Spinoza and the Galenic Idea of the Human Body

Abstract This chapter argues that while Spinoza adheres to medieval Galenism as an explanatory framework for living bodies, he rejects it as a framework for human experience and motivation, resulting in a concept of the human lifeform that is at once medieval and modern. After an account of Galen’s concept of the living body and the medieval adoption of his ideal of proportional balance, the chapter discusses Spinoza’s Galenism in the Short Treatise and shows how he goes on to replace the Galenic notion of essential proportion with the more mechanistic concept of the ratio of motion and rest in the Ethics. The chapter concludes by showing how the conatus doctrine marks Spinoza’s rejection of Galenism as an explanatory framework for what the living being feels, wants, and seeks.