Chapter 12 Galen and Doxography
In: Aëtiana IVSearch for other papers by Teun Tieleman in
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Abstract
In a good number of cases Galen can be shown to be drawing on the Placita tradition in what appears to have been a fuller version than that represented by the reconstructed text of Aëtius. Galen does so for differing but related purposes, the most salient ones of which are the following. First, he uses the Placita to distinguish between issues that are insoluble and useless and those that may lead to true or at least plausible conclusions. Secondly, in regard to the latter kind of issues, Galen derives from the Placita diaeretic schemas of options that form the starting point of correct methodical inquiry in natural philosophy and medicine. In addition, he develops his own schemas modelled on those of the Placita. Galen integrates these doxographical schemas with a conceptual toolkit that derives from the exegetical tradition concerned with the Platonic Timaeus including Academic input, most notably the notion of the plausible. I conclude with an overall evaluation of the epistemology-cum-methodology thus developed by Galen.