The Living Body as a Model of Systemic Organization in Ancient Thinking

Matelli, Elisabetta

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-00725-6_8

Elisabetta Matelli³

Part of the book series: Contemporary Systems Thinking ((CST))

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Abstract

Analyzing Homer and Aristotle, the Author faces the ancient Greek origin of the organicist model (introduced since 1920 in system theory) presenting its features. In Homer there is still no term to indicate the living body as a whole, but is present the idea of a principle capable of giving “shape” (eidos) to body elements and to counteract the natural tendency to disintegration: the soul (psyché). Only with Aristotle the living body begins to be understood as “organism,” thanks to a hylomorphic and non-dualistic vision of the relationship of the soul with matter, which explains the living organism. The soul itself, in Aristotle, has the characteristics of a system. From this analysis, the organicist model seems to be enriched by the indispensable notion of “form” which, in turn, calls for the need for an efficient cause outside the system.

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Notes

1.
Bertalanffy (1969: 208).
2.
Morgan (1986): on organizations as “machines” [19–38]; on organizations as organisms [39–76]; on organizations on the model of cerebral functioning [77–109]; the potentialities and limits of mechanistic, organicist, and cerebral models are considered at pp. 33–38, 71–76, and 105–109, respectively. With a historical-descriptive approach, Scott (1992) studies and contrasts the organization of a system according to the “rational” model [29–50] with that of one according to the “natural” model, proper to “dynamic” systems [51–75]. Both of these systems can be “open” or “closed” [76–94] and can combine with each other [95–124]. The interesting conclusion of this study is that it is not possible to define a priori the most effective type of organization [342–362]. The complexity of the various components of an organizational system, along with the variability and the indeterminacy of situations, even when provided with highly detailed information, demonstrates our inability to control the absolute effectiveness of the functioning of individual systems given that, in contingent situations, some degree of unpredictability always remains. Even in the best of cases, therefore, something always seems to escape our rational domain. For these reasons, systems always have histories that are more or less limited in time, or they are subject to transformations that change their identity.
3.
Del Giudice (2010: 47–70), Villani (2010: 71–89), Bertolaso (2013, 143–169).
4.
I would like to point out some of the studies that have set out such issues, first of all, the body–soul relationship, Rohde (1921); Hirzel (1914); Böhme (1929), Snell (1955: 15–37); Meyer (2008); Jaeger (1953: 88–106 and notes at p. 261–264); Onians (1998); Jahn (1987); Schmitt (1990); Zavalloni (1990).
5.
For just a few bibliographical references: Adinolfi (1963: 333–342); Bartolomei (1984); Bellia and Garribba (2011), especially Bellia (2011), Jossa (2011), and Pitta (2011: 75–77).
6.
Cf. the contributions of Schütz and Wibbing (2010: 1279–1280) and Wibbing (2010: 1281–1285); Freedman (1992: 767–772: 768); Pitta (2011: 76–77); Schweizer (1981, cols. 609–790), Viagulamuthu (2002), Sichkaryk (2011).
7.
For The Iliad and The Odyssey, unless otherwise indicated, my translation is literal, rather than literary.
8.
