This edition is the first by Classicists and scholars of ancient science specifically devoted to the theme of ‘holism’. A great idea, for several reasons. First, the theme of a ‘holistic’ approach to the study and treatment of the human being is of central importance in ancient Greek medicine and philosophy. It connects not only with specific questions pertaining to medicine in a narrower sense, such as the way in which affections manifest in specific parts of the body relate to the body as a whole, but also with more general questions about the nature of ‘life’ and ‘soul’, the relation between body and soul, and the integration of the (individual) human being into ‘nature’ and the cosmos as a whole. Although the term ‘holism’ is of recent date – as Thumiger explains in her insightful introduction –, the scientific and philosophical concept of wholeness is not, and it provides an interesting thematic point of departure to address the aforementioned general questions.
Second, there has been quite a popular trend for some time now, in which people and institutions define their approaches as ‘holistic’, and often invoke ancient authority in doing so, especially that of Hippocrates, and often do so in rather dubious ways. Therefore, a volume such as this, with expert scholars enquiring into the ancient roots of holistic thinking, is much needed. Even though the intended audience is clearly academic, and the book is not likely to affect these kinds of popular trends or prevent further abuse of Hippocrates’ name, still, it seems important that the topic is not left entirely to those who seem to think that Hippocrates is a kind of timeless Latin-speaking Robin Hood, leading his band of anti-establishment nature-lovers in a humble and patient crusade against the evil machinations of modern medicine (see H. King's chapter).
The book consists of three sections: Part 1 (three chapters) offers methodological and theoretical perspectives on holism; Part 2 forms the core of the volume (eight chapters) and discusses various forms of holism in Graeco-Roman medicine and philosophy; Part 3 (five chapters) offers some examples of medical holism ‘beyond the Graeco-Roman world’, i.e. both in other cultural traditions as well as in the later European tradition.
The introduction and the first chapter by Thumiger provide an erudite overview of ways in which the theme of ‘holism’ can be seen at play in various strands of philosophy and medicine throughout the European tradition. Thumiger, supported by studies in evolutionary biology, suggests that holistic approaches to reality and the general inclination to value wholeness must ultimately be rooted in embodied human experiences that positively appreciate wholeness and integrity. If this is correct, it illustrates the importance of the history of medicine – understood in the broadest sense as the discipline concerned with the human body – for an understanding of the history of ‘holism’. Thumiger also distinguishes between methodological and ontological holism, calling for both historical study of holistic approaches to the human being or reality in general (i.e. of the history of ontological holism) and for a (simultaneous) critical reflection on holistic tendencies in historical study (i.e. canonisation, ideals of perfection etc.). In this way, the term ‘holism’ comes to designate not only a specific approach to or view on things, which is historically studied in this collection (e.g. holistic tendencies in the Hippocratic Corpus to see the body as one integral system), but also a specific way of doing historical study, which is critically reflected upon in the same volume (e.g. conceptually unifying the Hippocratic Corpus by neglecting some of its parts or reducing the idiosyncrasy of its parts). These two – methodological and ontological holism – are connected, because historical study of ‘holism’ can reveal the extent to which holistic tendencies have functioned throughout the tradition and still belie modern thinking. That is to say, ontological holism rooted in ancient culture may still methodologically inform historical study, especially when explicit methodological reflection is lacking. B. Holmes, in a thought-provoking chapter, ‘Holism, Sympathy, and the Living Being in Ancient Greek Medicine and Philosophy’, combines a study of ontological holism and a critique of methodological holism. She critiques the idea of an unproblematically holistic form of life associated with ancient Greece, by showing that the development of the notion of sympathy (in the medical and philosophical tradition) rather reflects evolving attempts to deal with questions about the wholeness and unity of the living human being. This part of the volume (the introduction and the first chapter by Thumiger, and the second chapter by Holmes) is quite broad, theoretically and methodologically rather ambitious, but also philosophically perceptive, interesting and mostly well executed. In the following chapters this ambitious theoretical project does not really pan out, as these are generally focused on historical analysis of forms and variations of ontological holism, without reflecting much on the notion of methodological holism introduced by Thumiger. This creates somewhat of a gap between those chapters in the first part and the more concretely historical-philosophical chapters in the second and the third parts, in the sense that the (ambitious) theoretical ambitions of the former do not really feature concretely in the latter.
