Chapter Three—
Dogmatism and Uncertainty
On several occasions already I have drawn attention to the elements of bluff and dogmatism in parts of early Greek science. Yet anti-dogmatic opinions are also prominent in other—sometimes even in the very same—works. A readiness to admit to not knowing the answers and to grant that you have been mistaken is still often thought part of the scientific, indeed a general intellectual, ideal. Examples where the ideal is put into practice can be given from modern science, although so too can cases where it has been ignored, and some writers would want to recommend that it should be ignored at least in certain circumstances.[1] We find what look like anticipations of those principles in some early Greek texts. The general question that this raises is, then, the interplay, or tension, between the dogmatic and the anti-dogmatic strains in Greek investigations into nature. In particular at what point, under what circumstances, with what motives and intentions did ancient scientists begin to acknowledge the possibility of their own mistakes?
As before, it is useful to establish a benchmark by the use of broad cross-cultural comparisons. First, scepticism about certain claims or claimants to special knowledge can be attested in many contexts in many peoples. Shirokogoroff pointed this out in his classic study of the
[1] On the function of dogma in research see, for example, Kuhn 1963; cf. more generally in Kuhn 1962/1970 and the elaboration and modification of his position in Kuhn 1977.
Tungusi.[2] Evans-Pritchard stressed that the Azande often suspected particular witch-doctors of being frauds.[3] In his study of Ifa divination Bascom similarly noted that the honesty or knowledge of individual diviners may be questioned,[4] and Turner pointed out how attempts may be made to trip up individual Ndembu diviners.[5] The case of the Kwakiutl Quesalid, reported by Boas and popularised by Lévi-Strauss, is a poignant one.[6] Quesalid himself ended up as a shaman, but he had begun with the intention of showing that the ways of the local shamans were fraudulent, that their techniques were a set of tricks. What happened was that he tried other tricks that he learnt from other shamans from neighbouring groups and discovered that they worked: the sick reported remarkable recoveries, and Quesalid found himself, willynilly, a shaman. Again, in some mundane contexts, the recognition that there are limits to what any human being knows and can know is widespread and needs no illustration. It is a wise man who knows his own father, or, as Telemachus puts it, no one does.[7]
Our evidence from the ancient Near East is, once again, of exceptional value. Medicine, well represented in our extant texts, provides a particularly promising field of inquiry, since whether a disease has
[2] Shirokogoroff 1935, e.g., pp. 332ff., 389ff.
[3] See Evans-Pritchard 1937, p. 183: "Many people say that the great majority of witch-doctors are liars whose sole concern is to acquire wealth. I found that it was quite a normal belief among Azande that many of the practitioners are charlatans who make up any reply which they think will please their questioner, and whose sole inspiration is love of gain." But Evans-Pritchard went on to deny, p. 185, disbelief in witch-doctorhood in general.
[4] See Bascom 1969, p. 11: "The honesty or knowledge of individual babalawo may be questioned," though he went on: "but most are highly esteemed, and the system itself is rarely doubted." Cf. p. 70, where he notes that the blame for failures is shifted "from the system of divination to other causes, such as the ignorance or dishonesty of the diviner." Cf. Lienhardt 1961, p. 73, and more generally, and in connection with the ancient world, Jacques Vernant 1948 and the papers collected in J.-P. Vernant et al. 1974.
[5] V.W. Turner 1964, p. 242. Herodotus 1.46ff. (cf. 2.174), for example, provides Greek evidence for the testing of oracles.
[6] F. Boas 1930, pp. 1–41; cf. Lévi-Strauss 1958/1968, pp. 175ff.
[7] Od . 1.214ff. On various other occasions in Homer attention is drawn to certain limitations to human knowledge, e.g., Il. 2.484ff., Od. 10.190ff.
been diagnosed correctly and whether the treatment adopted is the right one are questions of more than merely theoretical interest. Although, as we noted before,[8] the authors of Egyptian medical documents do not, as a general rule, intrude to vouch for their personal observations, reference is quite often made in general terms to experience. The Papyrus Ebers, for instance, on several occasions ends its account of a charm or remedy with the comment: "really excellent, [proved] many times."[9] Elsewhere the issue of the effectiveness of treatments is implicit. The relationship between the healer and the disease is frequently represented as a conflict, a hard-fought battle between them. In both Egyptian and Mesopotamian medicine, what causes the disease—the peccant material or force—is often apostrophised, commanded or cajoled to leave the patient, that departure being construed as a matter of negotiation.[10] Again, Egyptian, like later Greek, medicine explicitly recognised a category of complaints "where there is no treatment"[11] (though in practice in some such cases treatment is nevertheless attempted).
All of this goes to show that ancient Egyptian doctors, especially, were often aware of the limitations of their art and conscious of its difficulties. When claims for the effectiveness of remedies are made, they can, in principle, be controverted. Yet so far as our extant evidence goes, that mostly remained just a theoretical possibility. Neither Egyptian nor Mesopotamian medicine developed a tradition of the
[8] See above, Chap. 2, pp. 6f. and 63.
[9] See Ebbell 1937, pp. 29, 30, 42, 73.
[10] See, for example, Ebbell 1937, p. 105; Breasted 1930, p. 477; R. Campbell Thompson 1923–24, p. 31, 1925–26, p. 59. The general point remains, even though there are, to be sure, important differences within the diverse medical traditions in both Egypt and Mesopotamia.
[11] See, for example, Breasted 1930, cases 7, 8, 17, and 20; Ebbell 1937, pp. 127f. The recognition of a category of cases that are hopeless and that cannot be treated can also be illustrated from the ethnographic reports: see, e.g., Shirokogoroff 1935, p. 334: "some shamans may refuse to attend cases which are known to be absolutely hopeless." Shirokogoroff further remarks, p. 385, on a case of a shaman who admitted to him and to a Manchu friend that he did not understand a situation, but that, from the report, appears to have been a private, not a public, admission of ignorance.
criticism of current practice, any more than they did criticism of past custom and tradition themselves. In general, if doubts were felt about the efficacy of treatments or on the correctness of diagnoses, these were not usually expressed. Even when a case was deemed untreatable, this was generally asserted dogmatically.[12] Above all, there are no detailed records of particular failures of diagnosis or of cure (as opposed to mere expressions of despair), no debate between alternative treatments, let alone between rival schools of medicine with competing theories of disease.[13]
Dogmatism in Early Greek Natural Philosophy
One of the first things that strikes a student turning to the beginnings of Greek speculative thought, and first to pre-Socratic natural philosophy, is its dogmatism.[14] The wildest generalisations are offered with no suspicion that they may require qualification. True, this impression is partly one created by the doxographical sources on whom we often have to rely. They are concerned to record a sequence of positive theories ascribable to Thales, Anaximander, and the rest, uncomplicated by reservations or provisos.[15] Yet this impression is often confirmed when, as for several of the later pre-Socratics, we have more substantial evidence, in the form of original quotations.[16]
[12] As in the cases from Breasted 1930 cited in the previous note. Cf. J. A. Wilson 1952, p. 77.
[13] Cf., however, Bottéro 1974 who, in his study of divination in ancient Mesopotamia, notes (pp. 133f.) certain expressions of the difficulties encountered in particular problems in divination, and further draws attention (pp. 183ff.) to evidence that points to the development of different "schools" of omen interpretation, though without suggesting explicit debate between them.
[14] I discussed some aspects of this in G. E. R. Lloyd 1979, pp. 139ff. On other features of the issue of pre-Socratic dogmatism, compare Cornford 1952, chap. 3, with Matson 1954–55 and Vlastos 1955/1970 and 1975a, e.g., p. 87.
[15] This follows from the organisation of the material topic by topic in the doxographic tradition: see Diels 1879, cf. McDiarmid 1953/1970.
[16] These quotations themselves, however, have always to be related to thecontexts and concerns of those who report them, as has recently been emphasised by C. Osborne in her study of Hippolytus: C. Osborne forthcoming.
It is not as if there is much divergence, on this score, between otherwise radically divergent figures, such as Empedocles and Anaxagoras. Empedocles, for instance, announces categorically that bone consists of a certain definite proportion of the four "roots" or elements, earth, water, air, and fire.[17] Anaxagoras, who represents what is in many ways a quite different, Ionian, tradition of research, is sometimes just as positive in his assertions, for example, on the original state of the cosmos, when "all things were together" and "air and aether held all things,"[18] or on the production of earth from water and of stones from earth under the influence of cold.[19] Even those who were much later hailed as the forerunners of scepticism, such as Xenophanes and Democritus, were, on occasion, categorical enough.[20] Xenophanes certainly states that "there never was a man, nor will there ever be, who knows the certain truth about the gods and all the other things about which I speak" and that "seeming is wrought over all things."[21] But elsewhere he is prepared to speak of earth stretching down indefinitely below our feet, of the ocean as the begetter of the winds, and of our all being born from earth and water.[22] Democritus, too, though quoted as saying that we understand nothing exactly,
[17] Fr. 96, cf. fr. 98, Aetius 5.22.1, Aristotle De An. 410a1ff., cf. 408a18ff., PA 642a18ff.
[18] Fr. 1, often quoted by Aristotle, e.g., Ph. 203a25, and Simplicius, e.g., In Ph. 155.23ff.
[19] Fr. 16.
[20] Sextus Empiricus is, indeed, often our source for earlier epistemological views that can be given a sceptical interpretation.
[21] Fr. 34 (quoted by many ancient writers; see Guthrie 1962, p. 395 n. 1). The difficulty of gaining knowledge of the gods is a topos that recurs, for example, in Protagoras fr. 4.
[22] Frr. 28, 30, 33 (with fr. 29).
[23] Frr. 6–10 and 117, on which see Sextus M. 7.135ff. especially. The most recent discussion of Democritus as a sceptic is that of Wardy forthcoming.
The Hippocratic Medical Writers
For more sustained expressions of doubt and uncertainty we have to turn to our other and more extensive main early source, the medical writers—not that they do not also provide examples of dogmatism to equal or surpass anything we find in pre-Socratic natural philosophy. On this, as on so many other topics, the positions adopted in our extant fifth- and fourth-century B.C. medical texts vary widely—and initially rather puzzlingly—from extreme dogmatism on the one hand to a self-conscious anti-dogmatism on the other.[25] How far, we may ask, are these apparently strongly contrasting attitudes to be correlated with different types of treatise, types of writer, types of audience, or a combination of some or all of these? In what respects are the attitudes in question indeed alternative and conflicting, or how far can we suggest a framework of explanation to cover both apparently opposed tendencies?
Dogmatism in the Hippocratic Corpus
We must begin with a fairly detailed review of the modalities and manifestations of dogmatism in the medical writers, since it is against that background that what I have called anti-dogmatism must be evaluated. The treatise On the Art , which we have considered before as an example of authorial egotism,[26] shows to what lengths some writers went to protect themselves and the medical profession against any possible charge of incompetence or even of fallibility. Chapter 3 sets out what the author hopes to demonstrate, the word used being apodeixis . Medicine is first defined in terms of its aims, which include "the complete removal of the sufferings of the sick" and the "alleviation of the violences of diseases," and the writer claims that medicine achieves
[25] Some aspects of this problem have been discussed by Di Benedetto 1966, and by R. Joly 1966, pp. 240ff., 1980, pp. 287f.
[26] See above, Chap. 2 at nn. 45ff.
these ends and "is ever capable of achieving them."[27] Against those who demolish the art of medicine by citing the misfortunes of those who die from their illnesses, he counters with a passage that is worth quoting at length:
As if it is possible for doctors to give the wrong instructions but not possible for the sick to disobey their orders. And yet it is far more probable that the sick are not able to carry out the orders than that the doctors give wrong instructions. For the doctors come to a case healthy in both mind and body; they assess the present circumstances as well as past cases that were similarly disposed, so they are able to say how treatment led to cures then. But the patients receive their orders not knowing what they are suffering from, nor why they are suffering from it, nor what will succeed their present state, nor what usually happens in similar cases. . . . Which is then more likely? That people in such a condition will carry out the doctors' orders, or do something quite different from what they are told—or that the doctors, whose very different condition has been indicated, give the wrong orders? Is it not far more likely that the doctors give proper orders, but the patients probably are unable to obey and, by not obeying, incur their deaths—for which those who do not reason correctly ascribe the blame to the innocent while letting the guilty go free?[28]
Chapter 9 proceeds to distinguish between two main classes of diseases, a small group in which the signs are easily seen—where the disease is manifest to sight or to touch, for instance—and a larger one where they are not so clear. In the former group "in all cases the cures should be infallible, not because they are easy, but because they have been discovered."[29] So far as the second group goes, "the art should not be at a loss in the case of the unclear diseases too."[30] The difficulty in achieving cures stems largely from delays in diagnosis, but this is more often due to the nature of the disease and to the patient than to the physician. The patients' own descriptions of their complaints are unreliable, for they have opinion rather than knowledge.[31] "For if they had understood [their diseases], they would not have incurred them. For it belongs to the same skill to know the causes of diseases and to understand how to treat them with all the treatments that prevent diseases from growing worse."[32] Again the writer's naive optimism comes out: the nature of our bodies is such that where a sickness admits of being seen, it admits of being healed.[33]
The breathtaking self-confidence of this treatise is far from unique. Drastically oversimplified pathological, therapeutic, and physiological doctrines—stated with apparently total self-assurance despite the manifest controversiality of the subjects in question—figure not just in
[31] De arte 11, CMG 1.1.16.23f.
