Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Language, Literature and Humanities - Department of Classics, HU Berlin

Projects of Alexander von Humboldt-Professorship

Maria Börno

Research project “Investigations into the compilation technique of Oribasius of Pergamum”

(as part of the sub-project A03 “The Transfer of Medical Episteme in the ‘Encyclopaedic’ Compilations of Late Antiquity”)

The subproject is dedicated to the earliest of the late antique compilers, Oribasius of Pergamum. Through individual case studies, his compilation technique and handling of sources will be analyzed, with a particular focus on Galen, as his texts have come down to us independently of late antique compilations. Particular attention will be paid to the so-called Libri incerti, which cannot be assigned to any specific book of the Collectiones medicae but are transmitted under the name of Oribasius. Does the approach to selecting source texts, to epitomizing and excerpting, and finally assembling them to form a new text differ in these chapters from the other (preserved) books of the Collectiones? For the presentation of my research results, I strive to find new graphical representations in order to make Oribasius's compilation technique more easily comprehensible for both the philological specialist audience and those interested from other disciplines.


Philip van der Eijk

Aristotle, Aristotelianism and Ancient Medicine

This book project studies the dialogue between Aristotelian philosophy and ancient medical thought from the 4th century BCE to the 6th century CE. It examines Aristotle’s and the Peripatetics' engagement with the medical ideas of their times, their own views on health and disease and their conception of medicine as the example of a practical science par excellence. It further studies the influence of Aristotelian thought on the ideas and methods of a number of ancient doctors and the role of medical ideas in the exegesis of Aristotle’s writings in late antiquity.

Untersuchungen zum neuen enzyklopädischen Charakter der Kompilationen des Oribasius, Aetius und Paulus (Projekt im Rahmen des SFB 980)

https://www.sfb-episteme.de/teilprojekte/sagen/A03/up_van-der-eijk/index.html

 

Annette Heinrich

SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion. Transmission of knowledge in the ancient world up to the early modern period” / Subproject A03

The transmission of the medical episteme in the ‘encyclopaedic’ collected works of late antiquity

This subproject examines text structures, forms of discourse and strategies of epitomisation of late antique compilers and their efforts to create valid medical-scientific systems based on tradition – with focus on Aetios of Amida (6th century AD). The increasing shift towards a practical orientation and systematic integration of  knowledge will be discussed and analysed.

https://www.sfb-episteme.de/teilprojekte/sagen/A03/up_heinrich/index.html

Einstein Center Chronoi / Concepts provided by Natural Sciences 

Synchronicity of Disease and Therapeutic Action - Synchronizing the Patient's Body 

This project researches how ancient physicians based their technē on the temporal rhythms of the human body and nature as a whole, how they continually endeavoured to empirically evaluate the course of the disease and the effects of their treatments and to methodically bring them into the most favourable rhythm of time.

https://www.ec-chronoi.de/Fellows/heinrich/annette

 

Roberto Lo Presti

The Place Within (The Inner Sanctum)

A study on a metaphor complex in the history of philosophy, theology and ideas

What do figurative concepts such as Marcus Aurelius’ and Theresa of Avila’s “inner castle”, the “caves of memory” and Augustine’s “inner man (homo interior)”, the “heart mysticism” of the early Greek Church Fathers and the „prayer of the heart“ of the desert fathers of the Philokalia, Peter Abelard’s “root of intention” and Meister Eckhart’s “ground of the soul” have in common? Are they only apparently related, but in fact independent idioms, or are we dealing with a coherent complex of metaphors and concepts that emerge in different (philosophical and theological) forms of discourse, which presuppose and express a fundamental intuition and develop over several centuries in different intellectual and cultural contexts? And, if it is indeed a complex that transcends the boundaries between Greco-Roman pagan culture and Christian faith as well as between philosophy and theology, to what extent can its reconstruction in the history of ideas help 1) to shed new light on the relationship between philosophical and Christian discourse on God, man and the world, and 2) to better understand the processes of rethinking this relationship from the early Neo-Christian period through the Middle Ages to the modern era?

These are the questions that this book project aims to answer.

Extended Description

Oliver Overwien

For more than 25 years I have been working on the literary “afterlives” of biographical-anecdotal, medical, and philosophical literature in the Syriac and Arabic tradition.

I am currently pursuing smaller projects on

I am also planning my own research on the translation techniques as part of the DFG-funded long-term project “Galen's Commentary on the Hippocratic Aphorisms”.