Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

84 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of Carystusall, a question of elementary physics or pharmacology), but this does notcontribute anything to our understanding of why honey produces certaindietetic effects. On the level of its nature and with regard to the effect itproduces, a foodstuff ‘resembles’ () a genuine undemonstrable startingpoint– although it is not a starting-point in the absolute sense: the words‘in some way’ serve the purpose of qualifying the resemblance that existsbetween a genuine starting-point and a foodstuff which, from a certainpoint of view, behaves like a starting-point. To say it with some exaggeration(which goes beyond what is in the text): there is a causal ‘gap’ between thenature of a foodstuff as being causally responsible for certain dietetic effectson the one hand, and the nature of the foodstuff as being the result of acertain sum of elements or qualities.In section 9 Diocles states additional criticism. Since no subject of ‘makemistakes’ () is specified, it seems that he is still referringto the same group as in section 8 (but see below). These people, he says,miss the truth (note the similarity to the wording at the end of section 7),because their explanations are ill-founded. ‘Accept’ () istobetaken in the sense of ‘postulate’, ‘take as a starting-point’. 22 It is not quiteclear whether ‘things that are not known’ () should be takenin the sense of ‘invisibles’ (the ), namely things unknown to humanperception 23 (which, of course, would please those who read the fragmentas an anticipation of Empiricism) or in the sense of ‘not known to them’,in which case Diocles means something like ‘they do not know what theyare talking about’. 24 The second objection is obvious: disputed things donot serve as an appropriate starting-point; apart from being wrong perhaps,they are unconvincing. The third objection of ‘implausibility’ introducesthe notion of persuasiveness of the doctor’s statements – an element whichis also reflected in section 11 in the words ‘more reliable’ () andwhich is familiar from the Hippocratic writings. 25In sections 10–11 Diocles summarises his criticism and states his ownalternative. It is important to note the use of ‘rather’ (), andto see to what exactly the habit of putting more trust in the results oflong-term experience is said to be preferable: the ill-founded and undue22 Cf. Aristotle, Mete. 357 b 23–4: (‘letus discuss this adopting the same starting-point as we have adopted before’) and Pol. 1290 b 22–3: (‘And because there are more [sc. forms of constitution] than those mentioned, let us discuss whatthey are and why they are different, adopting as starting-point the one we have mentioned earlier’).For other linguistic resemblances to Aristotle see n. 42 below.23 On Ancient Medicine 1.3 (p. 119,5 Jouanna, 1.572 L.): (‘the things thatare invisible and difficult to know’). For Diocles’ views on ‘invisibles’ see frs. 177 and 56b.24 In view of the use of in section 11, the latter is perhaps more likely.25 Cf. Prognostic 1 (2.110 L.) and Langholf (1996).