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The Sceptics is the first comprehensive, up-to-date treatment of Greek scepticism, from the beginnings of epistemology with Xenophanes, to the final full development of Pyrrhonism as presented in the work of Sextus Empiricus. Tracing the evolution of scepticism from 500 B.C to A.D 200, this clear and rigorous analysis presents the arguments of the Greek sceptics in their historical context and provides an in-depth study of the various strands of the sceptical tradition.

This book is a new edition of a short but fascinating treatise by Galen on causal theory. This text survives only in a Latin translation of the fourteenth century, and it is this which appears here. The volume also contains the first translation of the treatise into any modern language, and the first philosophical commentary thereon. The commentary ranges widely in Galen's voluminous oeuvre, and compares his views with those of other ancient theorists. The introduction deals in detail with Galen's life and work, with the background both philosophical and medieval to his causal theory, and with the history of the text itself.

The Sceptics is the first comprehensive, up-to-date treatment of Greek scepticism, from the beginnings of epistemology with Xenophanes, to the final full development of Pyrrhonism as presented in the work of Sextus Empiricus. Tracing the evolution of scepticism from 500 B.C to A.D 200, this clear and rigorous analysis presents the arguments of the Greek sceptics in their historical context and provides an in-depth study of the various strands of the sceptical tradition.

eBook available with sample pages: 02034582570203067770

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.
This title available in eBook format. Click here for more information.
Visit our eBookstore at: www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk.

Aristotle argues in "On the Heavens" 1.5-7 that there can be no infinitely large body, and in 1.8-9 that there cannot be more than one physical world. As a corollary in 1.9, he infers that there is no place, vacuum or time beyond the outermost stars. As one argument in favour of a single world, he argues that his four elements, earth, air, fire and water, have only one natural destination apiece. Moreover they accelerate as they approach it and acceleration cannot be unlimited. However, the Neoplatonist Simplicius, who wrote the commentary translated here in the sixth century AD, tells us that this whole world view was to be rejected by Strato, the third head of Aristotle's school. At the same time, he tells us the different theories of acceleration in Greek philosophy.

R. J. Hankinson traces the history of ancient Greek thinking about causation and explanation. He examines how the Greeks dealt with questions about how and why things happen as and when they do, about the basic constitution and structure of things, about function and purpose, laws of nature, chance, coincidence, and responsibility. Such diverse questions are unified by the fact that they are all demands for explanation, for an account of the world that will render it amenable to prediction and control.

Determining what has gone wrong in a malfunctioning body and proposing an effective treatment requires expertise. Since antiquity, philosophers and doctors have wondered what sort of knowledge this expertise involves, and whether and how it can warrant its conclusions. Few people were as qualified to deal with these questions as Galen of Pergamum (129-ca. 216). A practising doctor with a keen interest in logic and natural science, he devoted much of his enormous literary output to the task of putting medicine on firm methodological grounds. At the same time he reflected on philosophical issues entailed by this project, such as the nature of experience, its relation to reason, the criteria of truth, and the methods of justification. This volume explores Galen's contributions to (mainly scientific) epistemology, as they arise in the specific inquiries and polemics of his works, as well as their legacy in the Islamic world.

Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers General Editors: Professor Jonathan Barnes, Balliol College, Oxford, and Professor A. A. Long, University of California, Berkeley This series, which is modelled on the familiar Clarendon Aristotle and Clarendon Plato Series, is designed to encourage philosophers and students of philosophy to explore the fertile terrain of later ancient philosophy. The texts will range in date from the first century BC to the fifth century AD, and they will cover all the parts and all the schools of philosophy. Each volume will contain a substantial introduction, an English translation, and a critical commentary on the philosophical claims and arguments of the text. The translations will aim primarily at accuracy and fidelity; but they will also be readable and accompanied by notes on textual problems that affect the philosophical interpretation. No knowledge of Greek or Latin will be assumed. Galen's On the Therapeutic Method, written late in his life, represents the distillation in its most complete form of Galen's views on the nature, genesis, proper classification, and treatment of disease. It was one of the most widely read of all classical texts during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and formed the core of the medical curriculum until the seventeenth century. Although still deeply influential in the nineteenth century, it has been unjustly neglected in modern times. The work contains a fascinating collection of views on scientific terminology and taxonomy, the application of the logical methods of collection and division to science, the axiomatization of science, and the structure of causation. Consequently it is a key text in later Greek philosophy of science. R. J. Hankinson provides here the first translation into any modern language of the first two books, together with an introduction and a philosophical commentary.

