MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCRATES’ PROPOSALS
TO GLAUCON ABOUT Gumnastikhv IN REPUBLIC 403C–412Bin the dialogues, see Catherine Zuckert, “Hermeneutics in Practice: Gadamer
on Ancient Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer, ed. Robert J.
Dostal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), esp. 219– 20.
- See Halperin, “Plato and the Erotics of Narrativity,” 108– 20, on espe-
cially the Symposium and Phaedrus. See note 60. - For stimulating refl ections on the silence of Socrates in the dialogues
(and of Plato outside the dialogues), see Paul Plass, “Philosophic Anonymity
and Irony in the Platonic Dialogues,” in Smith, ed., Plato: Critical Assessments,
1:201– 20. - See George Rudebusch, “Plato’s Aporetic Style,” in Smith, ed., Plato:
Critical Assessments, 1:349 – 56. - Health in this context would admit of degrees and would be related
(perhaps by way of “identity” and perhaps not) to moral virtue and to philo-
sophic insight. See Sayre’s refl ections on the characterization of philosophic
insight in the Seventh Letter referenced in note 64. Health would be a state of
soul that expressed itself in appropriate and consistent deeds and utterances,
especially in deeds consistent with one’s utterances. It would fundamentally be
an ongoing genuine, appropriate, and complete response to value. - In the “later dialogues,” Theaetetus, “young Socrates,” and even
Socrates himself appear as interlocutors being “examined” by master philoso-
phers. Perhaps it would be mistaken to take them as manifesting maladies of
soul. But if health admits of degrees, and can be lost, we might read these dia-
logues as depicting more or less healthy characters being diagnosed as needing
treatment pertaining to the maintenance or improvement of their soul’s health.
These dialogues might be characterized as concerned more with gumnastikhv
than with iatrikhÛv. See note 46. See also my Plato’s Dialogue Form, 53– 56. The
Seventh Letter characterizes philosophic wisdom as “self-sustaining.” - For some discussion of Plato’s use of “historical irony” or “emphasis” in
his choice of interlocutors, see Blondell, Play of Character, 34– 37. Blondell and
other commentators suspect that there are implicit critiques in the dialogues
even of Socrates himself (perhaps, for example, because he did not write any-
thing, or was insuffi ciently erotic himself, or what have you). This raises impor-
tant questions that I cannot address here. I am skeptical toward the view, but it
would not be incompatible with the medical model. Perhaps there are different
kinds of philosophizing depicted in the dialogues (see note 73), and certain
limitations of Socrates’ particular style are implicitly criticized in some places. - Halperin, “Plato and the Erotics of Narrativity,” 126– 29, suggests that
the paradoxes and antinomies of interpretation that arise for careful readers of
the texts function to arouse their “hermeneutic e[rw~.” yucagwgiva becomes in
a sense “seduction” of readers into the quest for the fi nal “meaning” of the dia-
logues, the quest to grasp the source of the beauty of the dialogues. This seems
right. But we need not think that the dialogues “deconstruct” all the “claims”
made in and by them, or forsake realism about truth, beauty, and goodness.
Sorting out differences between diagnostic and therapeutic moves made in and
by the dialogues can go some way toward removing apparent antinomies of
interpretation. The hermeneutical instability (or diffi culty) of the dialogues