Introduction: Philosophical and Medical Galenisms

Camposampiero, Matteo Favaretti; Scribano, Emanuela

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-86308-1_1

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Several other studies on Galen, even if they do not contradict the current dating are nevertheless quite critical and capture the complexity of the contents of his writings, compared to the intellectual life of his (presumed) epoch [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. There are many texts attributed to him which, for their style and arguments, scholars consider surely written by other authors -namely a Pseudo Galen (PG) -after Galen of Pergamum's death [1].…”

Section: The Galenic Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Galenic Question”: A solution Based on Historical Sources and Mathematical Analysis of Texts

La Greca,

De Caro,

Matricciani

2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How many different writers authored the huge number of texts attributed to Galen of Pergamum (129~216 AD), medical doctor and philosopher, a giant in the history of medicine? To find out which texts were his and which ones were written by others is known as the “Galenic Question”. We propose a “solution” to it through a multidisciplinary approach based: (a) on historical research and (b) on a mathematical analysis of the Greek texts. The historical approach has considered historical independent sources and anachronisms. The mathematical approach has been based on a mathematical theory concerning deep–language variables, rarely consciously controlled by any author, therefore capable of giving indications on similarity of texts, with little or no bias. The multidisciplinary approach has convinced us that at least three authors wrote the texts attributed to Galen. The first two very likely were real historical persons: (a) a certain Galen living between the end of the I century BC and the second half of the I century AD; (b) the historical Galen of Pergamum (II–III centuries AD) and (c) several unknown authors hiding under the name Galen, but surely living after Galen of Pergamum’s death.

show abstract