The standard interpretation of Galen’s general philosophical stance presents him as an eclectic, that is to say as a philosopher who does not commit himself to the entirety of the doctrines of a particular philosophical school, but selects from different theories different elements which seem fitting to him and which he combines in such a way as to produce a coherent system. According to Ierodiakonou, Galen’s theory of vision confirms such an overall account of his philosophical position, for there is no indication in the Galenic corpus which could suggest that Galen is a devoted adherent of one or another of the various theories of vision presented in antiquity by his predecessors. Thus, Ierodiakonou's aim in this paper is simply to focus on how Galen interacts with the previous philosophical tradition when it comes to his understanding of how we see. Ierodiakonou intends to show that Galen refuses to blindly follow the views of a particular philosophical school, but collects elements from the Platonic, the Aristotelian and the Stoic model in order to form his own eclectic theory. Indeed, it is quite intriguing to study the amalgam which Galen himself produces for two reasons:
- in order to understand why he selects the specific elements which he does from the previous theories of vision;
- and in order to investigate whether the theory of vision that he finally comes up with is actually coherent or not.