Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

196 Aristotle and his schoolAristotle also recognises that the latter are often more successful in practicaltherapy than the former.The passage from On Respiration further mentions differences betweendistinguished doctors and distinguished students of nature. These are notexplained by Aristotle, but they probably have to do with the differencebetween theoretical and practical sciences mentioned above (differencesof interest, such as the lack of therapeutic details in the account of thenatural scientist, as well as different degrees of accuracy). Moreover, hisremark that the more distinguished natural philosophers ‘end by studyingthe principles of health and disease’, whereas distinguished doctors arepraised for starting with principles derived from natural science, seemsto imply a certain hierarchy or priority of importance, which is hardlysurprising given Aristotle’s general preference for theoretical knowledge.This would correspond with the fact that the discussion of health anddisease (Peri hugieias kai nosou) was apparently planned by Aristotle atthe end of the series of treatises which we know as the Parva naturalia.The treatise has not survived, and it is not even certain that it was everwritten. 47 It is at any rate clear that in this treatise medical topics were, orwould have been, discussed from the point of view of the study of nature:the treatise would probably deal with the principles of physiology, thecauses of disturbances of the equilibrium between warm and cold, and theformation and the role of the residues (perittōmata). But it would no doubtrefrain from worked-out nosological descriptions and from extended anddetailed prescriptions on prognostics and therapeutics. 48Thus Aristotle’s views on the relation between natural science andmedicine are quite specific. He obviously approves of doctors who buildtheir practice on principles of natural science, but he also acknowledgesthat more empirically minded doctors often have greater therapeutic success.He further praises those liberal-minded students of nature (amongwhom he implicitly counts himself) who deal with the principles of healthand disease. He obviously prefers the study of nature rather than medicine,because the former is concerned with universals, the latter with particulars,and because the former reaches a higher degree of accuracy, but hequoted above Aristotle credits the liberal-minded student of politics with a similar awareness of alimited degree of accuracy in his interest in psychology: one might say that this implies a comparableawareness with the distinguished doctors with regard to their use of principles derived from thestudy of nature.47 On this see Marenghi (1961) 145ff.; Tracy (1969) 161ff.; Strohmaier (1983); Longrigg (1995); R. A. H.King (2001); see also ch. 9 below.48 It should be stressed that this does not imply that Aristotle did not devote more specialised treatisesto medical questions. See ch. 9 below.