ron
(Ron)
#1
42 Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity
history of their own subject, which were the product of a sometimes long,
possibly distorting and inevitably selective process of transmission, inter-
pretation, ‘recycling’ and updating. The modalities of these processes have
turned out to be very complicated indeed, and it has become clear that the
subject of ‘tradition’ in ancient thought comprises much more than just
one authoritative thinker exercising ‘influence’ on another.
Our understanding of ‘doxography’ and other genres of ancient ‘intel-
lectual historiography’ has been significantly enhanced over the last two
decades, and it has contributed to a greater appreciation of the various
dimensions – textual, subtextual and intertextual – of much Greek and
Roman philosophical and medical discourse. In particular, it has shed
further light on the possible reasons behind the ways in which ideas are
presented in texts and the modes in which ancient authors contextualise
themselves, aspects which are of great relevance to the interpretation and
evaluation of these ideas.
