Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Diocles of Carystus on the method of dietetics 85causal explanations of the groups mentioned in the above. 26 There is noquestion of an absolute priority of experience over reasoning, and the lastsentence (section 11) shows that Diocles acknowledges that causal explanation,in all those cases where it is possible, 27 may make the physician’saccount more informative and reliable. While ‘those who believe that oneshould state a cause for all [things]’ ( ) clearly refers to the group criticised in section 8, it is less clear whoare meant by the words ‘those who state causes in this way’ ( ). The most likely possibility is that it refers to thosewho are criticised in the sentence immediately preceding it, that is thosewho make mistakes because their causal explanations are ill-founded; butthis is not quite compatible with section 9, where the lack of a change ofsubject suggests that Diocles’ additional criticism (‘in addition’, ) still applies to the same group. Another possibility is that ‘thosewho state causes in this way’ are the ones criticised in the first part ofthe fragment (the champions of claims one and two), although it is a bitawkward to take the phrase ‘in this way’ () as referring not to theill-founded ‘stating the cause’ ( ) mentioned just beforebut to what was discussed in section 7.Perhaps this difficulty becomes less urgent when we consider how thethree claims Diocles criticises are interrelated. As I said, at first sight it seemsthat in his refutation of claim three in section 8, Diocles is arguing against arather different group from the one which is his target in the earlier part ofthe fragment (claims one and two). Yet after reading the whole fragment,it is easy to see why he discusses these claims in the same context andin this order. The first claim is the weakest, in that it does not commititself to the assumption of a causal nexus between quality and power;consequently, its empirical refutation is likewise easy. Subsequently, thisempirical refutation is used by Diocles as an argument against the secondclaim, which is one of the possible implications of the first claim. Finally,this second claim can in its turn be seen as a possible instance of the third26 See Smith (1979) 184. The similarity of this sentence to On Ancient Medicine 2.1 (p. 119,13ff. Jouanna,1.572. L.): (‘and the thingsthat have been discovered, which are manifold and are firmly established, have been discoveredover a long time’) was noted also by von Staden (1992) 240. Torraca (‘a quelli che fondano le lorededuzioni sull’ esperienza fatta per lungo tempo’) and Smith (‘those who reached understandingfrom experience through much time’) wrongly take the participle as masculine; means‘observe’, ‘perceive’, ‘learn’ (see LSJ s.v.). Bertier rightly concedes that Diocles does not reject causalexplanation altogether (1972, 32).27 Following Jaeger (1938a) 38 and 40, I take in the same sense as in section8: are ‘those things that admit of this, i.e. of being causally explained’ (although I donot accept Jaeger’s far-reaching conclusions drawn from linguistic resemblances to Aristotle on thispoint). I cannot endorse Smith’s translation ‘But we must seek a cause for what we accept.’