Observations, Particulars, and Empiricism in the Early Middle Ages

In aristotle's poetics he distinguishes between philosophy and indeed poetry, which deal with universals. In the early sixteenth century that hierarchy begins to be reversed for very interesting reasons. The doctors who are the people who have received a natural philosophical education start to collect what they call observations. They publish them in collections that start with the head and go down to the toe for easy consultation by other doctors. This move to look at particulars spreads. What's really going on is that these, first of all, these doctors, who are the vanguard of this movement, but then humanists and lawyers and other sharp observers, are pioneering new forms of systematic empiricism.