MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCRATES’ PROPOSALS
TO GLAUCON ABOUT Gumnastikhv IN REPUBLIC 403C–412B
- See note 46.
- An interesting dramatic irony here: one aim of the censorship of pas-
sages from the epics was to augment spiritedness so as to produce absolutely
fearless warriors (for example, 387c). Now Socrates urges a very different pur-
pose for mousikhv and gumnastikhv together, to provide a tempering, guiding,
and cathartic infl uence on innate aggressiveness.
- An interesting study could be made of Plato’s use of the notion of in-
tellectual gumnastikhv for the yuchv in the dialogues as a whole. In dialogues
such as the Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, the philosophical
protagonist’s chief interlocutors—Socrates himself, Theaetetus, and “young
Socrates”—are all taken through formidable “mental gymnastics” during the
course of the conversations. And it is noteworthy that the conversations depicted
in the Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman all occur in a gymnasium (as do those
depicted in the Lysis and Charmides). The old master Parmenides fi nds fl aws in
the young Socrates’ understanding of the Forms and participation, and decides
accordingly to show him a way in which he can be “trained gymnastically” so
as to better understand the relation between Forms and their instances. (In
Parmenides 135a– 137c there are at least fi ve occurrences of “gumnastikhv” and
cognates in the description of the method of hypothesis.) See Jaeger, Paideia,
3:30– 36. In book 10 of the Republic (613bc and 621d; also earlier at 465d, 503a,
504a, 583b) we fi nd references to prizes the just man wins from men and gods
for victory in the games. This seems to recall and “trump” the prizes of those
engaged in the games at the festival of Bendis in book 1. See Rutherford, Art of
Plato, 217.
- At 571d– 572a Socrates describes the bedtime ritual of the healthy per-
son, who rouses his reason but soothes his qumov~ every night before he goes to
sleep.
- It should not be lost on the reader that this phrase might be construed
as evidence that Socrates (and Plato) held a somewhat “Aristotelian” view of the
function of mousikhv and poihtikhv. It is also noteworthy that Socrates draws a
close connection in this passage between filosofiva and mousikhv.
- Compare Socrates’ sketch of the timocratic personality in 548d– 549c.
Adeimantus is inclined to classify Glaucon as a timocratic type, the type that
loves gumnastikhv and hunting (549a). Socrates says the timocratic type differs
from Glaucon in the following respects: he is more unmusical but a lover of it
(filovmouson) and he loves to listen to discussions (filhvkoon) (548e4– 5).
- The unspirited thinker, perhaps, never makes appropriate use of, say,
the methods of hypothesis or of collection and division. Socrates often pairs
philosophical learning with gumnastikhv in the Republic (410e, 441e, 498b,
503e– 504a, 504a– d, 526b, 535b– d, 539d). Later in the dialogue Socrates pro-
poses that the male and female guardians “exercise” naked together, and the
“gymnastic” with which their education concludes is fi ve years of strenuous “ex-
ercise” in dialectical arguments (539d– e). Perhaps this suggests on a symbolic
level that men and women need to philosophize together. See note 33.
- This is a phrase from Iliad 17.588, where Apollo tells Hektor that earlier
Meneleos had been a malqako;n aijcmhthvn. Plato quotes the same phrase at Sym-
