Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

304 Late antiquityremarkably under-represented; 32 and, as John Vallance has pointed out, 33the Methodists’ indifference to the question of the affected parts seems difficultto square with Caelius’ statements – sometimes in the same context –that some parts suffer more than others. 34These doctrinal difficulties deserve closer examination, 35 but for practicalreasons I cannot go into them here. Instead, I shall concentrate on what seemto be some paradoxical elements in what may be called the epistemology,or methodology, of Caelius Aurelianus – paradoxical in the sense that theyseem to fit in less well with Methodism as we know it, not only from thesources just mentioned (which may have distorted Methodist doctrine) butalso from Soranus and from Caelius’ own references to Methodism. Fourissues can be distinguished here:(1) Caelius’ attitude to the ‘manifest’ and the unobservable;(2) his attitude to, and use of, causal explanations;(3) his attitude to, and use of, definitions;(4) his evaluation of reason and experience as sources of knowledge.These issues are interrelated, but each of the paradoxes they present mayrequire an explanation of its own and no option should be ruled out beforehand.Some may only be apparent and turn out to be soluble on closerexamination; others may represent undeniable tensions in Methodism itself(an explanation which would be more plausible if it could be shownthat such tensions also occur in Soranus); 36 and yet others may give theimpression of being peculiarities of Caelius’ own version of Methodism, orat any rate of a later stage in the history of the school. Yet, however temptingthe explanatory scenario of a continuing development in Methodism maybe – especially to those scholars who appreciate the originality of CaeliusAurelianus 37 – we should be careful here, for there is hardly any evidenceon which to build such a developmental hypothesis. Of course one could32 E.g. Acut. 2.3.13; Acut. 1.15.121; Chron. 2.12.146.Onindicatio as the Latin translation for seeDurling (1991) 112–13.33 Vallance (1990) 140 n. 52; see also Gourevitch (1991) 66.34 E.g. Acut. 1.8.55. Cf.Acut. 2.28.147, where, however, Soranus is reported to have stipulated thatthe view that some parts suffer more than others is ‘a matter of conjecture and not to be acceptedas trustworthy’ (aestimatum et non ad expressam fidem accipiendum). Another interesting passage isAcut. 3.14.117 (on the affected part in the case of hydrophobia), where Caelius makes three points:(1) the question of the affected part is of no relevance to the doctor; (2) the stomach suffers morethan other parts; (3) treatment is applied locally ‘wherever we find the disease to be situated’ (ubipassionem inuenerimus).35 For a discussion of Caelius’ use of Methodist concepts such as generalities see Pigeaud (1991) 41.36 A thorough and systematic comparison between Soranus and Caelius Aurelianus on all of these issueswould lead into great detail and is therefore beyond the scope of this chapter. However, parallels inSoranus are occasionally mentioned in the footnotes where this seems relevant.37 See n. 2 above (especially Pigeaud, more moderately Vallance, and Hanson and Green).