[33] De arte 11, CMG 1.1.17.5f.
[34]other exhibition pieces, such as On Breaths ,[34] but also, for example, in On Affections ,[35]On Diseases 1,[36]On the Sacred Disease ,[37]On Fleshes ,[38]On Regimens 1,[39] and so on. On the Places in Man , for instance, is a work chiefly devoted to a quite detailed account first of certain anatomical topics and then of a range of morbid conditions and their treatments. Towards the end of the treatise as we have it[40] we find a chapter that announces: "The whole of medicine, thus constituted,
[35] Aff. 1 (L) 6.208.7ff.: "in men, all diseases are caused by bile and phlegm. Bile and phlegm give rise to diseases when they become too dry or too wet or too hot or too cold in the body."
[36] Morb. 1.2 (L) 6.142.13ff.: "all diseases come to be, as regards things inside the body, from bile and phlegm, and as regards external things, from exercise and wounds, from the hot being too hot, the cold too cold, the dry too dry, the wet too wet."
[38] The writer of Carn. sets out his version of a four-element theory in the opening two chapters as his own opinion, e.g., "it seems to me that what we call hot is immortal" (2 [L] 8.584.9), "the ancients seem to me to have called this aither" ([L] 8.584.12, and cf. 5 [L] 8.590.5). Yet in the sequel there are few signs of tentativeness as he develops some highly speculative physiological and embryological theories about, for example, the interaction of the two principles he calls the glutinous and the fatty in the formation of the main viscera: see, e.g., 3 (L) 8.584.18ff., 4 (L) 8.588.14ff., and the claims to demonstrate in 9 (L) 8.596.9 and 16. Cf. also 1 (L) 8.584.5.
[39] Vict. 1.3 (L) 6.472.12ff., for example, states: "All the other animals and man are composed of two things, different in power, but complementary in their use, I mean fire and water."
seems to me to have been discovered already. . . . He who understands medicine thus, waits for chance least of all, but would be successful with or without chance. The whole of medicine is well established and the finest of the theories it comprises appear to stand least in need of chance."[41]
On the Nature of Man , in particular, makes repeated claims to be able to demonstrate the theories it proposes.[42] While his opponents add to their speeches "evidences and proofs that amount to nothing,"[43] the author says that he will "produce evidences and declare the necessities through which each thing is increased or decreased in the body."[44] Yet his own positive evidences turn out to be very much of the same general type as theirs, even though their monistic conclusions are more extreme than his. He suggests that what influenced the monistic theorists he attacks was the observation that a certain substance may
[43] Nat.Hom. 1, CMG 1.1.3.164.14. His opponents in chap. 1 are monists who discourse about the nature of man beyond what is relevant to medicine and who claim that man is composed of air or water or fire or earth. In Nat.Hom. 2, CMG 1.1.3.166.12ff., he turns to attack monistic doctors who take blood, bile, or phlegm as the sole element of man. He has a general argument, against these, that if man were a unity he would never feel pain, since there would be nothing by which, being a unity, it could be hurt (Nat.Hom. 2, CMG 1.1.3.168.4f., with which compare Melissus fr. 7, para. 4). But against those who asserted that man consists of blood alone, for example, he demands that they should be able to show that there is a time of year or of human life when blood is obviously the sole constituent in the body (Nat.Hom. 2, CMG 1.1.3.168.9ff.).
[44] Nat.Hom. 2, CMG 1.1.3.170.6f.
be purged from the body when a man dies. In some cases where a patient dies from an overdose of a purgative drug he vomits bile, in others maybe phlegm, and the monists, seeing this, then concluded that the human body consists of this one thing.[45] But while destructively the author sets about demolishing monism with powerful dialectical arguments, constructively when he seeks to establish that the body consists of the four humours, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, his own chief argument too depends on the simple observation that all four are found in the excreta. This shows, to be sure, that all four are present in the body, but spectacularly fails to demonstrate that they are the elements of which it is composed.[46]
Alongside the frequent use of the vocabulary of evidence and proof, one of the key terms this author employs is necessity,
[45] Nat.Hom. 6, CMG 1.1.3.178.11–14.
[46] Nat.Hom. 5, CMG 1.1.3.176.10ff.; 6, CMG 1.1.3.180.2ff.; 7, CMG 1.1.3.182.12ff. In 5, CMG 1.1.3.178.5ff., he claims that the humours are congenital, on the grounds that they are present at every age and in both parents. Yet even if that were conceded, it would still not show that they are the chief, let alone that they are the sole elemental, constituents of the body.
[48] Nat.Hom. 3, CMG 1.1.3.170.8–9; cf. also 2, CMG 1.1.3.168.6.
[49] Nat.Hom. 3, CMG 1.1.3.172.2–3.
same chapter we find: "necessarily, each thing returns again to its own nature when the body of the man dies, the wet to the wet, the dry to the dry, the hot to the hot, the cold to the cold."[50] Chapter 4 argues that when the humours in the body are well mixed and in the right proportion, the body is healthy, but that pain occurs when one of them is in excess or defect or is separated off from the others. "Necessarily, when one of them is separated and stands by itself, not only the place from which it has come becomes diseased, but also that where it collects and streams together causes pain and distress."[51] Again in chapter 5, having suggested that blood, bile, and phlegm differ to sight, to touch, in temperature, and in humidity, he goes on: "necessarily, then, since they are so different from one another in appearance and power, they cannot be one, if fire and water are not one."[52]
Clearly, logical and physical, conceptual and causal, necessity are not here differentiated. Many instances represent a conflation of one or more ideas that we might distinguish. Often the underlying idea seems merely to be the claim that something is always or usually the case. At the limit, the addition of the term necessarily appears to reflect little more than the writer's desire to assert his point with emphasis.
Similar uses of the term
[50] Nat.Hom. 3, CMG 1.1.3.172.5–8.
[51] Nat.Hom. 4, CMG 1.1.3.174.3–6, cf. also 174.9f.
[52] Nat.Hom. 5, CMG 1.1.3.176.8–9. Cf. also 7, CMG 1.1.3.186.3; 8, CMG 1.1.3.186.17ff., and from after the main physiological section of the treatise (chaps. 1–8), e.g., Nat.Hom. 10, CMG 1.1.3.192.10; 12, CMG 1.1.3.198.5, 200.3 and 8.
[53] See, e.g., De arte 5, CMG 1.1.12.2 and 6; Flat. 7, CMG 1.1.95.7; 10, CMG 1.1.98.16; Aff. 37 (L) 6.246.20; Morb. 1.3 (L) 6.144.4, 17, 4 (L) 6.146.6, 9, 12, 13, 8 (L) 6.156.2, 4, 22 (L) 6.184.4, 186.10, 24 (L) 6.190.1, 7, 25 (L) 6.192.2; Morb.Sacr. 8 (L) 6.376.6, 13 (L) 6.386.7, 14 (L) 6.388.6ff., 17 (L) 6.392.19; Carn. 19 (L) 8.614.16; Vict. 1.4 (L) 6.474.15, 1.7 (L) 6.480.11, 1.9 (L) 6.484.4, 1.30 (L) 6.504.19, 1.36 (L) 6.524.7, 2.37 (L) 6.528.4; 2.38 (L) 6.530.14, 532.7, 2.40 (L) 6.538.4ff., 3.68 (L) 6.598.8, 3.71 (L) 6.610.9.
including some which, as we shall see later, are otherwise remarkable for their undogmatic or anti-dogmatic traits. Examples could be given from Aphorisms ,[55]On Ancient Medicine ,[56]Wounds in the Head, On Joints , and On Fractures .[57] The treatise On Airs Waters Places , too, frequently presents as matters of necessity the correlations it proposes
[56] See, for example, VM 22, CMG 1.1.54.6–10 ("as for what produces flatulence and colic, it belongs to the hollow and broad parts, such as the stomach and chest, to produce noise and rumbling. For when a part is not completely full so as to be at rest, but instead undergoes changes and movements, necessarily these produce noise and clear signs of movement"), and cf., e.g., VM 19, CMG 1.1.50.7ff., in the writer's general statement about causation (cf. below, Chap. 6 n. 14).
[57] In the surgical treatises, among the types of consequences and connections that are sometimes presented as matters of necessity are (1) the real or assumed consequences of lesions, (2) real or assumed anatomical facts and their consequences, and (3) the consequences of treatments, especially of faulty treatments. As examples of (1) we may cite VC 4 (L) 3.196.1f. (if the bone in the head is fractured when wounded, then necessarily contusion occurs), and Art. 63 (L) 4.272.14ff. (the doctor must bear in mind that in certain severe dislocations of the bones of the leg, when they project right through the ankle joint, the patient will necessarily be deformed and lame), and cf., e.g., VC 7 (L) 3.204.8f., 11 (L) 3.220.7f., 15 (L) 3.244.1ff.; Art. 13 (L) 4.116.23ff., 38 (L) 4.168.9f. As examples of (2): Fract. 3 (L) 3.424.10ff. (bending of a fractured arm necessarily causes a change in the position of the muscles and bones) and Art. 47 (L) 4.200.15ff. (in curvature of the spine one of the vertebrae necessarily appears to stand out more prominently than the rest) and cf.,e.g., Fract. 23 (L) 3.492.7ff. As an example of (3) we may cite Fract. 25 (L) 3.498.8ff., criticising bandaging that leaves the wound exposed ("the treatment, too, is itself evidence: for in a patient so bandaged the swelling necessarily arises in the wound itself, since if even healthy tissue were bandaged on this side and that, and a vacancy left in the middle, it would be especially at the vacant part that swelling and discoloration would occur. How then could a wound fail to be affected in this way? For it necessarily follows that the wound is discoloured with everted edges, and has a watery discharge devoid of pus"), and cf., e.g., Art. 14 (L) 4.122.16ff., Fract. 7 (L) 3.442.7ff., 16 (L) 3.476.11ff., 34 (L) 3.536.9ff.
between the aspect of a city and the character of its water, or between both of those and the constitutions and endemic diseases of the inhabitants, or even between the political constitution and the character of the people. We may again illustrate very selectively from the rich fund of examples.
Thus we are told that in a city sheltered from the northerly winds but exposed to warm prevailing southerly ones, the water is "necessarily plentiful, brackish, surface water, warm in the summer and cold in the winter,"[58] while in a city that faces the risings of the sun, the water is "necessarily clear, sweet-smelling, soft, and pleasant,"[59] As for the effects of waters of different types, the writer states, for instance, that "stagnant, standing, marshy water is in summer necessarily warm, thick, and of an unpleasant smell, because it does not flow. But by continually being fed by the rains and evaporated by the sun it is necessarily discoloured, harmful, and productive of biliousness."[60] Dealing with physical constitutions and endemic diseases, the writer claims, for instance, that in northerly-facing cities that generally have hard, cold water, the inhabitants are "necessarily vigorous and lean."[61] Pleurisies and acute diseases are common, "for this is necessarily the case when bellies are hard."[62] Correlating the character and changes of the seasons with the diseases to be expected in them, the writer says:
[58] Aër. 3, CMG 1.1.2.26.23ff., 28.2f.
[59] Aër. 5, CMG 1.1.2.32.10ff., 13ff.
[60] Aër. 7, CMG 1.1.2.34.19–23, cf. also 36.25, 38.7f.; and 9, CMG 1.1.2.44.15f., 20f.
[61] Aër. 4, CMG 1.1.2.30.4.
[62] Aër. 4, CMG 1.1.2.30.8f., cf. 12f.; and 6, CMG 1.1.2.34.1f.
