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Causing Health and Disease: Medical Powers in Classical and Late Antiquity (Conference, Oxford, 21-22 September 2012)

posted on February 7, 2025

Research Summary: Medical Powers in Classical and Late Antiquity Conference

Event Type: International Academic Conference
Dates & Location: 21–22 September 2012, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Primary Focus: Ontological status and efficacy of medical powers in ancient medical philosophy and practice across Classical, Late Antique, and Daoist traditions
Key Topics Addressed: Powers of medicines and their ontological status; natural faculties in Galen; material powers and dispositions in Hippocratic medicine; comparative object-based versus process-based ontologies; Daoist health/sickness dialectics
Featured Speakers: Philip van der Eijk, Jim Hankinson, Brooke Holmes, Elisabeth Hsu, Geoffrey Lloyd, Roberto Lo Presti, Hans-Georg Moeller, Tiberiu Popa, Barbara Zipser
Registration Cost: £10; free for students; funding assistance available through Thomas Wiedemann Memorial Fund
Organizing Institution: Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity, organized by Anna Marmodoro, Irini-Fotini Viltanioti, and Brian Prince
Scholarly Approach: Interdisciplinary examination of how ancient medical systems theorized the causal mechanisms by which therapeutic agents produce health or disease

Causing Health and Disease: Medical Powers in Classical and Late Antiquity
21–22 September 2012
Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Invited Speakers and Titles:

  • Philip van der Eijk (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) `Powers of Medicines, their Ontological Status and the Structure of their Efficacy’
  • Jim Hankinson (University of Texas at Austin) TBA
  • Brooke Holmes (Princeton University) `Immanent Intelligence and the Natural Faculties in Galen’
  • Elisabeth Hsu (University of Oxford) TBA
  • Geoffrey Lloyd (University of Cambridge) `Process-based versus Object-based Ontologies: some comparative observations’
  • Roberto Lo Presti (Università degli Studi di Palermo) `Informing Matters and Enmattered Forms’
  • Hans-Georg Moeller (University College Cork) `On the `Dialectics’ of Health/Sickness and Strength/Weakness in Ancient Daoist Philosophy’
  • Tiberiu Popa (Butler University) `Hippocratic Connections between Material Powers and Higher Level Dispositions’
  • Barbara Zipser (Royal Holloway University of London) `Describing Vision: Galen’s texts on eye anatomy and their terminology‘

The conference schedule is here. Registration is now available here (£10, but free for students). Graduate students seeking assistance with the costs of attending this conference may wish to apply here. The Thomas Wiedemann Memorial Fund notes that its `trustees are particularly keen to support attendance by individuals or groups at seminars or conferences.’ This conference is generously supported by the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity, and organised by Anna Marmodoro, Irini-Fotini Viltanioti and Brian Prince.

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