Conclusion
As a result of this case study, additional questions arise. These can be cast into at least three groups. The first concerns the development of critical empiricism in the ancient world: a topic of much interest in our own century, expecially with regard to the work of the logical empiricists. Many of the same arguments are present in the ancient world and were hotly debated from the Hippocratic writers through and beyond Galen. Some of the ways in which Galen reacts to Hippocratic and Aristotelian influences may, in part, be explained by Galen's own posture as a so-called Dogmatist. Both the Empirics and the Methodists offered alternative viewpoints on the place, role, and limits of observation in biomedical research. Though I have written on this relationship in the Hippocratic writers and Aristotle,44 it remains to be discussed in detailed fashion just how critical empiricism acted in Galen's evaluation of biomedical problems (aporiai). Contrasts between Galen and his predecessors might further clarify this issue both as a historical question and as it affects the construction of biological theory.
The second area explores the question of how one develops comprehensive theories. In this respect Galen follows Aristotle's methodology rather closely. Both look at what theories are available to them and then systematically review the problems raised, at the same time refuting what they find inadequate. This is an effective strategy, for it permits utilizing the best features of earlier work to fashion a new whole. Indeed, Galen himself seems to attribute his use of such a methodology to his “ecletic” medical and philosophical training. Both Aristotle and Galen endeavor to employ techniques of theory integration. That is, they use aspects of theories they have already espoused to deal with new problems. This suggests the emergence of formal, logical coherence as an element in theory evaluation. The obvious drawback is that it can cause mistakes in one area to be repeated and ingrained in other areas. Such errors, because they are at the very core of an explanatory framework, may take centuries to correct. Future studies may shed light on how theory integration acts both in a positive and in a negative way.
Finally, this case study offers a glimpse of how science progresses. Even though the advances in medical technology were comparatively minor, there is a great deal more sophistication in the conception theoreis of Aristotle and Galen than was present in the Hippocratic writers. Some of this (in Galen's case) had to do with increased anatomic and physiological knowledge, but most, I believe, is due to the evolution of scientific knowledge. If further work were done specifically on this question, it might document more completely how scientific knowledge on a specific topic evolves. The mode of advancement is primarily through gradual refinement of the types of questions being asked by these ancient authors, and the ramifications of their answers.
Ancient theories of conception offer a fine case study in the history and philosophy of how a theory begins the develops. I have tried to suggest some interrelationships among the more important theories, as they focused upon Aristotle's own conception theory. There has been renewed interest in such cases in recent years. It is my hope that future specialized studies will increase our knowledge of method and practice in these important case studies and thereby augment our understanding of the genesis and application of biological theories.
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References
Three fairly recent articles have been Maryanne ClineHorowitz, “Aristotle and Women,” J. Hist. Bio., 9 (1976), 186–213; Anthony Preus, “Galen's Criticism of Aristotle's Conception Theory,” ibid., 10 (1977), 65–85; Johannes Morsink, “Was Aristotle's Biology Sexist?” ibid., 12 (1979), 83–112. Montgomery Furth also has a manuscript in preparation on the pangenesis argument in De generatione animalium: “The A Priori Argument against Pangenesis.”
I will show later in this paper that most of the simple-mined remarks that Galen addresses in the following quotation come from books I and II; in book IV the picture becomes more complicated.
Galen is quoting G. A. 716a 5.
Galen is quoting G. A. 729a 10.
The texts for this paper come from the following: Galen, Opera Omnia, ed. C. G. Kuehn (Leipzig, 1822; rpt. ed., Hildesheim: Olms, 1964) 20 vols. All citations of Galen will be made from this text, referred to as “K.” A new edition of the Greek text of peri spermatos, with translation and commentary, is presently being prepared by Phillip H. Delacy. Aristotle, De generatione animalium, ed. H. J. Drossaart Lulofs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965); for De partibus animalium I use Peck's text in the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press. Any other Aristotelian text follows OCT when applicable and the Loeb in other instances. The translations, unless otherwise stated, are my own.
G. Thompson discusses this in his book Aeschylus and Athens (London, 1941; Rpt. New York: Hoskel House, 1972), pp. 293–294; also J. Needham, History of Embryology, 2nd ed. (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1959), p. 25. Thompson shows similar beliefs in other primitive peoples. See also Preus, “Galen's Criticism,” p. 67.