"If the winter be dry, with northerly winds prevailing and the spring wet, with southerly winds, the summer will necessarily be feverish and productive of ophthalmia."[63] Finally, correlating political constitutions and characters, the second half of the treatise suggests, for example, that "where men are ruled by kings, there necessarily they are most cowardly. . . . For their souls are enslaved and they are unwilling to run risks heedlessly for the sake of another's power."[64]
Even though other generalisations in this treatise are quite often explicitly qualified as holding only "for the most part" or just as being "likely,"
[64] Aër. 23, CMG 1.1.2.78.3–5; cf. 16, CMG 1.1.2.62.20ff. Physiological and pathological correlations claimed as necessary also occur in the second part of the treatise, e.g., Aër. 19, CMG 1.1.2.68.15ff., and 24, CMG 1.1.2.80.3ff.
[65] See, for example, from the first part of the treatise, Aër. 3, CMG 1.1.2.28.5f.; 4, CMG 1.1.2.30.3, 7, 18, and from the second, Aër. 14, CMG 1.1.2.58.23; 24, CMG 1.1.2.78.15.
[66] As, for example, in the texts from Aër. 7, CMG 1.1.2.34.19ff.; 4, CMG 1.1.2.30.12f; and 10, CMG 1.1.2.46.22ff., quoted at notes 60, 62, and 63 above.
Uncertainty
In diagnosis and therapeutics, in pathology, anatomy, and physiology, the overwhelming impression created by a very considerable body of texts in a wide variety of Hippocratic works is one of their authors overstating their cases, representing as incontestable assertions for which their ground were—and must even have seemed to many of their own contemporaries to have been—tenuous or nonexistent. Yet that is only one side of the picture. Alongside the dogmatic tendencies I have illustrated—sometimes, indeed in the very same treatises—there are signs of tentativeness and caution, a readiness to admit to doubts and to mistakes, a recognition of the rashness of unsupported claims, explicit qualifications concerning how far a general rule applies or about the limits of the writer's own firsthand knowledge, and statements insisting on the inexactness of the whole of medical practice.[67] In some cases, where, for example, the healer deliberately records his own errors, we are dealing with what appears to be—to judge from the extant remains of ancient medical literature, non-Greek as well as Greek—a quite unprecedented phenomenon.
We have noted before that criticisms of current medical practice are common in certain works,[68] but a critical attitude towards the mistakes of colleagues is of course quite compatible with and often accompanies overconfidence about the correctness of one's own ideas and procedures. In some Hippocratic texts, however, the author explicitly acknowledges that he was himself mistaken. Thus in Epidemics 5.27, which describes the case of one Autonomus who suffered from a wound in the head, the writer remarks: "It escaped my notice that he needed trepanning. The sutures which bore on themselves the lesion made by the weapon deceived my judgement, for afterwards it became
[68] See above, Chap. 2 at nn. 59ff. and n. 78.
apparent."[69] The following chapter refers to the case of a young girl who was also wounded in the head, where trepanning was recognised to be indicated and was in fact carried out, but in this case, the writer says, not enough of the bone was removed.[70] The next two chapters describe two further cases where cauterisation was undertaken too late—in one case, we are told, thirty days too late—and both patients died.[71]
The author (or authors) of the surgical treatise On Joints not only describes some of his own mistakes but specifically notes that one such report is included so that others may learn from his own experience. Chapter 47 remarks on the difficulty of reducing humpback. "For my part . . . I know of no better or more correct modes of reduction than these. For straight-line extension on the spine itself, from below, at the so-called sacrum, gets no grip; from above, at the neck and head, it gets a grip indeed, but extension made here looks unseemly, and would also cause harm if carried to excess."[72] He then proceeds:
I once tried to make extension with the patient on his back, and after putting an uninflated wineskin under the hump, then tried to blow air into the skin with a smith's bellows. But my attempt was not a success, for when I got the man well stretched, the skin collapsed, and air could
[70] Epid. 5.28 (L) 5.226.17ff.
[71] Epid. 5.29 (L) 5.228.5ff., and 30 (L) 5.228.10ff.
not be forced into it; it also kept slipping round at any attempt to bring the patient's hump and the convexity of the blown-up skin forcibly together; while when I made no great extension of the patient, but got the skin well blown up, the man's back was hollowed as a whole rather than where it should have been. I relate this on purpose: for those things also give good instruction which after trial show themselves failures, and show why they failed.[73]
That the author and his colleagues were at a loss as to how to cure or even help a patient is often admitted in both the surgical works and the Epidemics. Epidemics 3 case 9 of the first series ends an account of a woman who suffered from an attack of ileus with the grim note: "it was impossible to do anything to help her; she died."[74] Case 5 of the second series remarks of a man who suffered from a sudden pain in the right thigh that "no treatment that he received did him any good."[75] Chapter 8 in the Constitution in this book comments more generally that there was little response to treatment and that purgatives did more harm than good,[76] and elsewhere writers in the Epidemics note that if
[74] Epid. 3 case 9 of the first series (L) 3.58.7f. Reporting of failures in clinical case-histories continues after the Hippocratic Epidemics . That Erasistratus' accounts of individual cases contained instances where the patient died is clear from the reports in Galen, e.g., (K) 11.200.1ff., 205.6ff., 206.5ff., 209.14ff., who exploits these failures for his own polemical purposes.
[75] Epid. 3 case 5 of the second series (L) 3.118.8.
the treatment had been different, a patient might have recovered or survived longer.[77]
On Joints , too, often refers to surgical cases where no remedy is possible[78] and repeatedly warns that the attempt to reduce certain intractable lesions does more harm than good.[79] Elsewhere the surgical writers explicitly say they do not know what to advise,[80] or withhold judgement.[81] The difficulties and dangers of treatment are mentioned also in other treatises, either in general terms, as in the famous first Aphorism ("life is short, art long, opportunity elusive, experience dangerous, judgement difficult"),[82] or in relation to particular remedies, as, for example, the administration of hellebore or the practice of cautery or that of venesection.[83]
Many works draw attention to the incurability of certain diseases, though the advice they offer differs. Some suggest that the doctor should at least do what he can to help,[84] but others warn or instruct
[78] Art. 48 (L) 4.212.17ff., 63 (L) 4.270.7ff.
[79] Art. 63 (L) 4.268.12ff., 64 (L) 4.274.8ff., 65 (L) 4.274.20ff., 66 (L) 4.276.12ff., 67 (L) 4.278.5ff.; cf. Fract. 35 (L) 3.536.13ff.; Mochl. 33 (L) 4.374.16f., 376.2f.; Aph. 6.38 (L) 4.572.5ff.
[80] E.g., Fract. 16 (L) 3.474.17.
[81] E.g., Art. 1 (L) 4.78.2 ff., 80.13f., 53 (L) 4.232.12ff.; and frequently in Epid. , e.g., 1.4 (L) 2.626.3ff. Cf. Praec. 8, CMG 1.1.33.5ff., which advises the doctor, when in difficulties, not to hesitate to consult others.
[82] Aph. 1.1 (L) 4.458.1f.
[83] See, for example, Aph. 4.16 (L) 4.506.9f., 5.31 (L) 4.542.12f., 6.27 (L) 4.570.3f., 7.45 (L) 4.590.4ff.; Acut. 11 (L) 2.306.9ff., 308.7ff., 316.6ff.; Art. 40 (L) 4.172.5ff., 69 (L) 4.284.8ff.; Fract. 25 (L) 3.496.15ff., 30 (L) 3.518.4ff., 31 (L) 3.524.19ff.; VC 21 (L) 3.256.11ff. (on the hazards of trepanning), and cf. Morb. 1.6 (L) 6.150.6ff., which sets out a whole list of errors in judgement or practice the doctor should avoid.
[84] See, for example, Art. 58 (L) 4.252.8ff.
him not to undertake such cases.[85]On Fractures 36, dealing with fractures of the femur and humerus, illustrates the dilemma the doctor sometimes faced. "One should especially avoid such cases if one has a respectable excuse, for the favourable chances are few and the risks many. Besides, if a man does not reduce the fracture he will be thought unskillful, while if he does reduce it he will bring the patient nearer to death than to recovery."[86] Yet if some of the Hippocratic writers register their unease on this topic, it is important to note that none recommends that those patients whom they cannot or will not treat should have recourse to other modes of healing: none suggests that the sick should turn to the cult of Asclepius,[87] let alone try their luck with the itinerant sellers of charms and purifications.
The theme of the inexactness of the medical art is a prominent one in several treatises and of particular interest for our inquiry. We shall be returning later to aspects of this in connection with the use of measurement.[88] Here we may simply note the recurrence of the motif in a variety of treatises. On Ancient Medicine , especially, develops the topic at some length. Exactness (
[87] That Morb.Sacr. 1 (L) 6.362.10ff. is not to be taken in that sense (despite Herzog 1931, p. 149) is, I believe, clear: see G. E. R. Lloyd 1979, p. 48 n. 209. On occasion, however, Vict. 4 recommends prayer to the gods: see above, Chap. 1 n. 111; cf. n. 112.
[88] See below, Chap. 5 at nn. 134ff.; cf. also at n. 187.
[89] VM 9, CMG 1.1.41.18ff.: the correct diet cannot be determined by reference to some number or weight: the only criterion is bodily feeling. Cf. below, Chap. 5 n. 136.
subject can be, and has been, made exact, but perfect exactness (
Other treatises, too, develop similar themes. On Diseases I, which presents a highly dogmatic general theory of diseases based on bile and phlegm,[92] states nevertheless that there is, in medicine, no
[92] See above, n. 36, on Morb. 1.2 (L) 6.142.13ff.
[94] Morb. 1.9 (L) 6.156.14ff.; with which compare De arte 4, CMG 1.1.11.5f.; Carn. 1 (L) 8.584.2ff.; and Diogenes of Apollonia fr. 1.
[95] Morb. 1.5 (L) 6.146.15ff., 148.15f.
time a patient will die, nor even whether this will be after a long or a short period."[96]
On the Places in Man , which asserts, as we saw, that the whole of medicine has been discovered already,[97] also observes that there is a good deal of variability in medicine[98] and remarks on the difficulties of determining the right moment for intervention.[99] Despite the ultradogmatic tone of the physiological and pathological theories in On Regimen ,[100] and despite the writer's claim that if one were present and could observe a man stripped and engaging in gymnastic exercises one could know just how to keep him healthy,[101] the third book of the treatise opens with a chapter that emphasises that it is not possible to set out exactly the proportions of food to exercise for men in general—because of their differences in constitution and age, and because of such other factors as the positions of cities, the changes in the winds, and the differences in foods, for example between one wheat and another.[102] No one, the writer says, has attained absolute exactness, though he claims he has got as close to this as is possible.[103] Even the sophistic piece On the Art , which makes, as we saw, extravagant claims for what medicine can achieve,[104] includes as part of its definition of medicine the refusal to treat cases "where the disease has al-
[97] See above, n. 41 on Loc.Hom. 46 (L) 6.342.4ff.
[98] Loc.Hom. 41 (L) 6.330.20ff.
[99] Loc.Hom. 44 (L) 6.338.6ff.
[100] See, for example, above, n. 39, on Vict. 1.3 (L) 6.472.12ff.
[102] Vict. 3.67 (L) 6.592.1ff.
[104] See above at nn. 27ff.
ready won the mastery"[105] and ends by noting that it would not be fair to expect medicine to tackle the quite intractable diseases or to be unfailing in its remedies in those cases.[106]
The Purposes of Self-Criticism in the Hippocratic Writers
The material we have surveyed obviously presents difficult problems of interpretation. What are we to make of the different modes and degrees of dogmatism and tentativeness shown in different contexts and sometimes within one and the same treatise, the contrast between the apparently unhesitating self-confidence expressed in some texts and the caution and doubt, the readiness to admit bafflement and error, in others? One possible suggestion might be that the contrast is to be associated with, and explained in part in terms of, the varying aims and audiences of the treatises in question.[107] Dogmatism and apparent self-confidence might be the stance adopted by those who addressed a lay public on general topics, whereas in treatises that represent the notebooks of working doctors and that were mainly directed to a professional audience of other practitioners, there would be a greater readiness to admit to hesitation or even to helplessness. Dogmatism would then be a tactic adopted in the context of a sophistic epideixis , often presented in a competitive situation where the winner was acclaimed by the audience of bystanders.[108] Confessions of uncertainty, on the other hand, would be limited to, or at least typical of, communications by and for practising medical men, and not for the general public.
[105] De arte 3, CMG 1.1.10.21f.
[106] De arte 13, CMG 1.1.19.4f., and cf. 8, CMG 1.1.14.1ff.
