Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T06:23:16.992Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 2 - Galen’s Empiricist Background

A Study of the Argument in On Medical Experience

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 focuses on the methodological debate between Empiricist and Rationalist schools of medicine, as portrayed in Galen’s early treatise On Medical Experience (Med.Exp.). This dense and philosophically-sophisticated text, preserved for the most part only in an Arabic translation, supposedly presents the substance of a dispute, witnessed by the young Galen, between his Rationalist teacher Pelops and an Empiricist opponent, about the respective roles of experience and reason in medicine. Analysing the arguments on both sides, in particular as they concern the question of inductive generalisation and the nature and validity of the empirical procedure known as epilogimos, the chapter shows how Galen’s presentation of a sequence of responses and counter-responses between the two protagonists serves to prefigure his own complex and hugely influential synthesis of the empirical and rationalist procedures in his own mature methodology.

Type
Chapter
Information
Galen's Epistemology
Experience, Reason, and Method in Ancient Medicine
, pp. 32 - 78
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 coreplatform@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
×