This chapter presents the several modes of reduction of the shoulder described by Hippocrates in On Joints 2–7 and evaluates them in relation to the phenomenon of leverage and the ancient tool, the lever (mochlos). It argues that Hippocrates’ understanding of leverage is a feature of his expertise as iētros and did not derive from any separate mechanical or scientific knowledge. This is especially interesting, since Hippocrates knew of the lever and some of its uses, but he describes techniques involving the reciprocal forces exerted between the patient’s dislocated bones and the physician’s own body. The chapter makes use of the analytic distinction between ostension and ostensive definition to characterize this expertise. It distinguishes among experience of physical forces, art that arises from such experience, and the physical principles of leverage that emerged a century or more later. There are references to On Fractures and On the Art.

This contribution discusses two theses on juridical evidence: the ostension thesis and the inference thesis. According to the former, the process of juridical proof typically requires some kind of ostensive act. In this sense, the evidence consists of some kind of element susceptible of being shown, or exhibited, or indicated to someone in a given context. According to the second thesis, the process of juridical proof necessarily requires inference. In this process, juridical evidence becomes the content of one or more inferences performed by the parties or by the fact-finders (judges or jurors). It can be the content of a premise which, together with other premises, leads to a conclusion about the disputed facts; or the content of a conclusion to which the premises lead. The two theses concern the process of juridical proof, but also the evidence involved in the process, since some characters of the process affect its content. Evidence is ostensively shown and inferentially processed.

The editors of the volume asked me to provide a broad overview of the beginnings of relevance theory back in the 1970s, how it has developed over the decades and where I see it moving in the future, reflecting in the process on the collective work that Deirdre Wilson and I initiated and that has been joined and considerably enriched by many others. Here are some personal notes to help address these questions.

The editors of the volume asked me to provide a broad overview of the beginnings of relevance theory back in the 1970s, how it has developed over the decades and where I see it moving in the future, reflecting in the process on the collective work that Deirdre Wilson and I initiated and that has been joined and considerably enriched by many others. Here are some personal notes to help address these questions.