Abstract In the history of philosophy, the opposition between episteme and techne has been conventional. Whether Plato or Aristotle is interpreted, or whether Archimedes, Ctesibius, Philo of Byzantium or Heron of Alexandria are revised, there is a margi-nalization of the techne as compared to the epistemic hierarchy of pure thought (logismos). I propose a different interpretation of an archaeological and genealogical nature, according to which an episteme in the techne and a techne in the episteme could be postulated. The inquiry begins with a reading of sources making use of ety-mology as a hermeneutic techne (or hermeneutic method). The Hippocratic treatises have been used as the principal primary source.