MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCRATES’ PROPOSALS
TO GLAUCON ABOUT Gumnastikhv IN REPUBLIC 403C–412Bpriate to each type of soul, and showing what kind of speech can be
relied on to create belief in one soul and disbelief in another, and why.
(Hackforth)The truthful rhetorician develops the “ability to discern each kind of
yuchv as it occurs in the actions of real life” (271e) and “to make clear to
himself that the person actually standing in front of him is of just this
part icular sort of character” (272a). Only t hen can he “apply speeches of
such and such a kind in this particular way in order to secure conviction
about such and such an issue.”
It i s st r i k i ng t hat i n t he d i sc u s sion to t h i s poi nt S ocr at es ha s t reat ed
dialectic as an instrument of rhetoric, and has redefi ned rhetoric as a
yucígwgiva that, since it is not confi ned to public contexts, can be exer-
cised in any conversational context. Any reader familiar with the whole
corpus of dialogues is familiar with Socrates’ way of exemplifying his
teachings in his own practice. If we assume that Socrates the philoso-
pher is ipso facto a truthful rhetorician, then his remarks here suggest
that in his own conversational practice he models himself on the physi-
cian, able to diagnose the condition of an interlocutor before trying to
bring him back to health.
A passage in the Gorgias also makes conspicuous use of medicine
as a model for the use of knowledge in the practice of helping others to
become virtuous. In 461b– 465e Socrates gets Gorgias to admit that it
is possible for both bodies and souls to be in conditions such that they
appear to be healthy though they are actually unhealthy.^4 He maintains
that the treatment of diseases of the soul requires the practice of a craft
which works on yucai in a way analogous to the way in which the crafts of
medicine, gymnastic, pharmacology, dietetics, and the like work on bod-
ies.^5 He speaks of two crafts concerned with the treatment (qerípeiva)
of the body, gymnastic (gumnavstikh) and medicine (iatrikhvÊ), a nd t wo
concerned with the treatment of the yuchv, legislation (nomoqetikhv)
and an art of justice (d#kaiosuvnh). Each pair includes one art of dis-
ease prevention and health maintenance (gumnavstikh for the body and
nomoqetikhv for the soul) and one art for restoring health after disease
has taken hold (iatrikhÊv for the body and d#kaiosuvnh for the soul).
A third illuminating reference to medicine in relation to Socratic
practice is found in the Phaedo, in Phaedo’s account of the way in which
Socrates behaves toward him and Simmias and Cebes when he warns
them against the hatred of arguments (88c– 91c). The three have be-
come depressed over the inconclusive nature of the discussion about
survival. Socrates behaves in a way strikingly similar to the way one
would describe the manner of a good physician: