These two brief essays bridge the gap between the extensive discussion of the nuptial number in Essay 13 and the massive commentary on the Myth of Er that will follow in volume III of this series. Essay 14 contains a kind of appendix in tabular form that summarises the three arguments that the life of the just person is happier. Essay 15 opens with a similar tabular presentation of the main sections of Book X of the Republic.

We can delve no further than the Vatican manuscript (Vat. gr. 2197) into the history of these diagrammatic representations of the contents of the two essays, but it is striking that both appear on the same page (111r). The scholia to the part of the codex that remained in Florence have one somewhat similar tabular presentation of information but this summarises divisions to be found among the kinds of powers in Plato’s Laws. It does not provide a tabular summary of the content of Proclus’ text.1 Part of Essay 13 carries over onto 111r, so it seems integral to the version created by the ninth- or tenth-century copyist.

The chapter explores the interaction of reason with perceptual experience and empirical procedures in Galen. It aims to answer two main questions: (a) how does Galen's account cope with the problem of the inexpressibility of sensory experience in words? (b) what input does logos – in the sense both of prior theoretical conceptions, and of verbal accounts – have in the organization and training, and/or the actual content, of sensory experience? The investigation is carried out on the basis of a number of substantial texts which have previously received very little scholarly attention, and in particular examines in conjunction relevant passages from the treatises on the pulse and from that on simple drugs. I identify and discuss Galen's distinctive and original theoretical arguments in these areas, as well as the relevance of his discussions to medical training and clinical practice.

Since Socrates, in the fifth book of the Republic, wishes to show that political virtue does not belong to men alone, but is also common to women, he says that the education (paideia)32 that is prior to virtue must necessarily be the same for men and women33 – an education through mousikê and through physical training whose extent and character he has defined. Furthermore, even prior to the education, he shows the nature of both kinds (genos) [i.e. men and women] to be the same in form, for unless this point is firmly established, neither the arguments concerning education, nor those concerning virtue would have plausibility. It is, after all, necessary for education to be consequent upon nature, and for virtue to be consequent upon education, since the one perfects nature, while the other is the goal of education.

The chapter discusses the first of the fourteen books of Galens De Methodo Medendi in its Arabic summary (Jawami'), the summary's epistemological approach and its parallels and differences in comparision to the original Galenic work. Its ultimate source is placed within the Late Antique Alexandrian tradition of teaching philosophy and medicine, especially the introductions to philosophy and medicine, the so-called Prolegomena.

The chapter deals with Galen’s attack on the pulse-classification of the first-century CE Pneumatist doctor Archigenes, and examines Galen’s reasons for replacing Archigenes’ theory with his own. Galen claims that Archigenes has no idea of the proper method of determining the real species of pulse, and he castigates him for terminological failings as well. But it turns out on close analysis that Archigenes’ actual classification is very close to Galen’s own; and the terminological cavils seem fairly trivial and pedantic. So what is the real substance of Galen’s attack? The chapter suggests that the point at issue is partly simply a matter of professional rivalry, but partly also a consequence of Galen’s insistence on adhering to the properly philosophical method of conducting divisions.

Some disagreements are serious, others are footling. There are two disagreements about dreaming. They concern the questions ‘Do we wake or dream?’ and ‘Should we have confidence in dreams or in waking experience?’. The answer, said the Sceptics, is in each case: ‘Who knows?’. According to Galen, the sceptics aren’t serious, and no-one is genuinely puzzled by the questions — the disagreements are of the footling sort. That is true, and philosophically uninteresting. But the sceptical arguments which have exercised philosophers are, as Galen suggests, trifles; and in this case at least it is not difficult to let the fly out of the fly-bottle.

Essays 8 and 9 are unique within the context of Proclus’ Republic Commentary in being so obviously different treatments of more or less the same subject matter. Accordingly, we will provide one introductory chapter for both essays.

The chapter aims at investigating the way Galen constructs his philosophical theories in dialogue with his predecessors, both by adhering and by opposing to their doctrines. For this purpose, it focuses on a certain part of his epistemology, namely his account of sense perception and, in particular, his theory of vision. I argue that Galen’s perceptual theory starts from material he finds in the Platonic dialogues, but revises it significantly either in order to reply to objections raised by Plato’s opponents or in order to rebut unfortunate, at least to his mind, adaptations of the Platonic inheritance. Indeed, in his attempt to defend Plato’s views on sense perception, Galen does not recoil from borrowing whatever seems to him valuable from rival philosophical schools, and it is this enriched reworking of the Platonic theory that he adopts as his own philosophical stance. To fully reconstruct and comprehend Galen’s method in his general theory of sense perception and in his theory of vision, I draw my evidence from what Galen tells us about these topics in his extant works, and especially in the seventh book of his treatise On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato.

This chapter discusses a number of passages from Galen’s work that illustrate his idea of dialectic as a tool for scientific reasoning and discovery in particular. Through logical methods such as division the researcher identifies observable properties of the thing under examination (e.g. the heart, or brain) that indicate its hidden cause or essence, i.e. function (e.g. being the centre of a particular psychic faculty) in the context of theory formation. The medical practitioner for his part will profit from dialectical method when it comes to establishing a diagnosis. The notion of indication or sign is pivotal in that its bridges the stage of discovery and that of confirmation through demonstrative proof. In addition, ‘dialectical’ serves as a label for plausible assumptions and arguments in cases where truth is unattainable or at any rate has not yet been established through demonstrative proof. Various influences are involved in Galen’s version of dialectic: Plato’s Phaedrus and Timaeus, Academic epistemology, Aristotle’s works on scientific method as well as input from the medical schools, most notably Rationalist ideas (e.g. indication). His resulting position can best be described as an original synthesis developed with a view to the interests of the medical theorist and practitioner.

They say that the bee is sacred to the Muses, a teacher for human beings concerning the royal and political life. Therefore, if it pleases you to give the name ‘the bee’ to the summary of the opinions of the ancients concerning the speech of the Muses by Plato 17 and of the exposition of it that I am furnishing, the Muses will not blame you for using that name nor will Plato, the mouthpiece of the Muses as I think, who is treating the change of constitutions in this speech that he dedicated to the Muses.

He seems to me to be responding to those who lay claim to political knowledge that the change of constitutions from the higher to the next lowest does not come about by necessity.

Overview of the main issues in Galen's scientific epistemology , the state of the art, and the contents of this volume.

There are three arguments in the ninth book of the Republic showing the happiness (eudaimonia) of the most just life and the wretchedness of the unjust. The first is made by analogy of ways of life with constitutions, the second from the means of judging, by which [types of individual] are judged more or less than one another,8 the third on the basis of the perfection in their activities, whether it is unmixed in any way with the opposite, or whether it is mixed. Since for some people the goal (telos) is pleasure, but for others it is intelligence (phronêsis), if it should be shown that the just man is superior in each individually and in both together, he would with good reason win the prize for victory, even if [his goodness] should escape the notice of both gods and human beings. This then was the challenge lying before Socrates.