Lehrs (1964: 86–87 and 160) contains the observations by the grammarian Aristarchus on the notion of sôma in the Homeric poems, according to whom “sôma apud Homerum dicitur tantum de cadavere.” Cf. Snell (1955: 19–22), Jaeger (1953: 89).
9.
The interpretation of Il. 3.23 can only be dubious.
10.
In these verses: Il. 3.23, 7.79, 18.161, 22.342, 23.169; Od. 11.53, 12.67, 24.187. The lexicon of corporeality is studied specifically by Vivante (1955: 43–44).
11.
Urso (1997).
12.
Il. 4. 460–461. Cf. Urso’s observations (1997: 26), which acknowledge the reference to the frontal bone, but also that “it is not possible from the text to infer whether or not it was known that the cranium is made up of various articulated bones rather than being one single bone.”
13.
Observe Urso (1997: 26): “The term glênê (= pupil) will be used posteriorly with the meaning of bone hollow, distinct from kotylê, which indicates a deeper bone cavity. This suggests perhaps that in the Homeric age it was known that the pupil was a cavity (or hole) of the eye, but it certainly indicates that the term is used precisely to indicate that structure and not applied generically.”
14.
Il. 14.493–499.
15.
Il. 16.345–350.
16.
Il. 5.72–75.
17.
Urso (1997: 27) notes that the blows delivered to the laterocervical region, in severing the external carotid artery, were nearly always fatal for heroes of The Iliad.
18.
Il. 5. 290–293.
19.
Il. 17. 617–618, cf. 13.671–672 and 16.606–607.
20.
Il. 20.481–483.
21.
Il. 20.469–471.
22.
Il. 16.203.
23.
Il. 20.478–480.
24.
Il. 4. 501–502.
25.
Il. 20.397–400.
26.
Il. 8.518, 13.188 and 805, 15.609 and 648, 16.104, 18.611; Od. 11.319, 18.378, 22.102.
27.
Il. 5.146–147.
28.
Il. 5.65–67.
29.
Il. 5.305–308.
30.
Il. 13.442.
31.
Il. 1.188–189 and 3.31.
32.
Il. 4.531, 5.539, 5.616, 13.372, 13.398 and 506, 16.163 and 465, 17.313 and 519, 21.180.
33.
Il. 13.290.
34.
Il. 4.526, 21.181.
35.
Il. 13.507, 14.517, 17.314–15, 20. 418 and 420.
36.
Il. 4.525, 13.568, 20.416, 21.180.
37.
Il. 13.568.
38.
The sternum: Il. 4.528 and 530, 13.290, 15.542, 16.312 and 400. The chest: Il. 4.108 and 480, 5.19, 41, 57, 317 and 346, 8.121, 303, 313 and 326, 11.108 and 144, 13.186 and 586, 15.420, 523, 577 and 650, 16.597, 17.606. Cf. Od. 9.301, 22.82.
39.
Il. 14.466. Cf. Od. 10.560 and 11.65.
40.
Il. 13.546.
41.
Il. 22.327–329 (this is the episode in which Achilles strikes a deadly blow to Hector, but never pierces the trachea, so that the Trojan hero is able to utter some final words). Urso (1997: 28) observes that “the clarification in the text that Hector could still articulate words after having been struck raises the question of whether the term employed, aspharagos (= trachea), refers to the larynx or to the trachea-larynx complex. The fact that the term larynx (= larynx) is never used in Homer would support this hypothesis.”
42.
Il. 4.528.
43.
Il. 11.579, 13.412. 17.349.
44.
Il. 16.481, cf. 504.
45.
Onians (1998: 44–62); Jahn (1987: 9–27).
46.
Onians (1998: 93–122); Jahn (1987: 17–19).
47.
Il. 10.10.
48.
Il. 16.481.
49.
Il. 11.579, 13.412, 17.349; Od. 9.301.
50.
Il. 3.442, 14.294.
51.
Il. 1.103, 4.661–662.
52.
Il. 24.40: “Achilles, who does not have sound reason” and Od. 18.215. In Il. 23.103–104, the formula is in reference to the absence of “mind” in the psychai that are in Hades, as in The Iliad 24.201: “Alas, where did your mind go?” Cf. Od. 10.493, concerning the rational mind, which only the soothsayer Tiresias conserved, by gift of Persephone, even in Hades.
53.
Od. 11.367.
54.
Il. 24.51.
55.
Il. 1.608, 18.380 and 482, 20.12; Od. 7.92.
56.
Il. 9.646; Od. 18.348.
57.
Od. 5.389: the verb is protiossomai.
