192 Aristotle and his school
the opposite from what one would expect if it were sent by a god, that is,
among the poor, who are unable to please the gods by abundant sacrifice
and who complain about this.^33 Again, the view expounded in both treatises
that epilepsy and impotencearedivine, but in the sense in which all diseases
are divine, namely in ‘having a nature’, is strikingly similar to Aristotle’s
concession here that dreams, though not divine in the traditional sense,
are nevertheless ‘beyond human control’ because the nature that produces
them isdaimonios.
5 a medical endoxon
In producing examples for all this from the empirical domain, however,
Aristotle manoeuvres himself into considerable difficulties, for he cites ev-
idence that, on closer inspection, falls short of fulfilling the strict require-
ments for dreams he had set out inOn Dreams. In what follows, I will
present two examples of this, which are case studies of his adoption and
transformation of a view borrowed from others, which is accommodated
in Aristotle’s theory (and explained in a different way from the context
from which he derived them) and backed up by empirical evidence. I will
conclude by making some more general observations about the nature of
these difficulties and possible explanations as to how they may have arisen.
First, in his explanation of how dreams can be signs, Aristotle begins by
referring to the view attributed to ‘the more distinguished among medical
writers’ that dreams deserve careful attention – a further indication that
Aristotle was well aware of the medical views of this time:
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Are some dreams, then, causes and others signs, for example of things happening
in the region of the body? At any rate the distinguished among doctors, too, say
that close attention should be paid to dreams. And it is reasonable for those to
think so, too, who are no experts, but inquire the matter to a certain extent and
have a general interest.
The wording of this passage sheds an interesting light on Aristotle’s view
on the relationship between medicine and the study of nature. The dif-
ference between the two groups referred to here (thetechnitaiand the
philosophountes) signifies a distinction between a specialised, practical as
(^33) For a full discussion of the argument here see van der Eijk ( 1991 ) and ( 1994 ) 294 – 5. See also Hankinson
( 1998 c), who makes the same point.