AISTHÊSIS: Sense and Sensation in Greco-Roman Medicine

The Society for Ancient Medicine and Pharmacy (SAM) is an affiliated group of the American Philological Association. 

Scholars have begun to explore the complexities of the senses in ancient cultures with renewed interest and from a variety of perspectives. Perception and feeling are always deeply implicated in the emotional and psychological lives of humans, and Greco-Roman antiquity offered its own conceptual and discursive variations on such affective realms. Less frequently emphasized is the fact that the mechanisms of perception are physiological, of necessity involving at some point the interaction of bodily organs with the mind. From a strictly medical point of view, the organs of perception presented a peculiar challenge—on the one hand, they were subject to varying states of health and disease just like any other part of the body; on the other, they served as pathways to the non-material world of cognition, consciousness and emotion.

Contact: Ralph M. Rosen ([email protected]).