For further discusson see Preus, “Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Generation of Animals,” J. Hist. Biol., 3 (1970), 1–5, and his book, Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Biological Works (Hildesheim: olms, 1975), pp. 52 ff. See also Erna Lesky, Die Zeugungs und Vererbungslehre der Antike und ihre Nachwirkung (Mainz, 1950), p. 18.
DK Fragment 10, “How could hair come from that which is not hair or flesh from that which is not flesh?” The point is that flesh must send its “seeds” to the germ line to eventually produce flesh, and so on.
The evidence for this claim lies in Galen, K II 83, where Erasistratus is supposed to have said that female blood (menses) flowed to the sperma (dative singular) in order to nourish it. The artificer is said to be Nature or sperma (again singular). Since the singular is used in each case and seems to contrast the female role, this might be considered an instance of the earlier theory (though the evidence for such an attribution is rather thin).
The best source of the contraries in the Hippocratic corpus is On Ancient Medicine. The conclusions found there, which argue against Empedocles' four elements in favor of the contraries, are employed in both On Seed (chap. 7) and Nature of the Child (chap. 1).
Horowitz, “Aristotle and Women,” p. 205, makes the interesting point that there is an equivocal usage of female coldness by Aristotle. On the one hand the coldness is used to explain the so-called slow female development in the womb, while on the other hand it explains why the female deteriorates more quickly than the male outside the womb. The one trait, coldness, causes both slow and quick development.
See Preus, “Galen's Criticism,” p. 68. He cites there G. E. R. Lloyd, “Right and Left in Greek Philosophy,” J. Hellenic Stud., 82 (1962), 56–66; Owen Kember, “Right and Left in Sexual Theories of Parmenides,” ibid., 91 (1971), 70–79; G. E. R. Lloyd, “Parmenides' Sexual Theories: A Reply to Mr. Kember,” ibid., 92 (1972), 178–179.
K XIX 321.
Ibid.
E.Littré, Oeuvres complète d'Hippocrate (Paris: J. B. Billière, 1851), VII, 470–785. I will follow Tage U. H. Ellinger's translation of this text in Hippocrates on Intercourse and Pregnancy (New York: Henry Schuman, 1952). See also lain Lonie, ed., On Generation, On the Nature of the Child and Diseases IV (Berlin and New York: DeGruyter, 1981).
This is a possible source for some of Aristotle's theory of pepsis, which I explain later in the essay.
Lesky, Zeuguns und Vererbungslehre, pp. 9–13.
My point here is that all pangenetic theories must be preformist in order to be coherent. If (through gemmules or whatever) all the parts are brought together in one place and assembled, the result is a completed form with all its parts: whether a completed homunculus or an organism which “unfolds its emboitement” of parts in stages. Both of these results are preformist. To be pangenetic and antipreformist would be to assert that the germ line accepts potentialities and not minute particles from the parts themselves. These potentialities would not create the parts themselves, but would create lower-level, general structures, which would in turn act to form the next higher level. (Aristotle has the rudiments of such a mechanism in his theory). Though it may be true that some eighteenth and nineteenth century writers who opposed preformation also espoused pangenetic views, it is may contention that in doing so they contradicted a fundamental aspect of pangenesis. These attempts, through various mechanisms such as suppression, are really just different versions of preformism. The crucial test is whether or not all the parts actually exist in any form in the undeveloped, fertilized egg. If they do, the theory is preformist. Pangenesis requires them to be there.
Horowitz, “Aristotle and Women”, has an interesting footnote on p. 183, which cites a number of works to support this claim. Most interesting are A. W.Gomme, “The Position of Women in Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.”, Class. Philol., 20 (1925), 1–25; Charles Seltman, Women in Antiquity (London: Thames and Hudson, 1956); and Donald Richter, “The Position of Women in Classical Athens”, Class. J., October (1971), 1–8.
There is great diversity in “modern accounts”. When I make a reference of this sort, I try to cite the “standard account” when there is one — or one of the accepted versions when there is not a single overwhelming favorite. On the question of preformation, for example, there is an interesting article by Michael J.Katz and WilliamGoffman, “Preformation of Ontogenetic Patterns”, Phil. Sci., 48 (1981), 438–453, in which a provocative minority opinion is presented.
Aristotle, G. A. 722b 13, and Galen, K IV 619, consider some theories not requiring a male. (Obviously they must be rejected.)
For a more complete exposition of this view see my articles: “Mechanism and Teleology in Aristotle's Biology”, Apeiron, 15 (1981), 96–102; “The Digestive and ‘Circulatory’ Systems in Aristotle's Biology”, J. Hist. Biol., 15 (1982), 89–118; and Method and Practice in Aristotle's Biology (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1983), Chap. 3.