Galen of Pergamum (AD 129-c.216) was the most influential doctor of later antiquity, whose work was to influence medical theory and practice for more than fifteen hundred years. He was a prolific writer on anatomy, physiology, diagnosis and prognosis, pulse-doctrine, pharmacology, therapeutics, and the theory of medicine; but he also wrote extensively on philosophical topics, making original contributions to logic and the philosophy of science, and outlining a scientific epistemology which married a deep respect for empirical adequacy with a commitment to rigorous rational exposition and demonstration. He was also a vigorous polemicist, deeply involved in the doctrinal disputes among the medical schools of his day. This volume offers an introduction to and overview of Galen's achievement in all these fields, while seeking also to evaluate that achievement in the light of the advances made in Galen scholarship over the past thirty years.

Galen of Pergamum (AD 129 c.216) was the most influential doctor of later antiquity, whose work was to influence medical theory and practice for more than fifteen hundred years. He was a prolific writer on anatomy, physiology, diagnosis and prognosis, pulse-doctrine, pharmacology, therapeutics, and the theory of medicine; but he also wrote extensively on philosophical topics, making original contributions to logic and the philosophy of science, and outlining a scientific epistemology which married a deep respect for empirical adequacy with a commitment to rigorous rational exposition and demonstration. He was also a vigorous polemicist, deeply involved in the doctrinal disputes among the medical schools of his day. This volume offers an introduction to and overview of Galen's achievement in all these fields, while seeking also to evaluate that achievement in the light of the advances made in Galen scholarship over the past thirty years."

This book is a new edition of a short but fascinating treatise by Galen on causal theory. This text survives only in a Latin translation of the fourteenth century, and it is this which appears here. The volume also contains the first translation of the treatise into any modern language, and the first philosophical commentary thereon. The commentary ranges widely in Galen's voluminous oeuvre, and compares his views with those of other ancient theorists. The introduction deals in detail with Galen's life and work, with the background both philosophical and medieval to his causal theory, and with the history of the text itself.

In the three chapters of On the Heavens dealt with in this volume, Aristotle argues that the universe is ungenerated and indestructible. In Simplicius' commentary, translated here, we see a battle royal between the Neoplatonist Simplicius and the Aristotelian Alexander, whose lost commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens Simplicius partly preserves. Simplicius' rival, the Christian Philoponus, had conducted a parallel battle in his Against Proclus but had taken the side of Alexander against Proclus and other Platonists, arguing that Plato's Timaeus gives a beginning to the universe. Simplicius takes the Platonist side, denying that Plato intended a beginning. The origin to which Plato refers is, according to Simplicius, not a temporal origin, but the divine cause that produces the world without beginning.

Aristotle argues in On the Heavens 1.5-7 that there can be no infinitely large body, and in 1.8-9 that there cannot be more than one physical world. As a corollary in 1.9, he infers that there is no place, vacuum or time beyond the outermost stars. As one argument in favour of a single world, he argues that his four elements: earth, air, fire and water, have only one natural destination apiece. Moreover they accelerate as they approach it and acceleration cannot be unlimited. However, the Neoplatonist Simplicius, who wrote the commentary in the sixth century AD (here translated into English), tells us that this whole world view was to be rejected by Strato, the third head of Aristotle's school. At the same time, he tells us the different theories of acceleration in Greek philosophy.