Philosophers on Body & Health

On treatment:

"Extreme remedies are most appropriate for extreme diseases."

On medical ethics:

"First, do no harm."

On the body as prison:

"The soul is simply fastened and glued to the body—it is forced to view and comprehend existence through the bars of a prison, instead of in and through herself; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance; and philosophy sees that the terrible thing about the imprisonment is that the prisoner is a willing captive."

On the philosopher's attitude toward the body:

"The true philosophers, and they only, are ever seeking to release the soul. Is not the separation and release of the soul from the body their especial study?"

In dialogues like Phaedo and Republic, Plato presented an early form of mind-body dualism. He viewed the body as a prison or tomb for the soul, a source of distraction from pure thought, and subject to change and decay, unlike the eternal soul.

On soul and body:

"The soul is the first actuality of a natural body that has life potentially. The body so described is a body which is organized. The parts of plants in spite of their extreme simplicity are organs... If, then, we have to give a general formula applicable to all kinds of soul, we must describe it as the first actuality of a natural organized body."

On form and matter:

"That is why we can dismiss as unnecessary the question whether the soul and the body are one: it is as though we were to ask whether the wax and its shape are one, or generally the matter of a thing and that of which it is the matter."

Aristotle rejected Plato's sharp dualism, viewing the soul as the form or actuality of the body. For Aristotle, soul and body form a unified substance, health involves proper functioning according to natural purpose, and moderation in diet and exercise contributes to virtue.

On the body and pain:

"If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now."

On physical existence:

"The body's needs are easily met. Anything beyond bare necessity, anything that induces strain or disturbance, is desired not bodily but by a mind corrupted by wrong thinking."

On health and illness:

"When you have a headache, do you say, 'I am in pain'? No, you say, 'My head is in pain.' So too with life as a whole. Say not, 'I am unfortunate,' but rather, 'My body is unfortunate.'"

As a Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius emphasized the distinction between what is within our control (our judgments) and what is not (bodily pain, illness). He advocated for accepting physical discomfort with equanimity while focusing on maintaining virtue.

On the body's natural faculties:

"Nature does nothing in vain, and the simpler way is the way of nature. When, therefore, we are in doubt about the function of any part, we must consider its structure."

On humoral theory:

"Health is a good temperament and a just blend of the elements. Disease is a bad temperament and an unjust blend."

Galen systematized ancient medical knowledge, and his theories dominated Western medicine throughout the medieval period. He elaborated the humoral theory of disease, developed anatomical understanding through animal dissection, and emphasized the unity of body and soul in health.

On the three doshas:

"The body is composed of three doshas (vata, pitta, kapha), seven dhatus (tissues), and three malas (waste products). When these are in balance, the body is healthy; when imbalanced, disease occurs."

On holistic health:

"One who is established in the Self, who has balanced doshas, balanced agni (digestive fire), properly formed dhatus, proper elimination of malas, properly functioning bodily processes, and whose mind, soul, and senses are full of bliss, is called a healthy person."

Originating in ancient India, Ayurveda developed a sophisticated understanding of health based on three doshas as fundamental bodily energies, balance between individual constitution and environment, and integration of physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of health.

On balance and harmony:

"The principle of yin and yang is the foundation of the entire universe. It underlies everything in creation. It brings about the development of parenthood; it is the root and source of life and death... Heaven was created by an accumulation of yang; Earth was created by an accumulation of yin."

On prevention:

"The superior physician helps before the early budding of disease. The inferior physician begins to help when the disease has already developed."

Ancient Chinese medical philosophy emphasized balance of yin and yang forces, flow of qi (vital energy) through meridians, and harmony between human body and natural environment. This holistic approach viewed health as proper alignment with cosmic patterns and natural cycles.

On health and balance:

"Medicine considers the human body as to the means by which it is cured and by which it is driven away from health. The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health."

On the mind-body connection:

"The imagination can actually cause a physical illness or cure it."

Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine systematized medical knowledge and remained authoritative in both Islamic and European medicine for centuries. His approach integrated Greek, Persian, and Indian medical traditions, emphasized empirical observation alongside theory, and recognized the role of psychological factors in physical health.

