Inference from Signs: Ancient Debates about the Nature of Evidence

Abstract

James Allen's purpose in this book is 'to explore some of the more important attempts that were made to understand the nature of evidence after it became an object for theoretical reflection in the ancient Greek and Roman world' [1].This statement suggests that the author's investigation centers on an issue with which ancient philosophers concerned themselves in their inquiries into human knowledge.But Oxford University Press advertises Allen's book as making an important contribution not only to the history of ancient philosophy, but also to the history of ancient science.For instance, in her remarks on the back of the dust jacket, Gisela Striker predicts that Inference from Signs will become 'the authoritative work on this important chapter in the histories of science and philosophy'.Similarly, after noting the considerable role that inference from signs played in ancient philosophical and scientific methods, the blurb on the leaf of the dust jacket concludes that the book will fill 'an important gap in the histories of science and philosophy'.The following discussion will first summarize the main points of Inference from Signs and then go on to consider briefly the extent to which the book might contribute to the history of ancient science.Allen organizes his book into four studies, rather than chapters, in order to 'emphasize the extent to which the views and controversies under consideration. . .cannot be made to fit the pattern of a single continuous development in which positions are taken and defended with reference to a framework common to all parties' [7-8].These four studies focus respectively on the accounts of inference from signs offered by Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus, the Stoics, and the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus in his treatise De signis.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 57 citations exist upstream.