Alcmaeon(2)
, of Croton, Greek philosopher, 5th cent. BCE
Alcmaeon(2)
, of Croton, Greek philosopher, 5th cent. BCE
- Gwilym Ellis Lane Owen
- and Malcolm Schofield
Extract
Wrote a philosophical book dedicated to a group of Pythagoreans (see pythagoras (1)), and known to *Aristotle and *Theophrastus. It mostly concerned the nature of man. Alcmaeon explained the human condition by the interplay of opposites, e.g. health as ‘equal rights’ of hot and cold, wet and dry, etc. , disease as ‘monarchy’ of one of them. He held that ‘passages’ linked the sense-organs to the brain, which, followed by *Plato (1), he took to be the seat of understanding (but Calcidius' statement that Alcmaeon discovered this by dissection merits scepticism). And he compared the immortality of the soul to the endless circling of the heavenly bodies.
Subjects
- Philosophy