On soul and body:

"The soul is the form of the body. It is not a body, but the act of a body... For the nature of the species belongs to that which the definition signifies; and in natural things the definition does not signify the form only, but the form and the matter."

On bodily resurrection:

"The soul is naturally united to the body... Hence it is against the nature of the soul to be without the body. But nothing that is against nature can be perpetual. Therefore the soul will not be forever without the body. Thus the immortality of the soul seems to require the resurrection of the body."

Aquinas synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology, viewing the soul as the form of the body, creating a unified substance. He saw the body as essential to human nature, not merely a prison, and bodily resurrection as necessary for complete human fulfillment.

On mind-body interaction:

"I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in a ship, but... I am very closely joined and, as it were, intermingled with it, so that I and the body form a unit."

Descartes' influential mind-body dualism sharply distinguished between res cogitans (thinking substance: mind, consciousness, immaterial) and res extensa (extended substance: body, matter, mechanistic). This dualism profoundly influenced Western medicine, encouraging a mechanistic view of the body while raising the problem of mind-body interaction.

On mind and body as attributes:

"The mind and the body are one and the same thing, conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attribute of extension."

On psychophysical parallelism:

"The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things."

Rejecting Cartesian dualism, Spinoza proposed that mind and body are two attributes of a single substance. Mental and physical events run in parallel (psychophysical parallelism). Understanding the body's capacities increases our freedom and power. Spinoza's monism offered an alternative to both dualism and materialism.

On the body's wisdom:

"There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy."

On the primacy of the body:

"Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body... Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwells in your body, it is your body."

Nietzsche criticized Western philosophy's neglect of the body, arguing that the body is primary and consciousness secondary. He saw reason and thought as expressions of bodily drives and believed health involves affirming life and embracing the body's wisdom.

On the internal environment:

"The stability of the internal environment is the condition for the free and independent life."

On experimental medicine:

"The true worth of a scientist is measured by the extent to which he has contributed to the progress of his science."

Bernard pioneered the concept of homeostasis—the body's ability to maintain a stable internal environment despite external changes. His work established experimental physiology as a rigorous science and emphasized the body's self-regulatory mechanisms.

On the lived body:

"The body is our general medium for having a world."

On embodied perception:

"We must not say that our body is in space, nor for that matter in time. It inhabits space and time... I am not in space and time, nor do I conceive space and time; I belong to them, my body combines with them and includes them."

Merleau-Ponty developed a philosophy centered on embodied experience, emphasizing the body as our primary means of experiencing and understanding the world. He distinguished between the "lived body" (corps vécu) and the objective body, and saw perception as an active, embodied engagement with the environment.

On the medical gaze:

"The clinic—constantly praised for its empiricism, the modesty of its attention, and the care with which it silently lets things surface to the observing gaze without disturbing them with discourse—owes its real importance to the fact that it is a reorganization in depth, not only of medical discourse, but of the very possibility of a discourse about disease."

On the body as object of knowledge:

"The formation of clinical medicine is merely one of the more visible witnesses to these changes in the fundamental structures of experience."

In works like The Birth of the Clinic and Discipline and Punish, Foucault analyzed how medical knowledge and power shape our understanding of the body. He examined the "medical gaze" that objectifies the patient and explored biopower—how modern societies regulate bodies through knowledge systems.

On the performativity of gender:

"Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being."

On the materiality of the body:

"The body is not a 'being,' but a variable boundary, a surface whose permeability is politically regulated, a signifying practice within a cultural field of gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality."

Butler challenges the idea that sex and gender are natural or innate facts, arguing instead that they are constructed through repeated performance. Her work examines how bodies are shaped by cultural norms and how these norms can be subverted.

On emotions and embodiment:

"Emotions are not just the fuel that powers the psychological mechanism of a reasoning creature, they are parts, highly complex and messy parts, of this creature's reasoning itself."

On the capabilities approach:

"The central human capabilities include: life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination, and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other species; play; and control over one's environment."

Nussbaum has developed the capabilities approach to human development, which includes bodily health and integrity as central human capabilities that should be protected. Her work emphasizes the importance of embodiment to human flourishing.