58.
Il. 13.282–83.
59.
Il. 1.188–189: the heart is expressed by to êtor and the verb is mermêrizô.
60.
Il. 3.31: the heart is expressed by to êtor and the verb is kataplêssô.
61.
Od. 4.427, 10.309: the verb is porphyrô.
62.
Od. 4.467.
63.
Od. 14.517, 15.339, 16.81, 21.198 e 342: the verb is keleuô. In Il. 10.220 and 319, Od. 18.61 the heart (hê kradiê) is in hendiadys with ire (ho thymos) and the verb is otrynô.
64.
Od. 20.22–24: literally “remains in obedience,” as contrasted with physical agitation.
65.
Od. 15.395: the verb is anôgô.
66.
Od. 20.13 and 16: the verb is hylaktô.
67.
Od. 23.103 (kradiê stereôterê lithoio).
68.
Od. 4.293 (kradiê sidêreê).
69.
Il. 2.490.
70.
Od. 20.17–18.
71.
Il. 22.452–453.
72.
Il. 21.114, 21.425; Od. 4.703, 5.297 and 406, 22.68 and 147, 24.345, 24.345.
73.
Od. 18.211 and 24.381.
74.
Il. 13.61, 23.772.
75.
Il. 3.34, 7.215, 8.452, 10.95 and 390, 14.506, 20.44, 22.448, 24.170; Od. 11.527, 18.88 and 341.
76.
Il. 4.230, 5.811, 7.6, 13.85, 19.165 and 169, 23.63, 23.627 (for old age); Od. 1.192, 8.233, 12.279.
77.
Il. 4.469, 6.27, 7.12 and 16, 11.240 and 260, 15.435 and 581, 16.312, 341, 400, 465, 805, 17.524, 18.31, 21.406, 23.691; Od. 18.238 and 242.
78.
Il. 7.11–12.
79.
Il. 7.16.
80.
Onians (1998: 174–186).
81.
Onians (1998: 98–100).
82.
Il. 2.171, 8.147, 10.220, 10.244, 10.319, 15.208, 16.52.
83.
Il. 10.93–95. Cf. Schmitt’s status quaestionis (1990: 115–116, 271–272 note 352).
84.
For these observations, see Hirzel (1914: 6–7), Snell (1955: 15–37), Schweizer (1981, col. 612 note 3), Freedman (1992: 768).
85.
Cf. below, note 104.
86.
Animals as well possess thymos and give it off at the moment of death: Il. 16.469 (death of a horse), and 23.880 (death of a dove); Od. 10.163 (death of a deer), 19.454 (death of a wild boar).
87.
Vivante (1955: 30 note 1 and 40–42).
88.
Il. 7.131, 13.671–72, 16.607, 23.191 (reference to the limbs of Hector’s corpse, protected by Apollo with a cloud, so that the sun’s heat would not desiccate the skin covering them), 23.880 (referring to the body of a slain dove); Od. 11.201, 15.354.
89.
Il. 13.671–72, 16.607.
90.
Il. 11.669 and Od. 11.394, 13.398, 21.283.
91.
Il. 16.110, 23.689 and Od. 11.600.
92.
Od. 18.77.
93.
Snell (1955: 19–20); Vivante (1955: 42).
94.
Again as accusative of relation, Il. 1.115, 5.801, 8.305, 13.45, 17.323 and 555, 21.285, 22. 227, 24.376; Od. 2.268, 2.401, 3.468, 4.796, 5.212–213, 7.210, 8.14, 8.116, 8.194, 10.240, 11.469, 13.222, 13.288, 14.177, 16.157, 16.174, 17.307, 17.313, 18.251, 19.124, 19.381, 20.31, 20.194, 22.206, 23.163, 24.17, 24.503, 24.548. In Il. 11.596 and 13.673, 17.366, 18.1 demas pyros “with an aspect like that of fire (demas pyros)” recurs as an adverbial formula.
95.
Il. 1.115, 2.58, 3.208, 22.370; Od. 5.212, 6.16 and 152, 7.210, 8.134 and 168.
96.
Again as accusative of relation, cf. Il. 2.58, 2.715, 3.39, 3.45, 3.55, 3.124, 3.224, 5.787, 6.252, 8.228, 10.316, 3.365, 13.378, 13.769, 17.142, 17.279, 21.316, 22.370, 24.376; Od. 4.14, 4.264, 5.213, 5.217, 6.16, 6.152, 7.57, 8.116, 8.169, 8.174 e176, 11.337, 11.469, 11.550, 14.177, 18.4, 18.249, 18.251, 19.124, 20.71, 24.17, 24.253, 24.374.
97.
Vivante (1955: 30 note 1 and 44–47).
98.
Chantraine (2009: 250–251), s.v. demô; Beekes (2010: 314–315), s.v. demô.
99.
The root, i.e., *weid, expresses the idea of “to see” present in the Greek verbs idein (“to see”) and oida (“to know”) and in the Sanskrit vedas “knowledge” (Chantraine (2009: 302), s.v. eidos; Beekes (2010: 379–380), s.v. eidomai).
100.
