Book contents
- Galen’s Epistemology
- Galen’s Epistemology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 ‘Do I Wake or Sleep?’
- Chapter 2 Galen’s Empiricist Background
- Chapter 3 Discovery, Method, and Justification
- Chapter 4 From Problems to Demonstrations
- Chapter 5 Galen’s Notion of Dialectic
- Chapter 6 The Relationship between Perceptual Experience and Logos
- Chapter 7 Galen against Archigenes on the Pulse and What It Teaches Us about Galen’s Method of Diairesis
- Chapter 8 On Sense-Perception
- Chapter 9 Reason and Experience in Galen’s Moral Epistemology
- Chapter 10 The Arabic Alexandrians’ Summary of Galen’s On the Therapeutic Method
- Chapter 11 What Level of Certainty Can Medical Sign-Inference Reach?
- Bibliography
- Index of Passages
- General Subject Index
Chapter 3 - Discovery, Method, and Justification
Galen and the Determination of Therapy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2022
- Galen’s Epistemology
- Galen’s Epistemology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 ‘Do I Wake or Sleep?’
- Chapter 2 Galen’s Empiricist Background
- Chapter 3 Discovery, Method, and Justification
- Chapter 4 From Problems to Demonstrations
- Chapter 5 Galen’s Notion of Dialectic
- Chapter 6 The Relationship between Perceptual Experience and Logos
- Chapter 7 Galen against Archigenes on the Pulse and What It Teaches Us about Galen’s Method of Diairesis
- Chapter 8 On Sense-Perception
- Chapter 9 Reason and Experience in Galen’s Moral Epistemology
- Chapter 10 The Arabic Alexandrians’ Summary of Galen’s On the Therapeutic Method
- Chapter 11 What Level of Certainty Can Medical Sign-Inference Reach?
- Bibliography
- Index of Passages
- General Subject Index
Summary
Galen insists that genuine epistêmê, in the Aristotelian sense of securely-founded scientific understanding, is available to the serious medical investigator. The foundations consist in propositions that are evidently true, and hence require no further support. These come in two types: those evident to the senses and those evident to reason, and these are ex heautôn pista, self-crediting, intrinsically trustworthy. On the basis of such propositions the diligent inquirer can erect a firmly-founded structure of practical knowledge, a technê, but one which is, none the less, in a genuine sense demonstration. In this chapter I re-examine what Galen says about a number of inter-related key issues: What is the ‘orderly method’ of discovery which Galen regularly commends, and berates his opponents for failing to adhere to? What supplies the ‘context of justification’ for such a firmly-founded science, and how does this relate to Galen’s oft-repeated affirmation of the necessity for empirical testing, peira? And finally, and relatedly, what specific role in all of this is played by what he calls ‘differentiated experience’, peira diorismenê?
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- Galen's EpistemologyExperience, Reason, and Method in Ancient Medicine, pp. 79 - 115Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
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