Mapping the Role of Memory in Galen’s Oeuvre

The field of ‘memory studies’ has seen a boom in recent years, however, historians of ancient philosophy and medicine have undervalued the study of memory in ancient medical texts. Although Galen did not write a systematic treatise on memory, we find in his oeuvre several passages where he wrote about memory in considerable detail. In these passages, Galen’s approach appears to be strictly medical, and mainly concerned with therapeutics of memory failure and memory loss. Thus, having memory deficits as a point of departure, we will examine how Galen understands memory, its functioning, its location within the human body, its role in mind’s architecture, how it is related to other psychic faculties, such as reasoning and ‘imagination’, and its role on human behaviour and cognition.

This dissertation project is being conducted within the research group D-2 Mapping body and soul of the Excellence Cluster 264 Topoi.

[see also: http://www.topoi.org/project/d-2-2-1/]