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Philosophy Then

The Best Doctor is Also a Philosopher

Peter Adamson on medicine in the ancient world.

One of the most familiar truisms about the history of philosophy is that in previous ages, the word ‘philosophy’ had a broader meaning than it does today. And like any good truism, this one is actually true. Until relatively recently, researchers we would now call ‘scientists’ were called ‘natural philosophers’ or simply ‘philosophers’. This usage goes back all the way to the roots of philosophy in Europe, with the Presocratics, whose ideas concerned science at least as much as the topics we now teach in philosophy classes. The man typically credited with being the very first philosopher, Thales of Miletus, is reputed to have been an expert in astronomy, and to have made a killing on the olive oil market by renting all the olive presses after he was able to predict a bumper crop.

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