As a second and more important point, I would note that there is some tendency in the volume to overuse the exceptionally broad semantic potential of the term ‘holistic’, sometimes in a way that is not conducive to the overall cohesion of the book. For example, at some point, within the idea of a methodological holism, both more naively canonical and more critically anti-canonical approaches in historical studies are presented as ‘holistic’ in their own way (as reductive and expansive respectively). This seems a bit of a stretch. W. Short's chapter (‘“Holism” in Cognitive Approaches to the Ancient Emotions’) could then be seen as a methodologically holistic approach in the expansive sense, but otherwise does not have much to do with holism in ancient medicine. Likewise, some of the chapters from Part 3 – which goes ‘beyond the Graeco-Roman world’ – connect well to the rest of the volume (e.g. C. Trenery's ‘Mind-Body Interaction: the Influence of Ancient Ideas in Twelfth-Century England’), but others, however interesting in themselves, remain almost entirely isolated from the rest (this applies especially to J. Wee's ‘A Systemic Etiology of Sicknesses from Ancient Iraq: Organ Systems and the Functional Holism of the Babylonian Body’). Needless to say, cross-cultural comparisons outside the main focus area (‘Graeco-Roman Medicine’) can often provide interesting insight into that focus area, but in this case any form of comparative reflection is lacking, and the comparison is left up to the reader.
The core of the book is formed by Part 2, focusing on Graeco-Roman medicine and philosophy (covering a range of different authors and schools between Hippocrates and Galen). The general focus is on the medical tradition, but there is also much emphasis on the importance of medical texts for the broader tradition (a point from Thumiger's introduction that comes out well in the later chapters).
Throughout this section, various versions of holism are distinguished: the relationship between the different parts of the body and the way in which they form a whole; the relationship between body and soul and the human being as a whole; the way in which the human body is integrated in its environment and forms, to some extent, a continuous whole with it; and the analogical understanding of the human being as a micro-cosmos, a likeness to a greater whole. H. Bartoš, in an excellent chapter (‘Hippocratic Holisms’), develops some of these distinctions to analyse holistic approaches in the Hippocratic Corpus. P. Singer, in ‘Is Graeco-Roman Medicine Holistic? Galen and Ancient Medical-Philosophical Debates’, does the same for Galen, also contextualising Galen's work within the broader tradition. S. Coughlin, in ‘Cohesive Causes in Ancient Greek Philosophy and Medicine’, provides an outstanding and remarkably lucid brief history on ‘the synechon’, which is perceived to be responsible for the cohesion of a whole with various parts, by a range of authors from the Presocratics until Galen and Athenaeus of Attalia. These chapters particularly, in my opinion, are well-researched and strike a fine balance between the concrete analysis of particular texts and authors as well as attention to larger theoretical questions.
In general, the second part covers a decent range of the ancient medical-philosophical tradition, although it is a shame that there is no chapter on Neoplatonism (Singer hints at the potential in a footnote to his chapter). Trenery, in her chapter on ancient holism in medieval hagiography, refers to the idea that ‘in its perfect state, humanity would not suffer’ (p. 386). This idea implies that, if the human being would be as it should, perfect and whole, it would not require medicine. From this perspective, the art of medicine already compensates for a given lack of natural perfection or wholeness and, consequently, restorative to some extent. Trenery refers to this idea in the Christian context, but I think that it comes to the fore with particular clarity in Neoplatonic authors (as does the idea of a perfect whole in general, as well as the analogy between human being and the cosmos as a whole).
Within this limited space I cannot do full justice to all of the chapters, but the final one by King (‘“Treating the Patient, Not Just the Disease”: Reading Ancient Medicine in Modern Holistic Medicine’) deserves special mention. It analyses the way in which modern versions of holism are projected onto the classical past by snooping around in the alternative medicine corners of the internet. Besides a highly interesting and humorous chapter on its own, it is also important with regard to the book as a whole, as King does some holistic labour herself. She returns to some of the previous chapters and their divisions of various versions of holism, and also returns to some of the questions raised by Thumiger and Holmes in the theoretical section (how do ancient ideals of holism inform modern thinking and how does a modern holistic approach to history inform our view of the past?).
In general, as a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy and science, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this welcome addition to modern scholarship on ancient science and its reception, and I have learned much from it. The introduction and first chapters written by Thumiger and Holmes are genuinely thought-provoking, the second part contains some excellent analyses of (parts of) the medical and philosophical tradition, and despite some issues with overall cohesion and choices of subjects, in the end King's chapter does some work towards binding the various chapters together into a whole.