[107] The contrast between notebooks and treatises for public consumption is already a feature of ancient Hippocratic scholarship, though Galen, for instance, tends to refer to it, rather, to excuse certain loose expressions used in the notebooks: see, for example, CMG 5.10.2.2.19.5ff., 69.19ff., 75.25ff., 79.8, 80.16ff., 227.27ff., (K) 17A.822.16ff., 914.14ff., 922.3ff., 928.10f., 931.5ff., 17B.183.13ff.
[108] See above, Chap. 2, pp. 94ff. and n. 158, on Nat.Hom. 1, CMG 1.1.3.164.8ff., 166.2ff.
The importance of taking full account of the different audiences envisaged by the various types of writing extant in the Hippocratic Corpus needs no underlining. To elaborate some points from our discussion in Chapter 2: many suggestions that a medical man might make to his colleagues—and many ways in which he might wish to make them—would be totally inappropriate for a lay audience. This remains true, even though, as I stressed before, the lay/professional distinction was much less firm in ancient medicine than it is today, and there is ample evidence, from the fifth and fourth centuries, of an extended interest in medical topics—not just as a potential audience, but also as speakers and writers—among people who had no intention of actually engaging in medical practice. Plato would be one obvious example.[109]
Yet whatever features of this hypothesis we may wish eventually to retain, as stated it clearly will not do, for two main reasons. First we have seen that there are treatises (including some that are reasonably well-defined unities, not multi-author concoctions) that combine a certain dogmatism at some points with an apparent tentativeness at others. By itself this would not be surprising, for it might simply reflect the varying degrees of difficulty of the topics dealt with and the varying degrees of confidence of the authors in dealing with them.[110] Yet to that, in turn, it must be said that in several of the cases we have considered, principally from On Diseases 1, On the Places in Man, On Regimen , and On the Art , it could not be claimed that dogmatism is confined to elementary or straightforward topics on which the authors might, with some justification, feel on safe ground. We have only to recall the claim in On the Art that for diseases with visible signs, "in
[109] The theory of diseases presented at Ti. 81e ff. was taken sufficiently seriously to be excerpted at length in the history of medicine in Anonymus Londinensis 14.11ff., 17.11ff. Other theorists there reported on might also be used to illustrate the point, for example, Philolaus 18.8ff., and Philistion 20.25ff., and we have mentioned before the non-specialist, general interest in medicine shown by some sophists.
[110] This may well be the more likely explanation in the case of some of the material from the surgical treatises that we considered.
all cases the cures should be infallible" because they have been discovered. The combination of dogmatism and hesitancy in this and other works suggests a difficulty for any theory based on a clear-cut contrast between dogmatic treatises addressed to a general public and more cautious ones aimed at professional medical colleagues.
A second, more general objection to the hypothesis is that it is in danger of ignoring what most of the treatises we have considered have in common. Admittedly there are clearly identifiable differences between the two ends of what I referred to before as the spectrum represented by our extant texts—on the one hand the epideixis designed for public consumption, and on the other the almost exclusively technical notebooks. Yet there is a case for saying that, in their different ways and to different degrees, both types of production are exercises in persuasion.[111] That is obvious enough in the case of the sophistic epideixis . But even those writers who mainly had their fellow-practitioners in mind were also concerned to win their confidence, or at least to make sure that their own credentials were going to be recognised.
There is no reason to doubt the good faith of the author of the chapter in On Joints that sets out his own mistakes so that other practitioners may learn from them. At the same time we should not rule out the possibility that deliberate self-criticism may occasionally be motivated by a desire to suggest a mature experience in the art. Admittedly it seems paradoxical that confessions of failure should be used in order to inspire confidence. Yet for a medical writer to demonstrate that he is well aware of the dangers of overconfidence would have a salutary effect. It would reassure prospective clients that they were dealing with a man who would not rashly undertake risky treatments nor raise hopes of cure unjustifiably. And it would help to persuade professional colleagues that the author was a man of experience conscious of the complexity and limitations of the art.
There is an important contrast here, not just between the more ten-
[111] Some aspects of the relationship between rhetoric and Hippocratic medicine are discussed in G. E. R. Lloyd 1979, pp. 88ff.; cf. Kudlien 1974.
tative and the more dogmatic Hippocratic texts, but between the former and the claims for unqualified success that are characteristic of temple medicine. In the inscriptions set up in the shrine of Asclepius at Epidaurus it is 100 percent success that is recorded.[112] Some Hippocratic writers might well have wanted to dissociate themselves from the implicit claims to infallibility made in religious healing, even while other medical authors represented in the Corpus adopt a tone that rivals temple medicine in self-assurance.
The idea that self-criticism was sometimes deliberately deployed with such an intention cannot be confirmed directly. But it is perhaps suggestive that the main context in which an apparent tentativeness is expressed in certain treatises is in general remarks concerning the inexactness or variability of medicine, as in On Regimen 3 and On Diseases 1. It looks as if the explanation of these apparently mixed cases is neither that the authors are simply expressing a variety of attitudes on different topics, nor that they are merely inconsistent, nor yet that we are dealing with divergent material in composite works. Rather, it may be that even in otherwise dogmatic works, the inclusion of some indication of the inexactness of medicine had become, or was becoming, something of a convention or a commonplace.
If so, we should accept the apparent paradox. Dogmatism is clearly a stance frequently adopted to impress people, especially a lay audience, and especially on such questions as the origins of diseases in general or the constituents of the human body. Yet professions of uncertainty may also have a certain persuasive role, and while detailed accounts of failure in individual cases are confined to the more technical works that record actual clinical practice,[113] even more theoretical or philosophically oriented treatises occasionally include among their otherwise doctrinaire assertions a note to the effect that medi-
[112] See Herzog 1931.
[113] This is not just a matter of surgical practice, although surgery provides most of the more striking cases (cf. R. Joly 1980, pp. 287f.): some of the examples of recorded mistakes or faulty treatments in the Epidemics relate to general medicine, as for instance those at Epid. 5.18 (L) 5.218.2ff., and 5.31 (L) 5.228.14f., cited above in nn. 76f.
cine is not certain. With some authors it becomes part of the definition of medicine, and of its claim to be the art that it is, that it is inexact. The recognition that it cannot do everything is sometimes used as a genuine warning, but it is also sometimes used to bolster claims (and they might be extravagant claims) that it could do a very great deal. That certain diseases are incurable is sometimes not taken as a sign of the inadequacy of the art in its current state but is turned into part of the medical man's knowledge,[114] part of what the medical man can be said to know.
Dogmatism and Uncertainty in the Fourth Century and Later
The continuing interactions of dogmatism and uncertainty have farreaching repercussions in many areas of Greek science long after the fifth century B.C. This is not just a matter of tone or style but relates to a deep-seated epistemological conflict where what are at stake are the answers to fundamental questions concerning the status of scientific theories and the possibility of science itself. With a wealth of material to draw on from philosophers of science, mathematicians, natural philosophers, and medical writers, our discussion must be even more drastically selective than ever.
Plato and Aristotle
We may begin with two central issues in the philosophies of science of Plato and Aristotle. When Plato comes to discuss the generation of the physical world, in the Timaeus , he refers to this repeatedly as a "likely story,"
[114] Cf. De arte 3, CMG 1.1.10.19ff. (accepting Heiberg's text).
[115] Among more recent discussions of the Timaeus in particular should be noted those of Witte 1964, Schulz 1966, Gadamer 1974/1980, Zeyl 1975, Vlastos 1975a, Scheffel 1976. On the general issue of the imperfection of per-ceptible phenomena, the contributions of Cooper 1970, Nehamas 1972–73, 1975, 1982–83, and Burnyeat 1976 are fundamental. Cf. Irwin 1977. For what follows see also G. E. R. Lloyd 1968a and 1983b.
need not detain us long. The alternative expression,
Both the nature of the reservations Plato expresses and their scope need to be considered carefully. The fundamental ontological distinction that dictates the status of any account of the physical world is, of course, that between being and becoming. What comes to be, insofar as it comes to be, cannot be the object of certain knowledge. That is stressed at Ti. 27d5ff. and repeatedly in what follows. Yet in respect of
[117] A. E. Taylor 1928, e.g., pp. 59ff.; criticised by Cornford 1937, pp. 29f.
[118] Comparisons with the hypotheses of modern science are, then, liable to be misleading, at least insofar as they had better not be, in principle, beyond the reach of empirical support or refutation.
[119] Friedländer 1958–69, vol. 1, p. 251. Heisenberg himself occasionally referred in admiring terms to Plato's atomic theory, e.g., 1945/1952, p. 57, 1955/1958, pp. 59f.; cf. also Feyerabend 1981b, p. 84.
being itself no such reservation applies; on the contrary, concerning what is stable Timaeus makes the considerable demand that the accounts should "so far as possible" be irrefutable and unchangeable (or invincible) ones.[120] Whenever the cosmologist or the natural philosopher has to do with the intelligible model—the Forms—after which the visible cosmos is constructed, there should, in principle, be no falling short.[121]
Moreover, the claim in respect to the particular cosmological account set out in the Timaeus is that it is "inferior to none in likelihood."[122] The visible cosmos is not of course identical with the intelligible model. In the work of creation the Craftsman has to bring order into what is already in chaotic motion.[123] He has to contend with the factor Plato calls necessity or the wandering cause.[124] Yet he made the cosmos as like the model as he could. Four points are worth emphasising. First, the model the Craftsman uses is itself eternal and unchanging; the importance of this is spelled out at Ti. 28a ff., where the inferiority of any production based on a created model is stressed. Secondly, the product of his workmanship is good . The theme is a recurrent one and is given a triumphant climax in the final sentence of the Timaeus , where the likeness of the intelligible model is described as a perceptible god, greatest and best and fairest and most perfect.[125]
[123] Ti. 30a, 52d ff.
[124] Ti. 47e ff. Broadly, reason "persuades" necessity in the sense that the best ends are secured within the framework of the possibilities set by the inherent properties and characteristics of the material available.
Thirdly, what the Craftsman does is to bring order into precosmic chaos or disorder, an order that the natural philosopher, for his part, can and should study and discover.[126] Fourthly, the Craftsman's own work is indissoluble, even if that of the lesser divine Craftsmen does not share that characteristic.[127]
While the whole account of becoming is undercut as no more than a likely story, the particular grounds for hesitation expressed concerning particular items in the exposition vary. Timaeus baulks at a detailed discussion of planetary motion, for instance, in part for fear of making his account disproportionately long.[128] Length is again a factor mentioned when he draws back on the question of why the half-equilateral is the fairest of scalene triangles.[129] Here we are told that if someone is able to give a better account of the construction of the elementary bodies, his is the victory of a friend, not an enemy.[130] The longer account that Timaeus refers to, but does not give, would not necessarily be an end of the matter: "should anyone refute this and discover that it is not so, we do not grudge him the prize."[131] But that is certainly not to deny, but, rather, to assert, that the problem might be advanced.
To be sure, elsewhere the deflation of the value and importance of parts, at least, of the exercise is underlined, as, for example, at Ti. 59c–d when Timaeus speaks of probable accounts of becoming as a "moderate and intelligent pastime" undertaken "for the sake of recreation,"[132] where the particular problems he is about to tackle concern the varieties and compounds of the simple bodies. Again at 68b–d we are told that to try to state the different proportions of the constituents that go to make up particular colours would be to betray an ignorance
[127] Ti. 41a–b.
[128] See Ti. 38d–e, and cf. 40c–d, which refers to the pointlessness of a discussion of planetary motion without visible models to consult.
[129] Ti. 54a–b.
[130] Ti. 54a.
of the difference between God's nature and man's, for on that question not even a probable account is possible.[133]
To take stock on the chief issues that concern us here, the first and most obvious contrast between Plato and most of his predecessors relates to the explicitness with which he confronts the question of the status of any account of the natural world. Secondly, on many topics on which both the pre-Socratic natural philosophers and many medical theorists had tended to express themselves dogmatically, implicitly making unqualified claims for the correctness of their assertions, Plato states his reservations, both general and particular, about the possibility of attaining certainty. But if in principle and in practice he is undeniably an anti-dogmatist on many questions in physics and cosmology, we should not underestimate the dogmatic elements that remain. If certainty is not possible concerning becoming, it is demanded "so far as possible" for being, including the intelligible order the divine Craftsman uses as his model. Above all, the issue of the goodness of the created world and of its creator is not a matter of doubt. In the Timaeus we are merely told that it would be impious to deny this,[134] but in the Laws Plato was to treat those who denied that the world is the product of benevolent, rational order as a threat to the state he there describes and, as such, subject to sanctions of formidable severity, including death, if they do not modify their views.[135] Teleology especially is not negotiable.
