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The Reception of Greek Science in Gregory of Nyssa's De hominis opificio

Bibliographic Data

ID4063391
AuthorsSusan Wessel (1Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064, USA;, Email: [email protected], corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume63
Issue1
Pages24-46
Publication date2009-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueVigiliae Christianae (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0042-6032 • E-ISSN: 1570-0720
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/157007208x306579
OpenAlexW2022774822
LanguageEN
Citations received5

One of the most significant philosophical questions that Gregory of Nyssa grappled with in his anthropological treatise, De hominis opificio, was how intelligible mind, the image of God that the human person contained, might possibly exist in the physically-circumscribed limits of the corporeal body. Gregory addressed this question by engaging in a medical controversy that was current in his day: where in the body was the reasoning faculty located? Against those who placed this faculty in the brain, Gregory argued that certain mental states and afflictions were due to physical conditions suffered by the body and, therefore, had nothing to do with the reasoning faculty being confined to the brain. I conclude that Gregory's selective use of the anatomical investigations of Galen and the Greek medical writers helped him construct a unified theory of the human person in which the intelligible activity of mind both interacted freely with the physical body and depended upon the body functioning naturally for the complete expression of its divine rationality

Art · Construct (python library) · Epistemology · Human body · Literature · Mind–body problem · Nothing · Psychoanalysis · Rationality · Anatomy · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History of Medicine Studies · Medicine · Philosophy · Psychology

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Unique citing works5
Citations per year0,42
Citation span2014 - 2020 (7)
Citation velocityhistorical
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 5

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