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292 Late antiquityand On the Sects, rather points in a different direction. 54 The fundamentaldifference between Galen and the Empiricists concerns the kind of diorismoiconsidered to be relevant: the Empiricists apparently allowed onlyobservable entities such as age, sex, hardness or softness of the flesh, andthe ‘distinction made on the basis of the habits of the patient’ ( ) to play a part as criteria in order to describe the individualcondition of each patient and to decide what medicaments shouldbe prescribed in a particular case. 55 This use of peira must have inevitablyappeared insufficiently specific to Galen, 56 just as the Empiricists’ exclusivereliance on chance and analogy for the discovery of the powers of drugsmust have looked too haphazard and unsystematic to be taken seriouslyas sources for scientific knowledge and understanding. 57 Moreover, Galen’suse of , ‘qualified experience’, also provides him with ananswer to the criticism raised by Asclepiades against the Empiricists concerningthe non-reproducibility of their applications of peira. 58 Accordingto this criticism, one never knows for certain, at least not within the conceptof knowledge adopted by the Empiricists, whether two empirical tests areprecisely the same. Galen echoes this criticism by repeatedly insisting thatexperiments should be reproducible; but in order for them to be reproducibleone has to know exactly under what conditions and circumstancesthey were carried out and which conditions and circumstances are relevantand which are not. Galen firmly believes that the set of diorismoi he has athis disposal, and the knowledge of the particular role they play in a certain54 De sectis 2 (p. 4.12 Helmreich, 1.68 K.); Subf. emp. 2 (p. 45.18 Deichgräber). On the trivica experientiaof the Empiricists see von Staden (1975) 191. Even less is known about the notion of with which the Empiricist Theodas is credited (Galen, Subf. emp. 4, p.50.3 Deichgräber, onwhich see Frede (1988) 95), but this, like the , seems to be related to the principleof ‘transition to the similar’ on the basis of generally accepted empirical knowledge (see, however,Menodotus’ use of and as attested in Subf. emp. 7, p.65.8ff. Deichgräber).55 See Subf. emp. 7 (p. 62.18ff. Deichgräber); De meth. med. 3.7 (10.207 K.); De loc. aff. 3.3 (8.142 K.).56 The difference in approach appears most clearly in De simpl. med. fac. 1.16 (11.412 K.), De meth.med. 3.3 (10.181 K.), and 3.7 (10.204 K.), where it is stated that the Empiricists never arrive at a reallyscientific and solid ( ) knowledge of the individual patient’s bodily state(). See also De simpl. med. fac. 5.2 (11.712–13 K.), and On the Doctrines of Hippocratesand Plato (De plac. Hipp. et Plat.) 9.6.20 (CMG v4, 1, 2, p.576.24–5 De Lacy, 5.767–8 K.).57 De comp. med. per gen. 1.1 (13.366 K.). The provisional nature of these remarks on Galen’s attitudetowards (and indebtedness to) Empiricist pharmacology cannot be overstated. An enormous amountof work still needs to be done here (just as on his attitude towards the Pneumatists, esp. Archigenes).For the fragments and testimonies on Empiricist pharmacology see Deichgräber (1965) 146–62;for a discussion of his excerpts from, among others, Empiricist pharmacological writings, see themonograph by Fabricius (1972). See also the general remarks by Harig (1974) 135–6, who refers forGalen’s criticism of the Empiricist method of discovery to De comp. med. per gen. 1.4 (13.366 K.),2.1 (13.463 K.), 3.2 (13.594 K.), 6.8 (13.892 K.), De simpl. med. fac. 2.7 (11.482 K.) and De comp. med.sec. loc. 2.1 (12.524 K.), a passage which very well illustrates the difference between Galen’s methodof ‘indication’ () and the Empiricists’ use of ‘transition to the similar’ ( ).58 De sectis 5 (p. 9.9–13 Helmreich, 1.75 K.); cf. De exper. med. 1 (pp. 85f. Walzer).