By insisting that physics deals with what is true "for the most part"[136] as well as with what is true "always" Aristotle drew a distinc-
[133] Ti. 68b and 68d. When, in the latter text, Timaeus says that no test is possible for us, since god alone is able to mix the many into one and again to dissolve the one into the many, whereas no man is or ever will be capable of doing either of these, the blending in question appears to be not a matter of mixing pigments, but one of combining fundamental atomic particles. Yet the expression is unclear, and Plato certainly does not distinguish as carefully as he might between the two types of blending, leaving it possible to read Timaeus' remarks as suggesting that one cannot even hope to discover which pigments added to which give which compound colours.
[134] Ti. 29a.
[135] See Lg. 889a ff., 896d, 897b–c, 907d ff., and cf. also Phlb. 28d–e.
tion that marks his distance from Plato. Yet that very distinction points to a well-known crux in his thought, one that relates, broadly, to the tension between the demand for scientific theories to be certain and an appreciation that not everything in science is or can be. On the one hand Aristotle insists, in the Posterior Analytics , that
Yet—an obvious question—how can a study that deals with what is true only "for the most part" conceivably be a science or yield episteme as Aristotle defines it? At least, if "for the most part" is interpreted in a statistical sense (more than half, but not all), then syllogisms that have both premises true "for the most part" will not yield conclusions that hold "for the most part," let alone universally. If most B's are A, and most C's are B, it will not follow that most C's are A; it will not follow that any are. Moreover, when only one premise is true for the most part, the other universally, they will not necessarily combine to give a conclusion that is true "for the most part." "Most B's are A" and "all C's are B" together do not yield "most C's are A." And when the
[138] See APo. 1.2.71b20ff., and 1.4.73a21ff.
[139] The most famous examples of this come in his discussion of the reproduction of bees, where he states, among other things, that the facts, or what occurs, have not been sufficiently ascertained (De Generatione Animalium, GA , 760b27ff.), and on the question of the number of celestial spheres needed to account for the motions of the sun, moon, and planets (Metaph. 1073b10ff., 13ff.; cf. 1074a14ff.). Cf., e.g., Somn. Vig. 454b21ff., Resp. 476a5ff., GA 721a1f., 14ff., 741a34ff., 746b4ff., 757b22f., 762a33ff.
major premise is universal, the conclusion is again not "for the most part" if that is taken to exclude "universally": "all B's are A" and "most C's are B" together do not rule out "all C's are A."
In the light of the difficulties in Aristotle's opaque and elliptical discussions[140] it has been suggested that "for the most part" is not purely statistical but is used, rather, as a temporal operator (i.e., "not always") or as a quasi-modal operator ("not necessarily") or corresponds to some admittedly unanalysed notion of what holds "by nature."[141] Yet Aristotle himself, it must be said, nowhere elucidates the concept, nor does he explain how syllogisms incorporating propositions true "for the most part" meet the requirements laid down for understanding in the opening chapters of the Posterior Analytics , notably the requirement that it is of what cannot be otherwise than it is.
Some alleviation of the general problem is possible. The Posterior Analytics , it has been argued,[142] has primarily a pedagogic aim: it presents certain recommendations about how a mature science is to be taught, or at least about how to set out a body of theorems in good deductive order so that their connections are revealed and the explanations they incorporate are grasped as the explanations they are. Manifestly, Aristotle has very little to say, in this work, on the problems of discovery, about how scientific understanding is acquired in the first
[140] The chief texts in the Organon are in APr. 1.27, APo. 1.30 and 2.12. In APo. 1.30.87b19ff., Aristotle remarks that when, in syllogisms, the propositions are necessary, the conclusion is also necessary; when for the most part, the conclusion is also likewise—where "for the most part" is clearly contrasted with "necessary," 87b22–23—but the main aim of the chapter is to refute the notion that there is demonstrative knowledge of what happens by chance. At APo. 2.12.96a8–19, he stipulates that for the conclusion to be true "for the most part," as opposed to universally, the middle term must also hold "for the most part"—where this is contrasted with what holds universally, for all and always (96a15–16). However, the greatest difficulty for the statistical view is in APr. 1.27.43b33ff. There when the "problems" are "for the most part," the syllogisms consist of propositions that are—either all or some of them—"for the most part," and this appears to envisage the possibility of syllogisms with both premises true "for the most part."
[141] Apart from the perceptive remarks in J. Barnes' commentary on APo. , 1975 ad loc., see the full discussion in the elegant paper devoted to the topic by Mignucci 1981.
[142] Most forcefully, in recent times, by J. Barnes 1969/1975.
place.[143] At the same time, the examples he gives show that his discussion is not restricted to the already well-established disciplines such as mathematics and the exact sciences. Although most of his illustrations are drawn from such fields, a fair number, particularly in the second book, relate to zoological or botanical questions.[144] Presumably he has in mind an ideal that these studies can eventually attain, for certainly they had not done so in his day.[145] Yet for that ideal to be realised, either we have to imagine that the studies as set out will deal solely with universal and necessary propositions, or the difficulties in extending the schema to cover propositions true only "for the most part" have to be resolved—with corresponding modifications, no doubt, to the ideal itself.[146]
The value of the model in the Posterior Analytics as a model of demonstration, however, remains. If we recall the complex and confused uses of the terms for necessity and demonstration in the Hippocratic writers, we can see the advances made.[147] Aristotle stipulates precisely
[144] See, for example, APo. 98a35ff., 99a23ff., b4ff.; cf. J. Barnes 1969/1975, pp. 70ff.
[145] This is not to deny that connections can be found between the recommendations of the Posterior Analytics and the actual practice of the zoological treatises. Lennox 1987, for instance, has recently drawn attention to the concern, in the latter, to establish the widest class of which a character is true (cf. APo. 1.4.73b26ff. and 5.74a4ff.): cf. also Pellegrin 1986. But neither of these studies tackles the problems raised by physics dealing with what is true "for the most part."
[146] At APo. 94a36ff., in his discussion of the different types of causes that may serve as middle terms, Aristotle even gives an example of a historical explanation to illustrate the efficient cause. Moreover, this is one that involves reference to a singular term (the Athenians' raid on Sardis, cited as provoking the Persian war) and so falls outside the scope of the theory of the syllogism set out in the Prior Analytics .
[147] See above at nn. 47–66. Aristotle himself notes at PA 639b21ff., cf. Metaph. 1015a20ff., both that many of his predecessors reduced their expla-nations to the necessary (by which he means that they took no account of the final cause) and that they failed to distinguish the senses of necessity. This is not to deny, of course, that certain distinctions continue to be ignored by Aristotle himself, as is clearly shown by Sorabji, 1980a, and cf. Waterlow 1982b.
what conditions have to be met to justify the claim that conclusions have been demonstrated. True premises and valid inference are not enough: the premises must be prior to and explanatory of the conclusions. In a sequence of demonstrations the ultimate starting-points (they comprise definitions, axioms, and hypotheses) must themselves be indemonstrable (on pain of an infinite regress) but known to be true.[148] Whatever other obscurities remain, necessity as logical consequence is now deployed with confidence, and we have a whole subtle discussion of necessity as a modal operator, even though, again, the precise interpretation of many points in Aristotle's treatment remains controversial.[149]
But the clarity of the model has been bought at a price in terms of the range of its applicability. In mathematics and the exact sciences there is little difficulty in fulfilling Aristotle's criteria: a body of theorems can be presented in systematic order and their derivation from a set of axioms and definitions made clear. Yet the situation is very different in the natural sciences, and not just for the reason already mentioned, that these deal with propositions some of which are true only "for the most part." For the model to be applicable here we have also to be able to answer the thorny question of the nature of the indemonstrable starting-points. Over and above the general regulative principles that govern all discourse—the laws of contradiction and of excluded middle—what will count as axioms in zoology and botany, in meteorology or geology?[150] Can we envisage the definitions in such fields having the status of such starting-points?
[148] See APo. 72a5ff., cf. b18ff., 76a31ff.
[149] See especially Sorabji 1980a, and cf. Lear 1980, chap. 1.
[150] The dictum that "nature does nothing in vain" is often appealed to, in the zoological treatises especially, as the grounds for particular explanations, and it may be said to act as some kind of general regulative principle governing the zoologist's inquiry, one which must be accepted for that inquiry to be fruitful and one that is chiefly to be justified by the results obtained by its use. On the other hand, it is unlike both the laws of excluded middle and contradic-tion, and the particular mathematical axioms that Aristotle mentions (such as the equality axiom that if equals are taken from equals, equals remain: e.g., APo. 76a41). No attempt is or can be made to prove the latter, while the former are to be supported by what he calls an "elenctic demonstration" (Metaph. 1006a11ff., 15ff.), which proceeds by pressing any opponent who would deny them to signify something, to himself or to another (cf. Lear 1980, pp. 98ff.). Clearly, opposition to the dictum that nature does nothing in vain cannot be dealt with in that way. Rather, we have several serious attempts to discuss the consequences of its denial, notably in Ph. 2.8.198b10ff. and PA 1.1, especially 640a18ff., even if in the body of the physical treatises it is thereafter generally assumed—as Aristotle may hold it has to be, for progress to be made in scientific inquiry.
Definitions and demonstrations are, as Aristotle points out in his acute if often problematic discussions of their interrelations in the Posterior Analytics ,[151] crucially interdependent. Take first one of his astronomical examples. Lunar eclipse is not just any loss of light that the moon suffers (a cloud obscuring it will not count), but loss of light due to the interposition of the earth. But if you ask for the explanation, you will receive the information packed into the full definition. Why does it suffer eclipse? Because the earth intervenes.[152] Similarly, in one of the botanical examples alluded to:[153] deciduousness is not just any
[151] See APo. 75b30ff., 2.8, 93a14ff., 10, 93b29ff., 94a11ff. Aristotle recognises that before we are in a position to give a definitive definition we sometimes have some grasp of the subject inquired into (93a21ff., 29ff.), as well as some understanding of the meaning of the term (93b29ff.), though these points do not receive much elaboration in his discussion. See R. Bolton 1976, Ackrill 1981.
loss of leaf that a tree suffers (if it is diseased and drops its leaves, that will not count), but loss of leaf from the coagulation of the fluid or sap at the junction of the leaf-stalk. The fully fledged syllogism that sets out why broad-leaved trees are deciduous might run: all trees that have sap that coagulates are deciduous; all broad-leaved trees have sap that coagulates; so all broad-leaved trees are deciduous. This syllogism meets the criterion for a demonstration, for the conclusion is drawn through a middle term that is explanatory. But everything depends, evidently, on the truth of the definition.
From this point of view, all that the theory of demonstration does is to provide a set of rules for the proper articulation of propositions in such a way as to reveal the explanations as the explanations they are. But for the botanist in the field, obviously the chief task is the acquisition of the knowledge, not its articulation. As Aristotle's own practice in, for example, the zoological treatises shows, he is generally far short of being able to resolve the main problems he raises by demonstrations containing explanations proceeding from incontrovertible starting-points.
But whatever tensions remain between his theory and his practice, Aristotle did, as we said, transform the understanding of demonstration, and whatever the limitations of his model in other fields, the possibility of its application to mathematics and the exact sciences was clear. His formal logic differs in several fundamental respects from Euclid's practice in the systematic presentation of a body of geometrical theorems in the Elements.[154] In particular, Euclid's arguments are not syllogistic, and attempts to recast them in syllogistic form reveal the artificiality of that exercise.[155] Yet what Aristotle's theory and Euclid's practice have in common is the conception of demonstration proceeding by rigorous deductive argument from indemonstrable
[154] The problem of the relationship between Euclid's postulates and Aristotle's axioms has been much discussed, e.g., by Scholz 1930/1975, H. D. P. Lee 1935, Einarson 1936, von Fritz 1955/1971, Berka 1963, I. Mueller 1969, Gómez-Lobo 1976–77, Hintikka 1981, Leszl 1981.
