Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

298 Late antiquitymay suggest the idea of a systematical elimination of all the other incidentalvariables that may interfere with the process of change and determine theactual outcome. Related to this problem is the disagreement as to whether should be translated as ‘experience’ rather than as ‘experiment’ – anissue which is closely connected with the question whether is usedas a heuristic instrument for the discovery of hitherto unknown facts, or asa critical instrument in order to check whether an already existent view orclaim about the effect of a foodstuff or drug is correct.It is impossible, within the scope of this chapter, to go into the details ofall these questions – although it should be said that there are certainly passagesin Galen’s pharmacological works where we see him actually describingwhat one may call without hesitation an attempt at experimentation in themodern sense. 80 In any case Galen’s insistence on a qualified use of experiencestrongly suggests that he is, at least theoretically, rather close to themodern concept of experiment. The texts discussed above have shown thatqualified experience is used both for judging whether a particular, alreadyexistent view on the power of a foodstuff or drug is true and for makingnew discoveries. 81 This may now be well understood: to refute a view in acorrect way presupposes the same knowledge of determining circumstancesas interpreting the result of an empirical test as a new and significant discovery.A scientist using a counter-example in order to falsify an hypothesisshould ensure that the counter-example is actually a good example. ThatGalen himself does not always live up to this latter requirement in actualpractice, is another story.80 See, e.g., De simpl. med. fac. 1.21 (11.418 K.).81 Heuristic: De alim. facult. 1.12.1; De simpl. med. fac. 4.19; 4.23; 6.1; critical: De alim. facult. 1.1.46;De simpl. med. fac. 3.13; 7.10.