title: On Ancient Medicine and its intellectual context.
abstract: The argument of this paper is twofold. First, it shows that the 'anthropological digression' in chapter three of On Ancient Medicine is more original and sophisticated than is commonly supposed: the discussion of diet and of the discovery of medicine describes an empirical process that is non-teleological and subject to chance. Secondly, it shows that the programmatic claims in chapter one and elsewhere advance an empirical model of technê that is best paralleled in arguments of the later sophists. Taken together, these results find greater methodological coherence in the treatise and situate it more clearly in its intellectual context.
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dunn
mesh_terms: D036262:Empirical Research; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D008374:Manuscripts, Medical as Topic / Q000266:history*; D012922:Social Change / Q000266:history*