Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-06T06:13:52.499Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 4 - From Problems to Demonstrations

Two Case Studies of Galen’s Method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2022

R. J. Hankinson
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Matyáš Havrda
Affiliation:
Czech Academy of Sciences
Get access

Summary

The chapter discusses two texts designed to throw into sharp relief Galen’s methods of solving natural and dialectical problems. The first comes from the treatise The Mixtures and Powers of Simple Drugs (SMT), and deals with the power and nature of olive oil. Galen castigates one Archidamus for having arrived at a mistaken account of oil’s nature, because he has generalised from a limited set of observations of questionable relevance. In contrast, Galen proposes an orderly course of inquiry, which starts from the complete account of the oil’s observable attributes and proceeds towards causal investigation by means of their empirically testable ‘differentiations’. The second text is Thrasybulus, subtitled Whether Hygiene Belongs to Medicine or Gymnastics (Thras.), and the chater shows how Galen sets about answering that question in a quasi-dialectical manner. The first step is the discovery of an agreed starting-point, consisting of a relevant and non-question-begging description of the point at issue. This is followed by further conceptual clarification of the agreed description, which, as the chapter argues, plays a similar role in the dialectical dispute as ‘differentiation’ of observed attributes in the former case.

Type
Chapter
Information
Galen's Epistemology
Experience, Reason, and Method in Ancient Medicine
, pp. 116 - 135
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×