Leonid Zhmud The Origin of the History of Science in Classical Antiquity

part” (ë~ télo~ ëxergázesqai !saútw~).
59
Even if the author of
VM shows more common sense than his colleagues, it
remains clear that all these statements rest on very similar notions of the cog-
nitive possibilities of man. Their common feature was the conviction that in the
sphere of knowledge the
achievement of the final goal, télo~, was a matter of
the near future. As a characteristic example of the epistemological optimism of
the fourth century, the following lines of the dramatic poet Chaeremon are
often quoted: “There is nothing among people that they seek and would not find
in due course.”
60
His younger contemporary Alexis used a still more aphoristic
expression: Âpanta tà zhtoúmena ëxeurísketai (fr. 31 Kassel–Austin). Ar-
istotle, in his youth at least, believed philosophy was nearing its completion
(fr. 53 Rose); Philip of Opus wrote that the Greeks bring to perfection (kállion
toñto eı~ télo~ @pergázontai) all the knowledge they borrow from the ‘bar-
57
Herter, H. Die Treffkunst des Arztes in hippokratischer und platonischer Sicht,
Sud-
hoffs Archiv 47 (1963) 247–290.
58
See
Hippocrate. De L’Art, ed. by J. Jouanna, Paris 1988, 185.
59
Cf. Isoc.
Paneg. 10 (see below, 78 n. 143).
60
oÿk Éstin oÿdèn tõn ën @nqrøpoi~ Ô ti oÿk ën crónœ zhtoñsin ëxeurísketai
(
TrGF 71 F 21).

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Chapter 2: Science as técnh: theory and history
60
barians’ (
Epin. 987e 1); Eudemus believed that geometry had reached its per-
fection (fr. 133). This optimism, however, had its drawbacks: the idea of pro-
gress was limited by rather narrow bounds. Indeed, most authors of the classi-
cal and Hellenistic periods who touched upon this subject regarded progress as
either already accomplished or to be completed by the generation to come.
61
The idea that knowledge is inexhaustible is attested in some Roman writers of
the first century AD,
62
when scientific progress itself had come to an end in the
majority of fields. Later on, the ‘horizon of expectations’ remains the same as
before or gets even narrower. In late Antiquity, perfection in the sciences was
associated more with the increasingly distant past than with the future.
To place the ideas of the author of
VM in the right perspective, however, it is
necessary to compare them with the views his contemporaries expressed on
técnai and their progress. This comparison will make clear, among other is-
sues, the degree to which the ideas of science as knowledge evolving in time
and of the scientific method as the most certain path from ‘research’ to ‘dis-
covery’ were the personal contribution of the Hippocratic. What does he owe
to the common background of his epoch?
3. Archytas and Isocrates
Very interesting comparative material is to be found in two younger contem-
poraries of the Hippocratic physician, Archytas and Isocrates. Apart from dates
of birth
63
and an interest in politics, they had little in common: Archytas is
known as a brilliant mathematician and, secondly, as a philosopher, while Iso-
crates professed a very critical attitude toward exact sciences, as well as toward
the claims of philosophy to achieve exact knowledge. Nevertheless, their views
on técnh and its development are strikingly similar to each other as well as to
the notions of the author of
VM and other Hippocratics.
64
Some of the frag-
ments of Archytas’ work show that he used the Sophistic theory of técnh,
61
Meier. ‘Fortschritt’, 353; idem. Antikes Äquivalent, 291ff.
62
Edelstein,