Galen. On My Own Opinions

Abstract

Galen’s last work, De propriis placitis (On my own opinions) has a very complex textual history. Except to few extracts, the Greek original of the treatise is lost. The last two chapters of the treatise, entitled On the substance of natural faculties, circulated independently in a fourteenth century translation into Latin by Niccolò da Reggio. The main body of treatise is preserved in a medieval Latin translation made from an Arabic translation (as numerous words, transliterated from the Arabic, testify). There is also a quote in Hebrew. Fortunately, some time ago V. Nutton (1999) published an excellent commented edition of the treatise. It was proven indispensable for the present study, as well as a recent publication of a newly discovered Greek text by Boudon-Millot and Pietrobelli (2005). The treatise, important for understanding of Galen’s various opinions, certainly deserves a close study. It is now translated into the Russian for the first time.

Keywords

• Ancient medicine
• Galen
• empiricism
• skepticism
• dogmatism