main two being the [[Empiric school|Empiricists]] and [[Dogmatic school|Rationalists]] (also called Dogmatists or Philosophers), with the Methodists being a smaller group. The Empiricists emphasized the importance of physical practice and experimentation or "active learning" in the medical discipline. In direct opposition to the Empiricists were the Rationalists, who valued the study of established teachings in order to create new theories in the name of medical advancements. The Methodists formed somewhat of a middle ground, as they were not as experimental as the Empiricists, nor as theoretical as the Rationalists. The Methodists mainly utilized pure observation, showing greater interest in studying the natural course of ailments than making efforts to find remedies. Galen's education had exposed him to the five major schools of thought (Platonists, Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans, Pyrrhonists), with teachers from the Rationalist sect and from the Empiricist sect.

===Opposition to the Stoics===
Galen was well known for his advancements in medicine and the circulatory system, but he was also concerned with philosophy. He developed his own tripartite soul model following the examples of Plato; some scholars refer to him as a Platonist.<ref name=gill2007>{{cite journal|author=Gill C|year=2007|title=Galen and the Stoics: Mortal Enemies or Blood Brothers?.|journal=Phronesis|volume=52|issue=1|pages=88–120|doi=10.1163/156852807X177977}}</ref> Galen developed a theory of personality based on his understanding of fluid circulation in humans, and he believed that there was a physiological basis for mental disorders.<ref name =king2009>King, D. Brett (2009). The Roman Period and the Middle Ages. In King, D. B., Viney, W., Woody, W. D. (Eds.) A History of Psychology: Ideas and Context (4th ed., pp. 70–71) Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Education, Inc.</ref> Galen connected many of his theories to the ''[[pneuma]]'' and he opposed the [[Stoics]]' definition of and use of the ''pneuma''.<ref name="gill2007"/>

The Stoics, according to Galen, failed to give a credible answer for the localization of functions of the psyche, or the mind. Through his use of medicine, he was convinced that he came up with a better answer, the brain.<ref name="gill2007"/> The Stoics only recognized the soul as having one part, which was the rational soul and they claimed it would be found in the heart. Galen, following Plato's idea, came up with two more parts to the soul.<ref name="gill2007"/>

Galen also rejected Stoic propositional logic and instead embraced a hypothetical syllogistic which was strongly influenced by the Peripatetics and based on elements of Aristotelian logic.<ref>[[Susanne Bobzien]],'Peripatetic Hypothetical Syllogistic in Galen', ''Rhizai'' 2, 2004 pp. 57–102</ref>