I would point out, indicatively, these synthesis studies, mainly devoted to eidos in the early naturalist philosophers, in Plato and in Aristotle: Motte et al. (2003); Fronterotta and Leszl (2005).
101.
The nineteenth-century work of Rohde (1921) was fundamental to this topic, which opened a further complex critical debate, resumed and summarized by Otto (1923: 5–15) and by Jaeger (1953: 89–106); Jahn (1987: 124–151) offers a reasoned status quaestionis of the interpretations of the soul/spirit in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century studies with a bibliography to which the reader is referred. Also Böhme (1929); Snell (1955: 15–37); Onians (1998: 93–122); Schmitt (1990).
102.
Il. 5.296 = 8.123 and 315.
103.
Il. 16.453.
104.
Od. 21.153–154, 21.170–171. Cf. Onians (1998: 94): “The thymos is constantly spoken of as feeling and thinking, as active in the lungs (phrenes) or chest (stêthos) of the living person, and as departing at death, but it is not spoken of in connection with the succeeding state.” On thymos as the constituent matter of consciousness in the phrenes, cf. 23–24, 30–31, 40, as “the seat of emotions,” 44–61.
105.
Il. 13.671–672, 16.606–607, 856–857 = 20.362–363; Od. 11. 219–22.
106.
On the idea of psychê as substitute in Hades of the living body, cf. Meyer (2008: 12–15).
107.
Od. 10. 495, 11.207.
108.
Od. 11.207 and 222.
109.
Odysseus’s friend Elpenor appears to him as an eidôlon in Od. 11.83.
110.
Meyer (2008: 12–13).
111.
Od. 11.204–208.
112.
The behavior of Anticlea, mother of Odysseus, was exemplary when she addresses her son whom she has just met in Hades, as observed by the Peripatetic philosopher Praxiphanes (cf. comment to fr 25 by Praxiphanes in Matelli (2012b: 296–297)).
113.
The thymos is active in the lungs and in the chest, as well as in the blood: see Onians (1998: 23–50, 94).
114.
Od. 10.536–537 = 11.49–50 and 11.88–89 (Odysseus does not permit anyone to drink the sacrificial blood before interrogating Tiresias), 11.96–99, 146–149 (in Hades, Tiresias drinks the sacrificial blood in order to proclaim the “truth” to Odysseus; the other shades as well can tell the truth only after drinking this blood), 11.142, 153 (Anticlea drinks “smoking black blood,” before speaking to her son), 11.225–234 (other women in Hades).
115.
Od. 11.34–36, cf. Jahn (1987: 36).
116.
Onians (1998: 93–94).
117.
Jahn (1987: 35–37). By identity, I do not mean consciousness, which underlies a different debate, in relation to which, see note 4 above.
118.
Mondin (2001: 25).
119.
I refer the reader to Matelli (2004: 318–19 note 55), for the observation that the term psychê is used for the first time to indicate the butterfly in the Peripatetic context in the fourth to third centuries BC by Aristotle and Theophrastus, with explicit reference to the metamorphosing insect.
120.
I attribute to the term double a value different from Rohde’s animist value (1921), criticized by Jaeger (1953: 92–106), who, however, maintains this meaning. See note 101 above.
121.
Jahn (1987: 35–36).
122.
In Calzecchi Onesti’s Italian translation of Od. 10.494–495 “a lui solo concesse Persefone d’aver mente saggia da morto, gli altri come ombre vane svolazzano” (“him alone [i.e., Tiresias] did Persephone permit to have a wise mind in death, the others flutter about as vain shades,”) the adjective vain, absent in the Greek text, is added arbitrarily. The verb aissô contains the idea of momentum, cf. Jahn (1987: 36).
123.
The reader is referred to the syntheses of studies cited in note 4 above, to which Sichkaryk (2011: 86–99) can be added.
124.
Caserta (2007: 66).
125.
Caserta (2007, 2012).
126.
