Cosmic Proportion: The Shared Conceptual Framework of Greek Medicine, Ethics, and Politics

Abstract

In my first chapter, I investigate how, according to Hesiod in his Works and Days, one achieves prosperity and well-being, namely by not provoking Zeus who “punishes those whose actions harm justice.” I suggest that the moral and practical elements of Hesiod’s teachings may be conceived of in similar terms of maintaining a disposition whereby one is content to possess resources proportionate to one’s level of activity and needs. In the second chapter, I examine how the conceptions of limit and proportion elucidated in my first chapter feature in medical texts. I investigate Alcmaeon’s description of health and disease in terms of a political distribution of power. A body, according to Alcmaeon, is healthy when its qualities are equally proportioned (isonomia) and one does not dominate (monarchia) the whole mixture (krasis). Alcmaeon describes health as the proportionate blending of qualities which formulates the definition of health as the equality of shares of powers and anticipates Hippocratic humorism. Hippocratic humorism, like the traditional, magicoreligious model of health, conceives of health similarly to Alcmaeon, in terms of a proper proportion and balance. In my third chapter, I investigate Plato’s conception of the soul and of justice. I explicate Plato’s conception of the soul as discussed in his Republic, Phaedrus, and Laws, and suggest that a similar view of the soul and of justice, as a proper proportion of internal constituents, persists. I then apply this view of justice as the proper proportion of parts to the polis and argue that disproportion within a polis leads to stasis – a disease of a political body. In conclusion, I argue that Greek medical, ethical, and political thought share a conceptual framework and are predicated on notions of balance, proportion, and equilibrium. Prosperity, bodily health, justice of the soul, and justice of the city are conceived of in similar terms of a proper proportion.