Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

40 Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquitythe text, for example by means of the use of the first person singular inexpressions like ‘I state’ or ‘it seems to me’, often lending great force towhat is being claimed, 61 or by means of the presence of direct addresses tothe reader or hearer. Furthermore, of great interest are the use of rhetoricalquestions, formulae for fictional objections, modes of argument used bythe Hippocratic writers, Diocles and Aristotle, the use of metaphors andanalogies, and patterns of thought, such as antithesis, binary or quaternaryschemata, the various forms of overstatement, or the ways in which ancientscientific writers, just like orators, tried to convey a certain ēthos (in theancient rhetorical sense of ‘personality’) to their audiences, for example bypresenting themselves in a certain way or assuming a certain pose with regardto their audience and their subject matter. 62 We can think here of theexploratory style of some of Aristotle’s works, where an impression of uncertaintyon the author’s part may be intended to suggest to the audience thatthe author knows just as little about the subject matter as they do and thusinvite them to think along with him or to raise objections. Alternatively,the author may present himself as a venerable authority, as a schoolmasterready to praise good suggestions and to castigate foolish answers, as adispassionate self-deprecating seeker of the truth, or a committed humanbeing who brings the whole of his life experience to bear on the subject he isdealing with, and so on. As many readers of this volume will be aware fromtheir own experience with communication to academic audiences, theseare different styles of discourse, with different stylistic registers, types of argument,appeals to the audience, commonplaces, and suchlike; what theywere like in the ancient world deserves to be described, and the attemptshould be made to detect patterns, and perhaps systematicity, in them.Ancient scientists, like orators, had an interest in captatio benevolentiae andwere aware of the importance of strategies such as a ‘rhetoric of modesty’,a ‘rhetoric of confidence’. In this respect the dialogues of Plato providegood examples of these attitudes, and they may serve as starting-points forsimilar analysis of scientific writing which is not in the form of a dialogue.The works of Galen present a particularly promising area of study, forone can hardly imagine a more self-conscious, rhetorical, argumentative,polemicising and manipulating ancient scientific writer than the doctor61 In chapter 1 we shall see an interesting example of a significant alternation of singular and pluralby the author of On the Sacred Disease, where the author cleverly tries to make his audience feelinvolved in a course of religious action which he defends and indeed opposes to the magical oneadvocated by his opponents.62 See Lloyd (1987b) for a discussion of the alternation of dogmatism and uncertainty in ancientscientific writing.