Vegetti (1983: 459–469).
127.
An. 2.1 412a11–13 (henceforth An.).
128.
An. A5, 411b7–8: “it seems, rather, that it is the soul that keeps the body united, since, once the soul leaves, the body suddenly dissolves and putrefies.”
129.
Busche (2001: 118–119), Centrone (2005): 103–114), Bodson (2003), Bouquiaux (2003), Évrard (2003), Fiasse (2003), Guldentops (2003), Motte (2003), Opsomer (2003a, b, c, d), Seron (2003), Rutten (2003a, b), Stevens (2003a, b), Vancamp (2003), Fronterotta and Leszl (2005: 180–185).
130.
Meixner, Newen (2003: 52–56).
131.
An. 3.5 430a10–25.
132.
For a synthesis, Grasso & Zanatta (2005: 244–263).
133.
“Ossia il principio formale, la prima e fondamentale determinazione del vivente, condizione di tutte le sue funzioni vitali, cognitive e operative,” (“That is, the formal principle, the first and fundamental determination of the living, the condition of all its vital, cognitive, and operative functions,”) Movia (2001: 266 note 12); cf. also Busche (2001: 126–131).
134.
An. 2.4 (415a14–416b31).
135.
An. 2.5 (416b32–418a25).
136.
An. 3.4 (429a10–430a9).
137.
An. 2.1 (414a29–31).
138.
An. 1.5 (411a5–14).
139.
Bastian (2010); Busche (2001: 2 n. 9) intends to overcome the negative judgment of Gigon (1986: 158) according to which the idea of system cannot be attributed to Aristotle’s philosophical corpus.
140.
An. 2.7 (418a26–424b18).
141.
An. 1.4 (408b19–30), 2.1 (413b24–26), 3.5 (430a10–25), cf. Metaph. 12.3 (1070a24–26).
142.
An. 3.5 (430a10–25). In view of the exegetical complexities of this section, I refer the reader to the interpretation of Grasso & Zanatta (2005: 244–263).
143.
In his On Nature, 24 DK B4, Alcmaeon speaks of the state of physical health (hygieia), sustaining that it consists in an equilibrium (isonomia) of opposing (as in humid/dry, cold/hot, sweet/bitter, etc.) forces (dynameis), while the state of illness (nosos) comes about through the prevalence of just one of these forces over the others, a situation he refers to using the term monarchy: note the lexicon derived from the political sphere being used to qualify the prosperity or pathology of the physical body. Cf. Caserta (2007: 70).
144.
Plat. Tim. 15 42e ss.
145.
I am following Rackham’s translation of Aristotle’s Politics.
146.
Arist. Poet. 4 (1449a9–15). Cf. Plat. Phaedr. 264c.
147.
Poet. 7 1450b32–1451b6. Cf. also the analogy of Poet. 23 1459a17–24. Matelli (2012b: 419–450).
148.
Rhet. 1.1 1354a11–16.
149.
Rhet. 3.14 1415b6–8, 3.19 1496b19–23. Matelli (2012a: 725–754).
150.
Adinolfi (1963: 333–342).
151.
Roman Antiquities 6.83.2.
152.
History of Rome 2.32.7–12.
153.
Laws 686b7.
154.
Philebus 17d2.
155.
Epinomis 991e2.
156.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1168b.32, On the Generation of Animals 740a.20, 752a.7, 758b.3, On the Heavens 391b.9, Poetics 1456a.12.
157.
The reader is referred to the contributions in this volume by Urbani Ulivi and Giuliani.
158.
See note 139 above.
159.
See Appendix IV on “Ancient Jewish conceptions of the mind or ‘soul’, the ‘spirit’, ‘the holy spirit’, the body and the divinity of Christ” in Onians (1998: 480–505); Grasso & Zanatta (2005: 244–263) and Busche (2001: 100–146).
160.
I propose a literal translation of this holy text.

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Matelli, E. (2019). The Living Body as a Model of Systemic Organization in Ancient Thinking. In: Urbani Ulivi, L. (eds) The Systemic Turn in Human and Natural Sciences. Contemporary Systems Thinking. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00725-6_8

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