[155] See, for example, Corcoran 1973, R. Smith 1978, Novak 1978, and especially I. Mueller 1969, 1974, and 1981.
axiomatic starting-points. Here, one may say, was a new style of wisdom indeed. Moreover, the ideal thus jointly derived (very roughly speaking) from Aristotle and Euclid was to prove enormously influential[156] and well beyond the exact sciences.[157] Physical scientists and medical writers too often advocated demonstration more geometrico and in some unlikely contexts. Just what will count as the indemonstrable premises in element theory and meteorology, in physiology, embryology, and pathology, a difficulty already in Aristotle, does not become much clearer later in those such as Galen who also hankered after deductive certainty.[158]
[156] Although the incontrovertibility of mathematical arguments was their pride, the insistence on rigorous deductive proof had certain inhibiting consequences within Greek mathematics itself. The best-known and most obvious illustration of this comes with Archimedes' comments on his own mechanical method, based on a notion of indivisibles, in his Method , (HS) 2.428.18ff., 438.16ff. In this a plane figure whose area is to be determined is thought of as composed of a set of parallel lines indefinitely close together, balanced against corresponding lines of the same length in a figure of known area: thus the desired area can be found in terms of the known one. Archimedes remarks explicitly that this is not a method of proof, only one of discovery: its results have thereafter to be proved strictly, using reductio and the method of exhaustion. The method remained unexploited by later Greek mathematicians, in part, no doubt, because this treatise itself was not generally known. Yet that is not the whole story, since some of the theorems in On the Quadrature of the Parabola implicitly depend on a similar method. An additional, more substantial factor may lie in the reluctance on the part of Greek mathematicians of any period to rely on informal methods. It is in this respect that the contrast between Greek mathematics and the mathematics of Cavalieri and others in the seventeenth century is most marked. On the Archimedean method, see, for example, Knorr 1981 and 1982a, who argues that the difficulty lay with its application of mechanical ideas rather than with its use of indivisibles, and who remarks, 1981, pp. 174ff., on the inhibiting influence of the insistence on formal procedures.
[157] Even in the exact sciences in antiquity, however, axiomatisation is generally incomplete judged by modern standards: cf. further below, Chap. 5 n. 111.
[158] Galen's own treatise On Demonstration , in fifteen books, is not extant, but even while he recognises the stochastic elements in medicine, references to the ideal of geometrical method and attempts to deploy it recur throughout his work. There is now a very full discussion of this aspect of Galen's methodology in J. Barnes (forthcoming). For the fragments of the work On Demonstration see I. von Müller 1897.
Nevertheless, one strand of a dogmatic tradition thereby attained a measure of philosophical respectability in the wake of the development of the theory of demonstration and of its practice in the mathematical sciences, and one clear benefit from this was a greater awareness of the questions of the formal analysis and validity of arguments—though Stoic logic takes as much of the credit for this as Aristotle's.[159] Yet over against that tradition, the recognition of the dangers of dogmatism, and a certain tentativeness and open-mindedness, can also be amply exemplified in some of Aristotle's successors, as they can in Aristotle himself. We may turn first to Theophrastus and to two works in the Aristotelian Corpus that are in the main the products of the Lyceum—the Problemata and the Mechanics —for excellent illustrations of the continuing tension between the dogmatic and the tentative.
Theophrastus
In a wide variety of contexts Theophrastus engages in a far-reaching examination of many of the fundamental assumptions on which natural scientific inquiry had been based, including in particular many Aristotelian positions, though in his criticism of these Theophrastus often elaborates points to which Aristotle himself had drawn attention. The short treatise Metaphysics , for instance, mainly consists of a review of difficulties—and certainly not just in Aristotle. Thus although Theophrastus accepts Aristotle's notion that the ultimate source of movement in the universe must itself be an un moved mover that acts as an object of desire, the nature of the impulse it imparts requires, he says, more discussion. The heavenly bodies so moved are a plurality, and their motions are complex and opposed to one another.
For if that which imparts movement is one, it is strange that it does not move all the bodies with the same motion; and if [alternatively] that
[159] See M. Frede 1974. The fact that Galen, who is in general no friend of the Stoics, uses Stoic propositional logic freely is good evidence of its wide-spread influence: see, for instance, the examples commented on by Furley and Wilkie 1984, pp. 53, 258f., 265f.
which imparts movement is different for each moving body and the sources of movement are more than one, then their harmony as they move in the direction of the best desire is by no means obvious. And the matter of the number of the spheres demands a fuller discussion of the reason for it; for the astronomers' account is not adequate. It is hard to see, too, how it can be that, though the heavenly bodies have a natural desire, they pursue not rest but motion.[160]
Developing points that were in most cases anticipated by Aristotle himself,[161] Theophrastus later raises questions concerning the limits of teleological explanation. "With regard to the view that all things are for the sake of an end and nothing is in vain," he says, "the assignation of ends is in general not easy . . . , and in particular some things are difficult because they do not seem to be for the sake of an end but to occur, some of them, by coincidence, and others, by some necessity, as in the case both of celestial and of most terrestrial things."[162] What purpose, he asks, do changes in sea level serve, or breasts in male animals? Some things—his example is outsize horns in deer—are even
[161] Lennox 1985 and Vallance forthcoming now provide careful studies of Theophrastus' critique of earlier views on the issue of teleology in Metaph. chap. 9. In the final analysis, as Vallance argues, Theophrastus' own position has more in common with that of Aristotle than with extreme positions on either side of him, that is, with either the out-and-out anti-teleologists, on the one hand, or, on the other, those who failed to recognise any limits at all to teleological explanation (which Aristotle certainly did). (Those explicitly named in this chapter include Speusippus, Plato, and the Pythagoreans, 11a23, 27.) At the same time Theophrastus focuses critically on some examples found in Aristotle (such as the position of the windpipe, 11a9ff.; cf. Aristotle PA 665a9–26) and is concerned to spell out more explicitly than Aristotle had done that teleological explanation is not applicable in many cases.
harmful to the animals that possess them.[163] There is even a certain plausibility in the view that many things come about spontaneously and "by the rotation of the universe."[164] "If they have no purpose, we must set certain limits to the final cause and to the tendency towards what is best, and not assume it absolutely in every case. . . . For even if this is the desire of nature, it is clear that there is much that does not obey nor receive the good."[165] He is confident in rejecting the view that good is rare and that evil predominates in the universe, but he ends his catalogue of problems with: "but at any rate these are the questions we must inquire into."[166]
A similar searchingly aporetic tone characterises his discussion not just of high-level metaphysical and methodological issues, but also of several particular physical problems. Take, for example, his treatment of the nature of fire. In the treatise devoted to that question he raises a series of difficulties connected with the idea that fire is a simple body, like earth, water, or air. "Of the simple bodies," he begins, "the nature of fire has the most special powers."[167] None of the other simple bodies can generate itself, but fire can do so. Most of the ways it comes to be, whether natural or artificial, appear to involve force. Even if that is not the case (he corrects himself) yet "at least this much is clear: fire has many modes of coming-to-be, none of which belong to the other simple bodies."[168] The most important difference, he proceeds, is that the other simple bodies are self-subsistent and do not require a substratum, whereas fire does, "at least so far as is clear to our percep-
[163] Metaph. 10a28ff., b11ff. That the reference to "incursions" and "refluxes" of the sea at 10a28ff. is more probably one to changes in the general level of the sea, rather than to tides, has recently been argued by Vallance forthcoming.
[164] Metaph. 10b26ff.
[166] Metaph. 11b24.
[168] Ign. 1.3.1ff., 2.3.12ff.
tion."[169] "In sum, everything that burns is always as it were in a process of coming-to-be, like movement,[170] and so it perishes, in a way, as it comes to be and as soon as what is combustible is lacking it too itself perishes."[171] "Hence it seems absurd to call this a primary [substance] and as it were a principle, if it cannot exist without matter"—that is, the fuel.[172]
By the end of the treatise he has exposed many of the weaknesses in common Greek assumptions about fire and has questioned the too easy assimilation of fire to the other so-called simple bodies. Yet he has clearly not abandoned that notion entirely. His dilemma is evident: he recognises many of the fundamental difficulties; he realises that many issues require further investigation and his parting remark, at the end of the work,[173] is to promise a more exact discussion of some topics on another occasion. Yet he has no new constructive element theory to propose, nor does he answer the question of the nature of fire that he set himself, beyond stressing the diversity of its forms and examining some of these.
A second instructive example that illustrates both his acute perception of weaknesses in widespread assumptions and also some of the difficulties he experienced in pressing home his critique comes from his botany, from his discussion of spontaneous generation. This is mentioned in the Inquiry concerning Plants as the first of the ways in which plants and trees may come to be.[174] In the Causes he begins his
[173] Ign. 76.51.3f.
discussion: "Spontaneous generation, broadly speaking, takes place in smaller plants, especially in those that are annuals and herbaceous. But still it occasionally occurs too in larger plants whenever there is rainy weather or some peculiar condition of air or soil. . . . Many believe that animals also come into being in the same way."[175] Yet having thus apparently endorsed the common view, he goes on to introduce reservations:
But if, in truth, the air also supplies seeds, picking them up and carrying them about, as Anaxagoras says, then this fact is much more likely to be the explanation. . . . Moreover, rivers and the gathering together and breaking forth of waters purvey seed from everywhere. . . . Such growths would not appear spontaneous, but, rather, as sown or planted. Of the sterile sorts, one might, rather, expect them to be spontaneous, as they are neither planted nor grown from seed, and if they come to be in neither way, they must necessarily be spontaneous. But this may possibly not be true, at least for the larger plants; it may be, rather, that all the stages of development of their seeds escape our observation, just as was said in the Inquiry about willow and elm. Indeed, the development of seed escapes observation also in many of the smaller herbaceous plants, as we said about thyme and others, whose seeds are not evident to the eye, but evident in their effect, since the plant is produced by sowing the flowers. Further, in trees too some seeds are hard to see and small in size, as in the cypress. For here the seed is not the entire ball-shaped fruit, but
the thin and unsubstantial bran-like flake produced within it. It is these that flutter away when the balls split open. This is why an experienced person is needed to gather it, who has the ability to observe the proper season and recognize the seed itself.[176]
In many cases, therefore, propagation comes from unnoticed seed. The succession of trees in wild forests and in the mountains could not easily be maintained by spontaneous generation. "Instead there are two alternatives: to come from a root or from seed."[177] He notes that woodcutters report that among trees of the same kind some individual specimens are sterile. There is still a possibility that their seed passes unnoticed; alternatively, the trees become sterile because all their nourishment is used up on other parts. But if this can happen in individuals or kinds that can and do bear fruit, it may not be impossible for the same thing to happen in whole kinds. He concludes: "Let this be given merely as our opinion; more accurate investigation must be made of the subject and the matter of spontaneous generation must be thoroughly inquired into. To sum the matter up generally: this phenomenon necessarily occurs when the earth is thoroughly warmed and when the
collected mixture is changed by the sun, as we see also in the case of animals."[178]
Once again, despite that "necessarily" in the final sentence, the tentativeness of his discussion, and his recognition of the difficulties of the subject, are clear. He is conscious of the need for more research, and his emphasis on the point is no mere lip-service to a theoretical ideal, but a plea for the continuation of his own work made in the realisation that it had already brought tangible results in the investigation of particular cases. Nevertheless, despite his demonstration that many instances of what had been taken to be spontaneous generation were not such, he ends by reaffirming his belief that the phenomenon must occur. This might look like a failure of nerve, but again the dilemma he faced is plain. To have asserted that there was seed in every case of believed spontaneous generation would, after all, have been to go well beyond the evidence available to him.
Although he takes over substantial sections of Aristotelian physics, the aporetic and anti-dogmatic tendencies in Theophrastus are surely impressive. Like Aristotle he often calls for further research, and like Aristotle he does so with the voice of extensive experience, not just in botany but in other fields. His challenge to accepted assumptions is no mere bluff, even if he ultimately endorses some of the theories that he subjects to blistering attack. Yet not to abandon those theories was surely right in the main, at least until a superior alternative could be proposed. Rather, his exposure of the weaknesses of many key doctrines, combined with his tenacity in retaining them, illustrates the difficulty of suggesting such alternatives and the impasse in which even sustained critical inquiry found itself in many areas of physics in the fourth century B.C.[179]
Question-Posing in the Peripatetic Tradition
The question-posing style of discussion is widely developed in other works emanating from the Lyceum, whether or not this reflects the direct influence of Aristotle and Theophrastus themselves. The extant Problemata is not authentic, though we know that Aristotle wrote a treatise of that name.[180] The work we have in the Aristotelian Corpus consists of thirty-eight books of "problems" not just on natural philosophical topics ranging from mathematics and music theory to medicine and biology, but also on questions of character and ethical issues. The collection as a whole displays a highly developed, even obsessive, curiosity, even if this is often directed at trivial issues or problems with little prospect of resolution—as when, in the book on justice, for instance, the writer puzzles over why wealth is more often found in the hands of the wicked than the good,[181] or when, in the book on sympathetic action, he asks why yawning is caused by the sight of others yawning.[182] Elsewhere, however, the problems are sometimes more suggestive, as when such questions are raised as why the ears of divers burst,[183] or why substances kept in closely covered vessels remain free from putrefaction,[184] or why the plague alone of diseases infects especially those who associate with the patients.[185]
[180] See Flashar 1962, pp. 316ff., 356ff. Parts of the Problemata we have evidently draw directly on, or may simply record, Theophrastus' accounts of similar problems: see, for example, Regenbogen 1940, cols. 1559f.; Müri 1953, pp. 21ff.
