Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Diocles of Carystus on the method of dietetics 79apparent tension involved with his belonging to the ‘Dogmatist’ tradition,later on.The first claim that Diocles attacks is that ‘substances’ 12 that have similarqualities have the same powers. I use the word ‘quality’ to refer tocharacteristics such as those mentioned in section 5 – being juicy or dry,having a particular smell, having a certain degree of hotness – althoughthe Greek text has no separate term to denote this category. ‘Power’ is usedfor dunamis, which is the power to produce a certain effect in the bodyof the consumer (examples mentioned in the text are ‘provoking urine’and ‘laxative’ in section 6 and ‘nutritive’ in section 8). This distinction willconcern us later on. It is important to note that the claim Diocles criticisesdoes not explicitly say that there is a causal connection between having acertain quality and having a certain power: it just states the combinationof the two. Yet even this is shown by Diocles to be wrong on empiricalgrounds; he refutes the claim by means of a ‘judgement based on experience’(a , to use the words with which Galen introducesthe quotation from his work) by pointing out that not all substances thatare similar in respect of having a certain quality, say, A (section 5: ‘similar inthese respects’, ), produce results that indicate the presenceof a certain power, say, B. 13In section 6 this is immediately followed by the denial of a second claim,which Diocles does not explicitly put in the mouth of the same group,but which he presents as a consequence of the first claim (‘and indeed,one should also not ...’, ). This consequence is easy to see. Forclaim one does not say, but by its wording at least suggests, that there is acausal connection between having a particular quality and the possession ofa particular power. This connection may take various forms: for instance,sweetness may be the cause of being laxative; or (perhaps less likely) beinglaxative may be the cause of being sweet; or, thirdly, sweetness and beinglaxative may both be results or effects of an underlying cause (in whichcase sweetness could be regarded as a sign of being laxative). Diocles onlymentions the first of these possible consequences – which is also the mostobvious – and he refutes it by means of the same empirical evidence headduced against the first claim: experience shows that not all things thathave the same quality have the same powers.12 Throughout the fragment, Diocles’ Greek does not specify what we have to think about; Galen’s textsuggests that ‘foodstuffs’ ( ) are meant (see section 12), but drinks )and possibly also drugs ) may also be included. [Hence I have now preferred ‘substances’over the ‘foodstuffs’ of my (1996) translation.] Jaeger translates ‘Dinge’ or ‘Mittel’, Torraca ‘sostanze’,Smith ‘foods’.13 Diocles’ refutation ignores the possibility that a foodstuff may have a particular power but does notactualise it in a certain case (on this possibility cf. Aristotle, Metaph. 1071 b 19, 23).