Galen in Arabic. More than a translation. – GAIA

In the first step, when editing so far unpublished Arabic texts from manuscripts, we will employ a strongly philologically based method. When deciphering, reading and analysing manuscripts close attention has to be paid to palaeography and codicology. The project members have much experience in working with manuscripts and editing texts. As we will be editing Arabic texts which GAIA project proposal 8 rely more or less heavily on Greek models, the underlying Greek terminology and the various ways in which it may be rendered into Arabic must be considered and documented. In the second step, when translating our sources, we have to work closely together to develop a consistent and uniform vocabulary to ensure that key concepts are rendered in the same way and will be identifiable throughout the corpus of translated texts we produce. The establishment of a glossary of Greek, Arabic, English and French terms is thus indispensable. In this way we will also be able to map the development of medical, philosophical and theological terminology over the studied period. Particular attention will be paid to the way in which the Arabic readers who had no knowledge of Greek must have understood the Arabic concepts presented in the translations of the Galenic texts and whether a change in understanding of these concepts has already been caused by the mere translation process. The analysis of our corpus must take into consideration the fact that we are dealing with different types of “meta”-discourses, such as compendia, commentaries, abridgements, doubts, and responses. Thus the understanding and documentation of intertextuality will be of utmost importance. It is our aim to make our findings accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike. Thus in our publications we will take care to put the discussed texts and authors in larger contexts, to explain key terms and concepts in simple, yet precise language and to provide translations of all Greek and Arabic phrases.

As many of the Arabic translations of Galen’s original treatises as well as their abridgements remain unedited, the project will provide a number of dearly needed editions centring on Galen’s «Method of Treatment«, in which the methodology and, more generally, the epistemology of the Greek physician is expounded. Based on these editions, the formation and transformations of the theory of knowledge in the Arabic Islamic world of the 9th and 10th centuries will be studied. A further area of research will be semiology, i.e. the study of signs, in which Galen’s influence is particularly important either through his «On Demonstration« which is lost today in Greek and Arabic, but of which substantial fragments survive, or through his «On the Usefulness of the Parts« in which he presents arguments from design as indications for the existence of the Creator. The project will apply an interdisciplinary methodology bringing together the methods used in the fields of philology, the history of medicine, of ancient and medieval philosophy, as well as of kalam theology.

In the past the Arabic transmission of Galen has often been approached from the point of view of the Greek Galen, i.e. either to reconstruct Galenic treatises lost in Greek, but preserved in Arabic, or to study Greek-Arabic translation techniques. The GAIA-approach, in contrast, focuses on the audience for whom Galen’s works were translated, their understanding these translations, their impact on the transmission and their development of the transmitted thoughts. The research undertaken in the framework of proposed project will further acknowledge and stress the fact that the Arabic translations of Galen the physician were not exclusively read for medical purposes, but also out of interest for their philosophical contents. In this way Galen the philosopher and his influence on the philosophy and theology in the Islamicate world shall emerge.

a) Critical edition of the first four books of Hunayn ibn Ishaq’s Arabic translation of The Method of Treatment. Book 1 and 2 contain the most fundamental epistemological development, while book 3 and 4, although focusing on the case of wounds, contain long pharmacological developments that were of utmost interest to Arabic-Islamic physicians. This first partial edition of the Arabic translation will also provide a searchable text, which will be of great benefit to the work on the summaries.
b) Critical edition and translation into English of the first two books of the Summary of the Method of Treatment (Gawami' Hilat al-bur') as well as crucial passages pertaining to our research questions from the other books.
c) Critical edition of al-Razi’s Synopsis of the Method of Treatment (Talhis Kitab Hilat al-bur'). The Synopsis covers all fourteen books of Galen’s treatise, and also includes a remarkable introduction in which the author explains the reasons why and how he engaged with Galen’s text.
d) On the basis of this editorial work, we will study Galen’s epistemology and how Islamic philosophers and theologians used it. We will conduct studies on topics such as medical demonstration, induction, ‘common notions’, and on experience and reasoning as tools for scientific discovery. We will also enquire into the status of medicine as science and how medical methodology reflected the Islamic theologians’ and philosophers’ logical enquiries.
2. Semiology (work-package 2)
a) Article on Gabir ibn Hayyan’s Book of Reasearch, in relation with the debates on sign-inference.
b) Publication of a collection of fragments on early kalâm.
c) Edition and translation of the Solution to the Doubts Against Galen’s by Abu al-'Ala ibn Zuhr.
d) A collaborative book article on the Greek and Arabic fragments of Galen’s On Demonstration.

The joint project “Galen in Arabic (GAIA) – More than a Translation” aims at investigating the crosspollinations between three intellectual strands of the Islamicate world in the 9th and 10th centuries: the reception of the Greek medical tradition as expressed in the writings pertaining to the Galenic tradition, early Arabic philosophy (falsafa) and early Islamic theology (kalam). Our hypothesis is that the intellectual debates that took place within the Islamicate world impacted the reception of this Greek medical tradition. We will focus on two main areas : epistemology, and semiology, i.e. the study of signs.
The GAIA project proposes two main shifts of focus for its research on Galen, namely from the source text to the target text, and from Galen the physician to Galen the philosopher. In the past the Arabic transmission of Galen has often been approached from the point of view of the Greek Galen, i.e. either to reconstruct Galenic treatises lost in Greek, but preserved in Arabic, or to study Greek-Arabic translation techniques. The GAIA-approach, in contrast, focuses on the target audience for whom Galen’s works were translated, their understanding these translations, their impact on the transmission and the development of the transmitted thoughts. The research undertaken in the framework of the proposed project will further stress and acknowledge the fact that the Arabic translations of Galen the physician were not exclusively read for medical purposes, but also out of interest for their philosophical contents. In this way Galen the philosopher and his influence on the philosophy and theology in the Islamicate world shall emerge.
As many of the Arabic translations of Galen’s original treatises as well as their abridgements remain unedited, the project will provide a number of dearly needed editions centring on Galen’s "Method of Treatment", in which the methodology and, more generally, the epistemology of the Greek physician is expounded. Based on these editions, the formation and transformations of the theory of knowledge in the Arabic Islamic world of the 9th and 10th centuries will be studied. A further area of research will be semiology, i.e. the study of signs, in which Galen’s influence is particularly important either through his "On Demonstration" which is lost today in Greek and Arabic, but of which substantial fragments survive, or through his "On the Usefulness of the Parts" in which he presents arguments from design as indications for the existence of the Creator.
The project will apply an interdisciplinary methodology bringing together the methods used in the fields of philology, the history of medicine, of ancient and medieval philosophy, as well as of kalam theology. The main researchers responsible for the project “Galen in Arabic” will be the two scientific coordinators, Dr Pauline Koetschet and Dr Elvira Wakelnig.