[181] Pr. 29.8.950b36ff.
[182] Pr. 7.6.887a4ff.
[183] Pr. 32.2.960b8ff.
[184] Pr. 25.17.939b12ff.
[185] Pr. 1.7.859b15ff; cf. 7.8.887a22ff., on which see Nutton 1983.
Each chapter begins with a "why?" question, and the answers proposed often take the form of a further question: is it that so and so,
[186] See above, p. 134.
[187] The much later scholastic use of the method of quaestiones et solutiones shows, if it needs showing, how discussions that begin with an air of tentativeness may take on a dogmatic character in the outcome.
[188] Aër. 10, CMG 1.1.2.46.22ff.; see above, n. 63, and cf. Aph. 3.11 (L) 4.490.2ff.
[190] Aër. 10, CMG 1.1.2.46.24ff.
Yet it would be a mistake to dismiss the whole question-posing approach as mere window-dressing, a superficial veneer masking what are essentially dogmatic attitudes. First, there are occasions when genuinely alternative answers are on offer. That so often none of those canvassed is very promising does not detract from this as evidence of a willingness to consider alternatives.[194] Secondly and more importantly, on some problems it is recognised that no finally satisfactory answer is forthcoming and the writer admits to being left with some at least of his original puzzlement.
Two of the most notable instances come not from the Problemata but from the Mechanics .[195] This too adopts a question-posing approach to the rather diverse mechanical problems it raises.[196] Chapter 33, for instance, wrestles with the question: "How is it that a body is carried along by a motion not its own, if that which started it does not keep following and pushing it along?"[197] Here the solution offered gets no further than a version of the idea that the impelling force continues to act via the medium.[198] Chapter 32 is more remarkable still, in that it ends in self-confessed failure: "Why is it that objects that are thrown
[192] In the plural at Pr. 860a3 and 4.
[193] Other texts in Pr. 1 may also be compared with Aër . Thus with Pr. 1.9.860a12ff., cf. Aër. 10, CMG 1.1.2.48.13ff.; with Pr. 1.10.860a35ff., cf. Aër. 10, CMG 1.1.2.50.21ff.; with Pr. 1.11.860b8ff., cf. Aër. 10, CMG 1.1.2.52.2ff.; with Pr. 1.12.860b15ff., cf. Aër. 10, CMG 1.1.2.52.4ff.
[194] See, for example, Pr. 1.13.860b26ff., 2.4.866b28ff.; Mechanica (Mech.) 34.858a23ff., 35.858b4ff.
[195] The Mechanics is generally thought to have been written by a member of the Lyceum, and some have favoured Strato's authorship.
[196] Thus 6.851a38ff. considers why it is that the higher the yardarm is raised, the quicker the vessel travels with the same sail and in the same breeze, and 21.854a16ff. asks why it is that dentists extract teeth more easily with tooth-extractors than with their bare hands.
[198] Cf. also Aristotle's hesitant discussions of this problem at Ph. 215a14ff. and 266b27ff., and cf. Furley 1976, p. 94.
eventually come to a standstill? Do they stop when the force which started them fails? Or because of being drawn in a contrary direction? Or is it due to the downward tendency, which is stronger than the force which threw them? Or is it absurd to discuss such questions, while the principle escapes us?"[199]
Schools of Medical Thought:
Dogmatism, Empiricism, Methodism
The texts we have considered illustrate some of the tensions between the dogmatic and the tentative, the speculative and the self-restrained, in post-Aristotelian natural philosophy. But in Hellenistic medicine, varieties of dogmatism and scepticism or anti-dogmatism are elevated into self-conscious methodologies. The so-called Dogmatic medical school
century B.C. ) and of Thessalus (first century A.D. )[201] —set themselves apart from those of their predecessors and contemporaries whom they represented as having certain methodological principles in common.
The evidence we have to rely on is in many cases indirect and much of it comes from critical or hostile sources. Empiricism, especially, is poorly represented by original texts,[202] and so too is Methodism until we come to Soranus in the second century A.D. Neither Celsus nor, more obviously, Galen is an impartial witness, and aspects of their reports are suspect as historical accounts.[203] On the other hand, both are, obviously, evidence for the currency of certain ideas at the time they wrote,[204] and we can analyse their interpretations of the debate even if we have to bear in mind that they are their interpretations and even if the evidence to confirm or refute what they attribute to some of the contending parties is often not available.
Celsus presents a particularly full picture of the alternatives as he saw them in the proem to the first book of his De medicina .[205] The chief issues, as he reports them, relate to the aims, limits, and methods of the medical art. Those grouped together as Dogmatists are represented as holding that medicine should investigate not only (1) the so-called evident causes (such as heat and cold considered as causes), but also (2) hidden or obscure ones, as well as (3) natural actions (such as breathing and digestion, in other words, physiology) and, finally, (4) internal anatomy.[206]
Of these four inquiries the Empiricists are said to accept only the first, that into evident causes, alone. The other three are not just superfluous but impossible, since "nature cannot be comprehended"; the
[201] Whether Themison and Thessalus are to be considered the founders or the forerunners of Methodism is disputed: see, for example, Edelstein 1935/1967a.
[202] The evidence is collected in Deichgräber 1930/1965.
[203] The point is given particular emphasis in Rubinstein 1985.
[204] Celsus wrote in the first century A.D. , Galen in the second.
[205] Med. 1 pr. 12ff., CML 1.19.4ff. Celsus sets out his own position in the dispute at 1 pr. 45ff., CML 1.24.24ff.; see Mudry 1982.
[206] Med. 1 pr. 13, CML 1.19.11ff.
doctor's task is to treat individual cases and for this purpose he must be guided by the manifest symptoms of the patient alone. Against the Dogmatists, the Empiricists rejected "reasoning" and accepted "experience" alone as the criterion. It is this that has suggested cures; it is from experience that medicine has been built up and on which it must continue to rely. It is not a discovery made following reasoning; rather, the discovery came first and the reason for it was sought afterwards. Moreover, where reasoning teaches the same as experience, it is unnecessary, and where different, it is opposed to experience and should be rejected.[207]
As Celsus makes the Empiricist argue:
It does not matter what produces the disease, but what relieves it. Nor does it matter how digestion takes place, but what is best digested—whether concoction comes about from this cause or that, and whether the process is concoction or merely digestion.[208] We have no need to inquire in what way we breathe, but what relieves laboured breathing; nor what may move the blood-vessels, but what the various kinds of movements signify. All this is to be learnt through experiences. In all theorising over a subject it is possible to argue on either side, and so cleverness and fluency may get the best of it. However it is not by eloquence, but by remedies, that diseases are treated. A man of few words who learns by practice to discern well would make an altogether better practitioner than he who, unpractised, overcultivates his tongue.[209]
[207] Med. 1 pr. 27f., 36, CML 1.22.1ff., 23.4ff. According to Celsus, the Empiricist response to the possibility, entertained by the Dogmatists, that new diseases may arise was still to insist that the practitioner should not attempt to theorise about causes, but see to which existing disease the condition is similar and try out remedies that had proved successful in such other similar cases.
[208] This appears to allude to the long-standing debate on the nature of digestion, where Herophilus, following Aristotle, argues that it involves "concoction," while Erasistratus and the Erasistrateans explain the process in purely mechanical terms, as the result of the trituration or pounding that the food is subjected to in the stomach before being absorbed, as chyle, into the blood-vessels communicating with the liver.
[209] Med. 1 pr. 38–39, CML 1.23.16–27: sed has latentium rerum coniecturas ad rem non pertinere, quia non intersit, quid morbum faciat, sed quid tollat; neque ad rem pertineat, quomodo, sed quid optime digeratur, siue hacde causa concoctio incidat siue illa, et siue concoctio sit illa siue tantum digestio. Neque quaerendum esse quomodo spiremus, sed quid grauem et tardum spiritum expediat; neque quid uenas moueat, sed quid quaeque motus genera significent. Haec autem cognosci experimentis. Et in omnibus eiusmodi cogitationibus utramque partem disseri posse; itaque ingenium et facundiam uincere, morbos autem non eloquentia sed remediis curari. Quae si quis elinguis usu discreta bene norit, hunc aliquanto maiorem medicum futurum, quam si sine usu linguam suam excoluerit .
Again, "even students of philosophy would have become the greatest medical practitioners, if reasoning could have made them so. But as it is, they have words in plenty, but no knowledge of healing at all."[210]
The third main medical group, the Methodists, had their own subtle and often rather maligned ideas about treatment,[211] but on the essential topic we are concerned with here they are represented by both Celsus and Galen as agreeing with many of the criticisms that the Empiricists brought against the Dogmatists, for example, about their theorising about hidden causes.[212] While Celsus reports the Empiricists as asserting that nature cannot be comprehended,[213] Sextus makes it
[210] Med. 1 pr. 29, CML 1.22.11–13: Etiam sapientiae studiosos maximos medicos esse, si ratiocinatio hoc faceret: nunc illis uerba superesse, deesse medendi scientiam . The rejection of the idea that medicine can be learnt from books has a long history. The Hippocratic surgical treatise Art . 33 (L) 4.148.13ff. refers to the difficulties of explaining surgical procedures, in particular, in writing, and cf. Plato Phdr. 268c, Aristotle EN 1181b2ff.
[211] The Methodist idea of the three common conditions, the constricted, the lax, and the mixed, came under particular attack. To the chagrin of Galen, especially, (e.g., Sect.Intr. 6, Scr.Min. [H] 3.15.2ff., [K] 1.83.1ff.), the Methodists were reputed to have claimed that medicine could be learnt in six months: cf. M. Frede 1982. The three common conditions were neither themselves disease entities nor causes of diseases, but generalisations about the state of the body that guided the practitioner in deciding upon treatment (seen as a matter of counteracting the lax with the constricted and vice versa). As we can see from Soranus (see G. E. R. Lloyd 1983a, pp. 182ff.) and from Caelius Aurelianus, not only in principle but also in practice Methodist pathology and therapeutics stayed a good deal closer to what was directly observable than rival theories and were a good deal simpler than they were.
[212] See Celsus Med. 1 pr. 57, CML 1.26.27f., cf. Galen Sect.Intr. 6, Scr.Min. (H) 3.13.21ff., 7.17.3ff., 18.1ff., (K) 1.81.6ff., 85.14ff., 86.17ff.
[213] Med. 1 pr. 27, CML 1.22.4, where Celsus makes this the grounds, for the Empiricists, of the claim that such an inquiry is superfluous (superuacuam ); cf. Sextus P. 1.236.
appear that the Methodists withheld judgement on that issue.[214] The inquiry into the obscure is to be rejected because it is useless, rather than (as the Empiricists are said to have held) impossible.[215] If that is correct, then the distinction between these two medical groups would in certain respects be analogous to that between some of the Academic sceptics and such Pyrrhonian sceptics as Sextus Empiricus himself, in that the former asserted that the nonevident cannot be grasped (and so in that respect were negative Dogmatists) while the latter withheld judgement on that issue.[216]
Both Empiricists and Methodists thus appear to have combined in a withering attack on the speculative tendencies that had, in fact, been highly developed in Greek medicine from the first—even while other early texts, as we saw, emphasised the difficulty and tentativeness of medicine, resisting the ambition to treat it as an exact science and representing it as a conjectural or stochastic art.[217] But faced with the inordinate array of pathological theories, based on humours, opposites, elements, the supposed disorders of the pneuma, the supposed blocking of the pores in the body, and so on,[218] both Empiricists and Methodists may have agreed in concentrating on the practical aims of medicine. The great strength of their positions, as these are reported, lay in
[215] See Galen Sect.Intr. 6, Scr.Min. (H) 3.14.14ff., (K) 1.82.6ff., and cf. Celsus Med. 1 pr. 57, CML 1.26.26ff.
[216] Cf. Edelstein 1935/1967a, pp. 186f. The interpretation of the position of the Academic sceptics is, however, much disputed: see, for example, Couissin 1929/1983, Striker 1974, 1980, Sedley 1983b, Burnyeat 1984.
