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

what and how to seek – in other words, he must know the object and
method of his research. The lack of such knowledge makes any serious
re-
search – unlike an accidental find – a sheer impossibility. This view is close to
the notions of the author of
VM, who claimed that in medicine both principle
and method had long been discovered:
But anyone who, casting aside and rejecting all these means, attempts to conduct
research in any other way or after any other fashion, and asserts that he has found
out anything, is and has been the victim of deception. His assertion is impossible
(@dúnaton gár, 2).
It follows that for Archytas as well as for the Hippocratic physician, the me-
thod, i.e., the art of correct research, is a prerequisite for success in science.
94
Archytas, however, unlike the Hippocratic, did not altogether rule out the
chance, small as it might appear, of an accidental discovery: “Discovering
without research is difficult and (happens) seldom, by research it is easy and
practicable.” These words imply one more opposition, that of túch–técnh (or
túch–ëpist2mh), which is well known from the literature of the fifth century,
95
including the Hippocratic corpus.
96
For the author of
VM, túch, on the one
93
Cf. his praise of his precursors who attained clear knowledge in mathematical sci-
ences (B 1).
94
Describing the efforts of his predecessors to discover the basic principle of the con-
struction of torsion catapults, Philo of Byzantium stresses: “This had to be obtained
not by chance or at random, but by a standard method” (taúthn d’ Édei m3 @pò
túch~ mhdè eıkÆ lambánesqai, meqódœ dé tini êsthkuí+); see below, 282.
95
Gomperz, T.
Die Apologie der Heilkunst, 2
nd
ed., Leipzig 1910, 108f.; Snell,
op. cit.,
85f.; Joos,
op. cit., passim; Heinimann, op. cit., 108 n. 18. For the first time, túch–
técnh is found in Euripides (Alc. 785) and in the tragic poet Agathon (TrGF IV,
39 F 6, 8). The antithesis of túch–ëpist2mh is found in the Hippocratic corpus (De
loc. in hom., 46) and in the Alcibiades by the Socratic Aeschines (fr. 8, 56f. Dittmar).
In the latter case, it may go back to Socrates himself; cf. Xen.
Mem. IV,2.2, Symp.
VIII, 38f.
96
Villard, L. Les médecins hippocratique face au hasard,
Hippokratische Medizin,
395–411; Wenskus, O. Die Rolle des Zufalls bei der Gewinnung neuerer Erkennt-
nisse, ibid., 413–418.

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Chapter 2: Science as técnh: theory and history
68
hand, and técnh, which is based on knowledge (ëpist2mh), on the other, are
incompatible:
Some practitioners are poor, others very excellent; this would not be the case if
the art of medicine (as técnh) did not exist at all, and had not been the subject of
any research and discovery, but all would be equally inexperienced and unlearned
therein, and the treatment of the sick would be in all respects haphazard (1).
A similar passage concludes the first part of his work:
I declare, however, that we ought not to reject the ancient art as non-existent …
but much rather, because it has been able by reasoning to rise from deep ignor-
ance to approximately perfect accuracy, I think we ought to admire the dis-
coveries as the work, not of chance, but of inquiry rightly and exactly conducted
(12).
Another Hippocratic was not so radical in his repudiation of túch: opposing
it to técnh, he admits, nevertheless, that ruling out luck remains impossible in
medicine (
De arte, 4).
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The sick person, in particular, could heal himself using
the same means that a physician would prescribe (5). But he uses even this case
as a proof that medicine is a técnh: there is no need to rely on luck as soon as
the physician can make the exact diagnosis and prognosis and knows the dif-
ference between the correct and the incorrect ways of treatment (6).
98
To the themes that Archytas and the Hippocratic physicians have in common
one should add the epistemological optimism characteristic of that epoch as a
whole.
99
Archytas believed making a discovery to be easy and simple, provided
one used the right scientific method. The Hippocratics did not reckon a scien-
tific discovery as such among easy accomplishments; they believed, rather, that
a thing is easy to use once it has been discovered.
100
Nevertheless, the convic-
tion shared by some of them that in medicine everything either has been dis-
covered already or is going to be discovered in the near future, rested on the
same optimistic belief in the possibilities of science and human reason that was
typical of Archytas. The progress of science and its approach to perfection are
the natural consequence of the scientist’s individual progress in the assimi-
lation of knowledge already gained, as well as in the solution of new problems.
In many respects this progress depends on the personal endowments of a scien-
tist,
101
but not on them alone. Mathematics, the subject that Archytas studied
97
For a similar view close to Archytas’ position, see