MARK MOESpractice? This section articulates an answer to this question, one that
may need to be refuted in whole or in part, or at least more or less quali-
fi ed in whole or in part, by scholars more learned in Greek history and
philology than the author.
We can recall that in the Phaedrus Socrates treated dialectic as an
instrument of rhetoric along with other non-dialectical instruments,
and redefi ned rhetoric as a yucagwgiva that, since it is not confi ned to
public contexts, can be exercised in any conversational context. Plato’s
written dialogues conspicuously depict long stretches of dialectical ar-
gumentation, but they also depict interlocutors employing non- dialecti-
cal discourses and techniques—stories, tropes of all kinds, myths, allu-
sions to religious mysteries, experiences, rituals, and so on.^61 And since
Plato wrote the dialogues, he doubtless envisioned that at least some of
the time his readers would “listen in” on them and “converse” with them
or engage in sunousiva with them, in private contexts of study and silent
reading.^62 Again, there is evidence that Plato’s aim in writing dialogues
was not to work out and defend a system of philosophic doctrine but
rather to perform yucagwgiva in relation to his readers.^63 This is espe-
cia lly so i f t he Seventh Letter is t aken to be eit her a genuine Platonic letter
or a letter written in accordance with things known about Plato’s atti-
tudes.^64 So there are some obvious analogies between Socrates’ truthful
rhetorician interacting with interlocutors, on the one hand, and Plato’s
interaction with his readers, on the other.
But Socrates in the Phaedrus also modeled the rhetorician-leading-
his-audience-to-truthful-understanding upon the physician-diagnosing-
an-interlocutor-and-leading-him-to-health. And this medical model of
philosophizing, as we saw, also appeared in the Phaedo in Socrates’ rem-
edy for misologiva and misanqrwpiva. The remedy consisted in the skillful
employment of lovgoi (presumably both dialectical and non-dialectical),
the skillful study of human nature, the skillful judging of character,
and the skillful withholding of complete trust from less than healthy
persons. Again there seem to be analogies between the person applying
Socrates’ remedy and the Plato who wrote the dialogues with such liter-
ary and logical skill yet refrained from speaking his own mind directly
and didactically. Are there any other indications that Plato might have
conceived of himself as a “philosophical physician” while composing the
dialogues?
Plato had an important older contemporary who made infl uential
use of medical ideas. It may be conjectured with some plausibility (but
not argued in a clinching way) that Plato concerns himself in at least
some of the dialogues with issues raised by Thucydides,^65 who adapted
the principles and methods of Hippocratic medicine to the interpreta-