ron
(Ron)
#1
28 Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity
questions; and moving on to the Imperial period, a particular mention
must be made of Alexander of Aphrodisias, the second-centurycephiloso-
pher and commentator on Aristotle’s works. Two works on medical topics
(Medical Problems,On Fevers) are attributed to Alexander, and even though
their authenticity is disputed, there is no question that Alexander had a
great interest in medical issues (from a non-clinical, physiological point of
view). And he is clearly taken seriously as an authority in these areas by his
slightly later contemporary Galen. Furthermore, the two most striking rep-
resentatives of early Hellenistic medicine, Herophilus and Erasistratus, are
both reported to have held close connections with the Peripatetic school.
This is most evident in the case of Erasistratus, whose ideas on mechanical
versus teleological explanation mark a continuation of views expressed by
Theoprastus and Strato and to some extent already by Aristotle himself.
Likewise, Herophilus’ famous, if enigmatic, aphorism that ‘the phenom-
ena should be stated first, even if they are not first’, can be connected with
Aristotelian philosophy.
Yet to suggest that Erasistratus and Herophilus were ‘Aristotelians’ would
do grave injustice to their highly original ideas and the innovative aspects
of their empirical research, such as Herophilus’ discovery of the nervous
system and Erasistratus’ dissections of the brain and the valves of the heart. It
also ignores their connections with developments in other sciences, notably
mechanics, and with other philosophical movements, such as Scepticism
(in particular regarding whether causes can be known) and Stoicism.
The Hellenistic period was also the time in which the medical ‘sects’
came into being: Empiricism, Dogmatism and Methodism. What separated
these groups was in essence philosophical issues to do with the nature of
medical knowledge, how it is arrived at and how it is justified. The precise
chronological sequence of the various stages in this debate is difficult to
reconstruct, but the theoretical issues that were raised had a major impact
on subsequent medical thinking, especially on the great medical systems of
late antiquity, namely Galen’s and Methodism.
Galen is one of those authors who have been rediscovered by classicists
and students of ancient philosophy alike, be it for his literary output,
his mode of self-presentation and use of rhetoric, the picture he sketches
of the intellectual, social and cultural milieus in which he works and of
the traditions in which he puts himself, and the philosophical aspects of
his thought – both his originality and his peculiar blends of Platonism,
Hippocratism and Aristotelianism. Galen’s work, voluminous in size as
well as in substance, represents a great synthesis of earlier thinking and at
the same time a systematicity of enormous intellectual power, breadth and
