Abstract

The ancient art of healing and practical argumentation are closely linked, and this link points to three substantial issues: that physicians enjoy certain social status, that medicine is recognized as a special area of knowledge and that the art of healing is a profession. We use the analogy between the medicine and the judiciary for demonstrating these issues. The analogy involves two groups of norms governing the activities of judges – the norms of competence and the norms of conduct which we interpret as the actional and the practical aspects of the ancient art of healing. The actional aspect is similar to the norms of competence of a judge and sets the goal for the art of healing – restoring patient’s health, and defines a physician as a person who is publicly allowed to pursue this goal in his professional activities. The practical aspect is reminiscent of the judges’ norms of conduct and it outlines the terms and techniques which lead to achieving this goal by those who are considered physicians, according to the norms of competence. In order to become a real tekhne, it is necessary and sufficient for the art of healing to secure its actional and practical aspects in the body of theoretical knowledge, on the one hand, and in the appropriate professional code, on the other. Practical argumentation serves as the tools of this implementation, for it allows to combine the norms and actions in a set of strategies of conduct, aimed at restoring patient’s health, of which the physisian is now free to chose the one that appear to be the most effective.