Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Galen on qualified experience 291particular kind of pain (this raises the question of the empirical basis ofGalen’s physiology). 493 the originality of galen’s positionWe have seen that Galen is aware that knowledge of the relevant to be considered by the pharmacologist is, at least partly, of a theoreticalnature: an empirical test of a substance’s power or a search for the relevantempirical data that is not guided by an a priori expectation founded onreason is likely to be fruitless or even misleading. In this respect a majordifference manifests itself between Galen’s set of and those ofthe Empiricists, who also frequently used the term (although we are toldthat they preferred the term in order to avoid confusion withthe Dogmatists’ notion of ), 50 and who also allowed epilogismos,a kind of common sense reasoning, to play a part in the acquisition ofmedical knowledge. 51 To be sure, it would be grossly unfair to suggest –as Galen occasionally does 52 – that the Empiricists had an unqualifiedconcept of experience. Yet none of the various types of peira they distinguished( and ) 53 seem to approximate Galen’s concept of ; andas for their notion of ‘practised experience’ ( ), which wouldat first sight seem to be a promising equivalent, the scanty information onthis, derived exclusively from Galen’s own reports in Outline of Empiricism49 De alim. facult. 1.1.9 (CMG v4, 2, p.205.3–5 Helmreich, 6.459 K.).50 See Galen, Outline of Empiricism (Subfiguratio empirica, Subf. emp.) 6–7 (pp. 54–65 Deichgräber);the distinction between and occurs at p. 59.2 Deichgräber and p. 62.12–13Deichgräber; cf. also In Hipp. Acut. comment. 1.17 (CMG v9, 1, p.134.13–15 Helmreich, 15.454 K.).On the Empiricists’ notion of see Deichgräber (1965), 305f.51 On this see Frede (1985) xxiii, and (1987c) 248; see also his (1988). See De simpl. med. fac. 2.7 (quotedabove, n. 11), where Galen says that we need not many , but accurate ones.52 For example in De meth. med. 3.3 (10.181 K.); cf. De sectis 5 (p. 9.21–2 Helmreich, 1.75 K.). A muchmore nuanced characterisation of the Empiricists is found in Subf. emp. 7 (p. 64.22ff. Deichgräber):‘If, then, they had discovered each of the things they have written about before they wrote aboutthem, so that the empiricist who uses qualification could discover these, at least all things wouldbe true exactly in the way they have described, yet since some of them have relied on unqualifiedexperience, and since some have not observed many times what they describe, while others havefollowed theoretical conjectures and have written things not according to truth, for these reasons . . . ’(‘si itaque ita inuenissent prius singula eorum que scripserunt antequam scriberent, ut inuenire possetea empericus qui utitur determinatione ( ), omnia essent uerautique que scribuntur ab eis, sed quia quidam quippe indeterminate experientie credentes ( ), quidam uero quia non uiderunt multotiens ea que scripserunt,quidam uero logicas suspitiones secuti non scripserunt secundum ueritatem quedam, propter ea ...’).53 Galen, De sectis 2 (p. 3.1ff. Helmreich, 1.67 K.); Subf. emp. 2 (p. 44.13ff. Deichgräber).