[218] The disputes between rival positive pathological theories begun by the Hippocratic writers continue with Herophilus, Erasistratus, and Asclepiades, among many others. For Herophilus, see von Staden forthcoming; for Erasistratus, see especially Lonie 1964 and cf. Longrigg 1981. My colleague John Vallance is preparing a comprehensive edition of Asclepiades.
both cases in the focus on what had proved to be successful in experience, even though our secondary sources press the difficulties of the rejection of "reasoning"[219] and even though, no doubt, the interpretation of experience itself, and of the "appearances" to be relied on, may well have been more problematic than either group allowed.
Yet if the anti-dogmatic and anti-speculative tendencies in Greek medicine thereby reach their apotheosis, there was a price to pay. Both Empiricists and Methodists are said to have ruled out dissection and vivisection. In the latter case, human vivisection, as practised, according to Celsus,[220] by Herophilus and Erasistratus on criminals "received out of prison from the kings," was repudiated by most people, including Celsus, with disgust[221] —though Celsus mentions a Dogmatist justification in terms of the balance of advantage: the benefits accruing to "multitudes of innocent men of all future ages" justified the sacrifice of
[219] M. Frede 1982 has, however, recently argued strongly for the possibility, within Methodism, of the deployment of reason and even of theoretical beliefs, provided these are recognised as speculative.
[220] Med. 1 pr. 23–24, CML 1.21.15–21, which reports a Dogmatist view: longeque optime fecisse Herophilum et Erasistratum, qui nocentes homines a regibus ex carcere acceptos uiuos inciderint, considerarintque etiamnum spiritu remanente ea, quae natura ante clausisset, eorumque positum, colorem, figuram, magnitudinem, ordinem, duritiem, mollitiem, leuorem, contactum, processus deinde singulorum et recessus, et siue quid inseritur alteri, siue quid partem alterius in se recipit .
("Herophilus and Erasistratus proceeded in by far the best way: they cut open living men—criminals they obtained out of prison from the kings—and they observed, while their subjects still breathed, parts that nature had previously hidden, their position, colour, shape, size, arrangement, hardness, softness, smoothness, points of contact, and finally the processes and recesses of each and whether any part is inserted into another or receives the part of another into itself.")
[221] This is clear from Med. 1 pr. 26, CML 1.21.29f., where "most people" are said to hold human vivisection to be cruel (see next note), as well as from Celsus' own rejection at pr. 74f., CML 1.29.17–22, of vivisection: "to cut open the bodies of living men is both cruel and superfluous; to cut open the bodies of the dead is necessary for medical students. For they ought to know the position and arrangement of parts—which the dead body exhibits better than a wounded living subject. As for the rest, which can only be learnt from the living, experience will itself demonstrate it rather more slowly, but much more mildly, in the course of treating the wounded."
"only a small number of criminals."[222] But the Empiricists and Methodists are reported as rejecting human post mortem dissection as well, partly on the grounds that it is, if not cruel, at least nasty ( foedus ),[223] but partly also on the basis of the argument that what is observed in the dead is not relevant to the living, since on death the body is changed.[224]
The obscure not just in the sense of the theoretical or the speculative, but in the sense of what is literally hidden, cannot or need not be inquired into. So far as anatomy went, Celsus has this to add about the Empiricist position:
If, however, there be anything to be observed while a man is still breathing, chance often presents it to the view of those treating him. For sometimes a gladiator in the arena or a soldier in battle or a traveller who has been set upon by robbers is so wounded that some or other interior part is exposed in one man or another. Thus, they say, an observant practitioner learns to recognise site, position, arrangement, shape, and such-like, not when slaughtering, but while striving for health.[225]
Moreover, to judge from Soranus, the Methodists too showed a certain ambivalence on the question. Dissection is useless, Soranus says in the Gynaecology , but it is studied for the sake of "profound learning,"
[222] Med. 1 pr. 26, CML 1.21.29–32: Neque esse crudele, sicut plerique proponunt, hominum nocentium et horum quoque paucorum suppliciis remedia populis innocentibus saeculorum omnium quaeri . ("Nor is it cruel, as most people state, to seek remedies for multitudes of innocent men of all future ages by means of the sacrifice of only a small number of criminals.")
[223] Med. 1 pr. 44, CML 1.24.21f.
[224] On the ancient disputes over dissection, see further Manuli and Vegetti 1977, Vegetti 1979.
[225] Med. 1 pr. 43, CML 1.24.14–19: Si quid tamen sit, quod adhuc spirante homine conspectu subiciatur, id saepe casum offerre curantibus. Interdum enim gladiatorem in harena uel militem in acie uel uiatorem a latronibus exceptum sic uulnerari, ut eius interior aliqua pars aperiatur, et in alio alia; ita sedem, positum, ordinem, figuram, similiaque alia cognoscere prudentem medicum, non caedem sed sanitatem molientem .
it. "For we shall easily be believed when we say that dissection is useless, if we are first found to be acquainted with it, and we shall not arouse suspicion that we reject through ignorance something which is accepted as useful."[227]
Both Empiricists and Methodists thus went some way towards accommodating the findings of dissection. But both probably stopped well short of advocating the continued practice of the method. Here the rejection of dogmatism and speculation was also a rejection of new research. It was left to such a writer as Galen (who, even if he would himself have resisted the label, would certainly have been classed as a Dogmatist by his opponents)[228] to recommend the method. This he does in texts whose very eloquence and passion testify not just to Galen's personal commitment to the method but also to his sense of the need to come to its support against its detractors. In On Anatomical Procedures he sets out no fewer than four kinds of reasons for studying anatomy:
Anatomical study has one use for the natural scientist who loves knowledge for its own sake, another for him who values it not for its own sake but, rather, to demonstrate that nature does nothing without an aim, a third for one who provides himself from anatomy with data for inves-
[228] Cf. M. Frede 1981. It may, however, be noted that while Galen does not often admit making mistakes, he does sometimes do so. Thus in AA 14.7.214 Duckworth, he does so with regard to operations attempting to reveal the courses of certain nerves. There and elsewhere, when he acknowledges that he was at first unsuccessful in a surgical or anatomical operation, it is often to emphasise the need for practice and experience: cf. AA 7.10 (K) 2.621.12ff. (cf. also 3.2 [K] 2.348.14ff., 8.4 [K] 2.674.6ff.). On occasion, too, he admits to some hesitation on points of detail, for instance concerning the nerves of the brachial plexus at AA 15.6.254 (D.).
tigating a function, physical or mental, and yet another for the practitioner who has to remove splinters and missiles efficiently, to excise parts properly, or to treat ulcers, fistulae, and abscesses.[229]
Of these four, it is the last, the practical applications of dissection, that Galen chooses to emphasise here particularly, conducting, at this point, a war on two fronts. First he criticises many of those who practised dissection for concentrating on "that part of anatomy that is completely useless for physicians or that which gives them little or only occasional help," instancing the study of the heart and the bloodvessels communicating with it.[230]
The most useful part of the science of anatomy lies in just that exact study neglected by the professed experts. It would have been better to be ignorant of how many valves there are at each orifice of the heart, or how many vessels minister to it, or how or whence they come, or how the paired cranial nerves reach the brain, than [not to know] what muscles extend and flex the upper and lower arm and wrist, or thigh, leg and foot, or what muscles turn each of these laterally, . . . or where a great or a small vein or artery underlies them.[231]
Even the Empiricists, he proceeds, who "wrote whole books against anatomy," have to admit that such knowledge is necessary for physicians, but against the Empiricists in turn Galen pours out his critical scorn.[232] Castigating the Empiricist claim that the doctor can learn all the anatomy he needs from the inspection of external lesions he writes: "One might well wonder at their temerity, for since even those who have devoted much time to anatomy have failed to bring the study to perfection, one could scarcely learn it from the contemplation of wounds. Perched high on a throne, a man can say these things to his pupils without being able to instruct them in the actual practice of the art."[233] What is needed, he insists, is constant practice on many bodies, aided by the instruction he himself provides in his book.[234] The chief motivation for this study and the book itself is clear: "What could be more useful to the physician for the treatment of war-wounds, the extraction of weapons, the excision of bones . . . than to know accurately all the parts of the arms and legs. . . . If a man is ignorant of the position of a vital nerve, muscle, or important artery or vein, he is more likely to be responsible for the death, than for the saving, of his patients."[235]
Conclusions
The controversy over dissection serves to epitomise one dilemma that ancient science faced. Unrestrained or arbitrary speculation, such
[232] AA 2.3 (K) 2.288.15ff.
[234] AA 2.3 (K) 2.289.17ff.
as ran riot not just in medicine but in many other areas of the investigation of nature, led in time to a reaction, the rejection of theorising of any kind that went beyond the "appearances."[236] Where some Hippocratic writers had already rejected excessive claims for exactness and the use of arbitrary postulates, the Hellenistic medical schools evidently developed clearer and more powerful epistemologies that drew on the traditions of sceptical philosophy. Yet though the sceptic was an inquirer,[237] his insistence on the need to withhold judgement and on the idea that it is either impossible or useless to seek to comprehend the hidden causes of nature could and did inhibit, even stop dead, a certain kind of research. The sceptic raised questions and saw that much—in fact he thought just as much[238] —could be said on either side of disputed issues, but idle curiosity was pointless, and much that had been investigated, in an admittedly often over-sanguine way, had to be rejected as idle curiosity.
On the side of dogmatism, where the dogmatic Hellenistic philosophical sects met the sceptical challenge by upholding one or another positive view of the criterion of knowledge,[239] most of the dogmatic
[236] The "appearances" often included the common opinions and beliefs, as well as what was perceived, as already in Aristotle. See Owen 1961/1986, cf. Burnyeat 1977, 1979, 1982b, Nussbaum 1986, pp. 240ff.
practising scientists took for granted an affirmative answer to the question of whether knowledge is possible. But inordinately speculative theories and excessive claims for their correctness, even their necessity, can be illustrated in every branch of the inquiry into nature. Many of those who engaged in that inquiry, as we said, pursued the goal of certainty in part under the influence of the models provided by axiomatised mathematics. In the process, much of the complexity of their subject
matter was sometimes ignored, finessed, elided; we shall return to that topic in Chapter 6.
At the same time the example of dissection, especially, shows how it was those who could be criticised for Dogmatism who upheld empirical research. Where the sceptical tradition could degenerate into defeatism[240] (even if a defeatism that is readily understandable in terms of the impasse reached in many areas of physical and biological study), it was the more dogmatic and speculative theorists who offered more justification and incentive for further inquiry. It should, however, be stressed that they did so against the background of that challenge from scepticism. The dogmatism in question was, in this respect, still very different from the monolithic traditions exemplified from the ancient Near East in Chapter 2.
Some of the Greek work was, to be sure, undertaken within a framework of regulative principles approximating to what we might call a research programme, and so may be deemed to lend support to the claims of Kuhn and others concerning the role of such in normal science. At the same time we should acknowledge that much ancient speculation had always been and continued to be both more individualistic and more opportunistic than the title research programme would suggest or allow. In an ancient perspective, we have seen that whatever inhibiting effects tentativeness and anti-dogmatism came to have, they were also, especially initially, characterised by a notable
[240] Pessimism about reaching satisfactory solutions to the major problems in dispute in physical theory goes back to the pre-Socratic period (see above an nn. 21 and 23) and is thereafter a recurrent theme. One may, however, distinguish between doubts or reservations expressed on particular topics within or after a physical investigation, and a quite general dismissal of the possibility of the study of nature (as is reported for the Cyrenaics, for example, by Diogenes Laertius 2.92, cf. 7.160 on Ariston; and cf. Eusebius Praeparatio evangelica 15.62 paras. 7ff., 854c4ff., [2.494 Gifford, 2.423.26ff. Mras], on which see Ioppolo 1980, pp. 78ff.). In late antiquity the failure of science, particularly of astronomy, to secure agreed and consistent results was used by Proclus, for example, to support what he represents as the Platonic thesis, that the only proper objects that can be said to be known are transcendent Forms: see, e.g., Hyp. pr. 1ff., 2.1ff., 4.5ff., together with 7.238.9ff., and cf. In Ti. 3.56.28ff.; cf. Sambursky 1965.
boldness and originality. In Hippocratic medicine, expressions of uncertainty, statements of the difficulties encountered and of the failures that could have been avoided, at least sometimes reflect a remarkably open and direct response to day-to-day clinical experience and a new commitment to the principle of recording mistakes so that others may learn from them—even if some of these attitudes were themselves in turn conventionalised and became part of the fund of rhetorical commonplaces used by authors who were otherwise unrestrained in their pretensions to knowledge.