[981a]
[1]
Experience seems
very similar to science and art,but actually it is through experience that men
acquire science and art; for as Polus rightly says, "experience
produces art, but inexperience chance."1 Art is produced
when from many notions of experience a single universal judgement is
formed with regard to like objects.To have a judgement that when Callias was
suffering from this or that disease this or that benefited him, and
similarly with Socrates and
various other individuals, is a matter of experience; but to judge
that it benefits all persons of a certain type, considered as a class,
who suffer from this or that disease (e.g. the phlegmatic or bilious
when suffering from burning fever) is a matter of art.It would seem that for practical purposes experience is in no way
inferior to art; indeed we see men of experience succeeding more than
those who have theory without experience.The reason of this is a that experience is
knowledge of particulars, but art of universals; and actions and the
effects produced are all concerned with the particular. For it is not
man that the physician cures, except incidentally, but Callias or
Socrates or some other
person similarly named, who is incidentally a man as well.
[20]
So if a man has theory without experience, and
knows the universal, but does not know the particular contained in it,
he will often fail in his treatment; for it is the particular that
must be treated.Nevertheless we consider that knowledge and proficiency belong to
art rather than to experience, and we assume that artists are wiser
than men of mere experience (which implies that in all cases wisdom
depends rather upon knowledge);and this is because the former know the cause,
whereas the latter do not. For the experienced know the fact, but not
the wherefore; but the artists know the wherefore and the cause. For
the same reason we consider that the master craftsmen in every
profession are more estimable and know more and are wiser than the
artisans,
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