Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

chapter 10Galen’s use of the concept of ‘qualified experience’in his dietetic and pharmacological works1 introductionIt is well known that Galen, in the epistemological debate (as he saw it)between the so-called Dogmatists and the Empiricists, adopted a positionwhich might be defined both as an attempt at maintaining his cherishedideal of intellectual independence and as an endeavour to preserve thevaluable insights that the different strands of tradition provided. The latterresulted in his conviction that medical knowledge is arrived at by means ofa rather special conjunction of, on the one hand, reason (logos), that is, aset of theoretical and logical concepts, definitions, axioms, arguments, andideas referring both to observable and unobservable entities, and, on theother hand, experience (peira), that is, a more or less systematic collectionof data derived from sense-perception. 1 What makes his position morecomplicated is that according to Galen both reason and experience shouldbe used or applied in a correct way, in a correct order, interrelation and/orproportion. This requirement may have different consequences for differentareas within medical science. Moreover, it is precisely in this respect thatGalen explicitly distances himself from the other medical schools, who, as hebelieves, either failed to take into account empirical data which would seemto him to be inconsistent with their theoretical assumptions, deductions,inferences or analogies, or who formulated unqualified generalising claimson the exclusive basis of empirical data.As far as dietetics and pharmacology are concerned, 2 Galen similarlystipulates on various occasions that both reason and experience areThis chapter was first published in A. Debru (ed.), Galen on Pharmacology. Philosophy, History andMedicine (Leiden, 1997) 35–57.1 See Frede (1987c) 279–98 and (1985) xx–xxxiv.2 These more or less overlap, given Galen’s views on the relative distinction between foodstuffs anddrugs (see below).279