Art, science and conjecture, from Hippocrates to Plato and Aristotle.

This paper attempts to study the notion of stochazesthai in the Hippocratic Corpus in relation to Hippocratic reflections on the status of the medical art. Considering the passages where the verb stochazesthai is employed, we can see that this word is not yet synonymous with the term "conjecture". The main point of interest are the relations between the Hippocratic writings and the relevant works of Plato and Aristotle. In revising the concept of stochazesthai in this way, it appears that this "conjectural" mode of knowledge was unknown to the Hippocratic writers and that it is really too early in their case to speak of "stochastic medicine".