Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Galen on qualified experience 293set of conditions and circumstances, actually enables the pharmacologistto carry out reproducible experiments. 59Rather than looking for the origin of Galen’s notion of qualified experiencein medical Empiricism (that the Empiricists preferred over seemingly indicates that they modified an already existentconcept), one might argue that his insistence on adequate qualification, orspecification, of empirical statements once more testifies to his indebtednessto Aristotelian philosophy. As in so many other respects, Aristotelianmethodology and terminological sophistication also provides the basic constituentsof Galen’s scientific instrumentarium in pharmacology (e.g. theuse of the distinctions between ’ and and between and ). 60 The need for appropriate specification ofscientific statements is one of the cornerstones of Aristotle’s philosophy ofscience, in which an ‘unqualified premise’ is defined as ‘a statement whichapplies or does not apply without reference to universality or particularity’,61 and in which it is clearly stated that premises that are ‘unqualified’() are not suitable for syllogisms. 62 Aristotle’s classical exampleof the difference between experience () and ‘art’ (), derivedfrom therapeutics, aptly illustrates the principle of qualification. 634 the conceptualisation of power and effectWe have seen so far that Galen’s notion of qualified experience serves asan appropriate instrument for dealing with the fact that a certain substancedoes not always produce the same results in all cases. Even the very59 On the requirement of reproducibility see, e.g., De simpl. med. fac. 11.1 (12.350 K.), and De plac.Hipp. et Plat. 7.3.13 (CMG v4, 1, 2, p.442.13–18 De Lacy, 5.604 K.).60 On Aristotelian elements in Galen’s pharmacology see Harig (1974) 87, 93f., 99–105, 156–8, 166.OnGalen’s use of Aristotle’s philosophy of science see Tieleman (1996), ch. 4.61 An. pr. 24 a 20: (the usualtranslation of in Aristotle is ‘indeterminate’). This is exactly the point raised by Galenwith regard to statements about the powers of foodstuffs and drugs (see nn. 20, 22 and 23 above).62 Arist., An. pr. 29 a 7–10; cf.An. pr. 26 b 23 and Top. 131 b 5–19, and the insistence on qualificationin the discussion of the law of contradiction in Metaph. 4.3ff. (e.g. 1005 b 21, 28–9).63 Metaph. 981 a 7–12: ‘For to have a judgement that when Callias was suffering from this particulardisease, this particular treatment benefited him, and similarly with Socrates and other individualcases, is a matter of experience; but to have a judgement that all people of a certain type, defined as onespecific kind, who suffer from this particular disease benefit from this treatment, e.g. phlegmatic orbilious people or people suffering from burning fever, is a matter of skill’ ’ ’ ’ , [] .For a discussion of the meaning of this example, and of the textual difficulties involved, see Spoerri(1996).