Above, the reader finds a heading consisting of two questions. This is to stress that they are intimately related and deserve to be approached together. At the same time, however, they are separable, both as such and because the second question has developed into a large research domain in its own right over the years. So, the two questions will be treated in juxtaposition, one after the other. Moreover, the second question will be discussed in some detail whereas the first one will be only briefly touched upon, simply due to the fact that I have familiarised myself more with the second question.

Why do social norms change, despite the fact that their mission is to be sustained?

Generally, human interaction is regulated – if not from the very outset in the development of all societies, at some early stage. Such regulation is enacted both by means of physical power and with the aid of norms. But to a substantial degree, physical power also relies on something other than itself since it would not function without loyalty from strategic groups and ultimately from the subjects or citizens in general. Norms serve to stabilise social interaction, be it peaceful or characterised by more or less violent conflicts. If such stabilising measures are successful, they will strengthen the norms through a series of feedback loops. Norms are introduced in order to be preserved through vertical and horizontal transmission, and thus, they promote human action in accordance with the norms. But they change, nevertheless, some more than others and more so in certain situations and under certain circumstances – even those that appear especially stable, sometimes even timeless. Some become stricter vis-à-vis human needs and desires whereas others get more relaxed. According to a new study of meta norms in 57 countries, in modern, basically liberal countries, what is called spreading of information is the most typical informal sanction applied, whereas verbal confrontation and avoidance of norm breakers are more frequent in more hierarchical and less liberal countries. Since modernisation is a historical process, this clearly indicates that norms do change.

On the micro level, change of attitudes towards lethal violence as well as non-lethal violence are paradigmatic examples of such long-term normative shifts.

Chapter four focuses on Avicenna's endeavour in his famous Canon of Medicine to reassert the epistemic authority of philosophy by restoring the proper boundaries of medicine, which Galen had especially obscured through his engagements with Plato's Timaeus. I maintain that Avicenna, a student of Aristotle, formulates this polemic in response to the threat that Galen's defence of the dialogue's brain centred psycho-physiology posed to the credibility of Aristotelian cardiocentrism, which identified the heart as the source of sensation. This study examines how Avicenna appeals to the restrictive epistemic hierarchies of his intellectual milieu, which limit doctors to subjects only relevant to the production or preservation of bodily health, to delegitimize Galen's contributions to natural philosophy. The rhetorical, as opposed to normalizing, force of the disciplinary prescriptions that he levels at Galen in the Canon of Medicine will become clear from my analysis of Avicenna's discussions of the hegemonic organ and pleasure in his philosophical works, where he transgresses his own 'laws' when disputing or even adopting TImaean positions on these issues.

Reflecting on the subjects from Plato's Timaeus at the centre of the disciplinary rivalry explored in the preceding chapters, I conclude that mind-body problems -- questions treating the extent to which psychic and 'mental' processes are separable from the corporeal realm -- provoked the most debate. My contention is that Galen's interpretation of a close link between the body and soul in the dialogue allowed himself and his sympathizers to give doctors a stake in psychological knowledge and trouble the distribution of value based on the corporeal-incorporeal dichotomy, which privileged philosophers. Therefore, the restrictive disciplinary laws imposed on doctors by Avicenna and Maimonides are a strategy to reclaim philosophy's hegemony on the soul and superior epistemic standing. While my study had divided Galen's successors into supporters and opponents of his project, I maintain that each Arabic actor tries to overwrite Galen's expertise with their own. Finally, I consider how my examination of the discursive reimagining of medicine can provide a longue durée perspective on modern reconceptualizations of the field, such as disputes about the relevance of the Medical Humanities.

Introduction to the book, including a literature review, an outline of the aims and an overview of the individual book chapters.

The third chapter focuses on the Iranian doctor Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (sometimes called the 'Arab Galen'), who was attacked by later Islamicate thinkers for his disciplinary overreach, and his bid to replace Galenism with his more theologically informed system of medicine and philosophy. In particular, it argues that al-Rāzī seeks to weaken the epistemic authority of Galenism through his critiques of Galen’s explanations of certain ideas from Plato’s Timaeus. I first consider the Middle Platonic and Neoplatonic sources on which al-Rāzī may have drawn to elaborate his 'anti-Platonism' – his Platonism in response to Galen's Platonism. Turning finally to the Doubts about Galen, I demonstrate that al-Rāzī attacks Galen on the subjects of creation, pleasure, and the soul for neglecting God's role in the cosmos in his interpretations of the Timaeus. In reformulating the boundaries of medicine to include theological knowledge, which belonged in ancient epistemological schemes to metaphysics, al-Rāzī, I conclude, promotes the doctor-metaphysician in opposition to Galen’s more limited philosopher-doctor as the most reliable investigator of the cosmos.