La presenza del linguaggio medico nel "De signis" di Filodemo

Daniela Fausti

Abstract:

In Philodemus' work, we generally find terms and concepts deriving from the language of medicine, but it is in De signis that this link is particularly strong – as stated explicitly in the final lines of the treatise, where the author recalls having presented the Epicurean theories of inference and states that what some (i.e., the Empiricists) have said and written on analogical inference will be discussed at the end of the work (which has not survived); by examining the text, we can make a persuasive comparison with medical theories of the ancient Hippocratic tradition (the function of the sign for prognostic purposes, the idea of generalization and the influence of the environment) or with the language and methods of Empirical medicine (especially inference from similarity).