A case for this has been made by AllanGotthelf, “Aristotle's Conception of Final Causality”, Rev. Metaphys., 30 (1976), 226–254. Gotthelf makes a stronger claim on the so-called irreducible potentials than I would wish to defend, but the point that these are the tools for the expression of nature is well taken.
This is explained at length in my “Digestive and ‘Circulatory’ Systems.”
External heat can be hot either essentially (as firewood) or accidentally (as boiling water). This and other distinctions made at P. A. 648b 10 are of only passing relevance to the present discussion. For an analysis of the nature of heat as a power see C.Strang, “The Perception of Heat,” Proc. Aristotelian Soc. 41 (1961), 239–252.
Cold must be seen as relative to hot and not as an absolute term. Thus a piece of meat cooking is cold relative to molten iron.
This sumphuton thermon discussed by Joachim in J. Philol., 24 (1903), 72–86, I take to be identical to the oikei thermotes at Mete. 379a 25. Cf. P. A. 650a 2; G. A. 736b 33 ff., 742a 14.
This form is what I shall call the effect of Nature, as opposed to the inheritance of accidental traits, which will be designated “nature.”
These Natural “laws” in our modern terms might be the principles of population genetics, as it examines genetic populations and various fitness coefficients. This, of course, goes beyond Aristotle's theory. What is important is that there are no laws, strictly speaking, for either Aristotle or the modern biologist. Since there is an inherent complexity in the explanans, the best one can expect is a “for the most part” solution.
The “propepsis” passages really just assert a similarity of material origin between katamēnia and sperma. They both come from the by-product of the third pepsis. This seems closer to what Aristotle intended than asserting that the woman undergoes a fourth pepsis.
Because there is no actual pepsis, the residue material is used less efficiently than in males. This is why, Aristotle says, women have no extra residue for facial and excess body hair (G. A. 727a).
Morsink, “Was Aristotle's Biology Sexist?” also talks about this on pp. 90–91.
There is some hesitancy in Galen here, just as there was in Aristotle on this point. Galen hedges by talking about sex determination as the result of a male-female struggle. K IV 619; cf. Aristotle G. A. 767b 22; with 766b 35 there is the same flipflop.
I think the reason the two thinkers were attracted to the environmental determination of sex is that both were still worried about males looking like their mothers and females looking like their fathers. By creating another independent criterion, they could avoid this difficulty.
For references to Galen's view of “nature” see K XVI 423; II 2. See also Arthur J. Brock, On the Natural Faculties (Loeb Classical Library), pp. 2, 3; and Margaret May, trans., Galen on the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body (Ithaca, N.Y.: Copnell University Press, 1968), pp. 10–11. For “Nature” see K IV 687–688, De Usu. (Helmreich) I, 47, 175, 181, and passim. Aristotle's views on “nature” can be found at G. A. 735a 18; de An. 414a 28; his ideas on “Nature” at P. A. 658a9; de Caelo 271a 33; G. A. 731a 24, 739b 20, 741b 1, 744a 35, 744b 17 and passim. The distinction is drawn at G. A. 767b 25.
The physical execution of this process is described rather vaguely, but supposedly there are potentialities for various parts within the blood, which express themselves sequentially. Cf. Galen's comment at K IV 529 on Aristotle's method as well as his own theory, K IV 660.
It is not clear whether Aristotle thought that the uterus “sucked in” the sperma. Galen quotes Hippocrates against it, K IV 524. Aristotle is rather vague, G. A. 739b 5.
An example of a closed population's effect upon its members can be seen in the case of genetic drift.
This point has been argued by William Wimsatt, “Reductive Explanation: A Functional Account,” in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 33, ed. R. S. Cohen, C. A. Hooker, A. C. Michalos, and J. W. van Evra (Dordrecht, 1976), 671–710.
Horowitz, “Aristotle and Women,” makes several well-documented points in support of this claim.
See DavidBalme, “Aristotle's Biology was not Essentialist,” Arch. Geschichte Phil., 62 (1980), 2.
These are nutritive, sensitive (sometimes locomotive as well), and rational (de An. II 3).
A modern example of blending can be found in Galton's theories on the heritability of height and success. See his Hereditary Genius and Natural Inheritance (London: Macmillan, 1889).
Boylan, Method and Practice, chap. 1.
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Boylan, M. The galenic and hippocratic challenges to Aristotle's conception theory. J Hist Biol 17, 83–112 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00397503
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00397503