Epilogism is a style of

inference Inferences are steps in reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences; etymologically, the word ''infer'' means to "carry forward". Inference is theoretically traditionally divided into deduction and induction, a distinction that in ...

used by the ancient

Empiric school The Empiric school of medicine (''Empirics'', ''Empiricists'', or ''Empirici'', el, Ἐμπειρικοί) was a school of medicine founded in Alexandria the middle of the third century BC. The school was a major influence on ancient Greek and R ...

of medicine. It is a theory-free method that looks at history through the accumulation of facts without major generalization and with consideration of the consequences of making causal claims. Epilogism is an inference which moves entirely within the domain of visible and evident things, it tries not to invoke

unobservable An unobservable (also called impalpable) is an entity whose existence, nature, properties, qualities or relations are not directly observable by humans. In philosophy of science, typical examples of "unobservables" are the force of gravity, causa ...

Concept

There are conflicting accounts as to who introduced epilogism. It has been, for instance, attributed to

Menodotus of Nicomedia Menodotus of Nicomedia ( el, Μηνόδοτος ὁ Νικομηδεύς; 2nd century CE), in Bithynia, was a physician and Pyrrhonist philosopher; a pupil of Antiochus of Laodicea; and tutor to Herodotus of Tarsus. He belonged to the Empiri ...

as well as to Heracleides of Tarentum, who was an

Epicurean Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism. Few writings by Epi ...

. Menodotus' use of this notion was included in the extant Latin version of

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one o ...

's ''Subfiguratio empirica,'' where it was described as the third method in addition to perception and recollection. It is also said that the empirics devised epilogism to distinguish their kind of reasoning from the type used by the

rationalists In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy'' ...

, which required an understanding of the underlying nature of things, including the link between consequence and exclusion drawn between states of affairs. Some also consider epilogism as the most extreme form of reasoning acceptable to the empirics. For the empirics, epilogism was reasoning that focused on a temporarily hidden subject. It was employed as a method to uncover the provisionally hidden subjects, which are not entirely inaccessible to experience. It covered the ground addressed by the commemorative sign and featured the ordinary reasoning common to all human beings. It also had an exclusive focus on the

phenomena A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried ...

and simply reported (without endorsing) the practice of the empirical doctor. As a medical method, it was used to infer the existence of something that is temporarily unclear, but in principle observable. In medical instruction, empirics use epilogism as one of the three sources or tripod of empiric medicine, along with personal observation and the study of observations collected by others. In this case, the term, which is also called analogism, pertains to the induction that is derived from two former sources.

Cultural depictions

Epilogism is discussed as a way of viewing history in '' The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable'' by

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Nassim Nicholas Taleb (; alternatively ''Nessim ''or'' Nissim''; born 12 September 1960) is a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and aphorist whose work concerns problems of randomness ...

References

External links

* http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2004/2004-12-20.html * repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/24239/1/nishimura.pdf Sources of knowledge Ancient Greek medicine Theories of deduction Empiricism {{philosophy-stub

Concept

Cultural depictions

See also

References

External links