Embodied Discourse: Revisiting Plato’s Stance on the Connection between Rhetoric and Medicine

AKROPOLIS: Journal of Hellenic Studies 1:55-71 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This essay examines several of Plato’s philosophical texts to show how in the process of trying to differentiate rhetoric and medicine—to prove that medicine is an art or science like philosophy, and that rhetoric, in comparison, is just a knack or skill—Plato indirectly and unwittingly reveals just how similar the two practices may be. As such, this essay seeks a fuller interpretation of Plato’s attitude toward rhetoric, supplementing the work of scholars who claim the only evidence Plato gives us about an ideal rhetoric is through its relationship to philosophy. This essay shows instead that Plato captures the potential of rhetoric as a true art precisely through its intricate relationship to medicine.

Categories

Add categories

Keywords

Reprint years

DOI

10.35296/jhs.v1i0.3

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,709

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

My notes

Similar books and articles

Rhetoric and Philosophy in Plato's Phaedrus.Daniel Werner - 2010 - Greece and Rome 57 (1):21-46.
The Stance of Plato.Albert Cook - 1996 - Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
The Post-Truth About Philosophy and Rhetoric.Steve Fuller - 2017 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 50 (4):473-482.
Plato: True and Sophistic Rhetoric.Keith V. Erickson (ed.) - 1979 - Brill / Rodopi.
Plato's Ideal Art of Rhetoric: An Interpretation of "Phaedrus" 270b--272b.David Allen Gilbert - 2002 - Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin
Rhetoric and Philosophy in the Platonic Dialogues: Plato's Presentation of Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Sophistic in Five Selected Dialogues.Mark Lewis Staller - 1992 - Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley
Does rhetoric, as Plato had Gorgias claim, have other areas of knowledge under its control? Or, as his Socrates claimed, does rhetoric have no use for knowledge at all? Gorgias seems to concede the point but counts it an advantage rather than a deficiency of rhetoric:“But is this not a great comfort, Socrates, to be able without learning any other arts but this one to prove in no way inferior to the specialists?”(Plato, trans. 1961, p. 459c). This critique of rhetoric mounted in the early part of the ...Disciplinarity Rhetoric - 2009 - In A. Lunsford, K. Wilson & R. Eberly (eds.), Sage Handbook of Rhetorical Studies. Sage Publications. pp. 167.
Rivals in Persuasion: Gorgianic Sophistic Versus Socratic Rhetoric.Dustin A. Gish - 2006 - Polis 23 (1):46-73.
Gorgias and Rhetoric.Joe Sachs (ed.) - 2008 - Focus.
Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle on Rhetoric.Chloe Balla - 2004 - Rhizai. A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 1:45-71.
Gorgias' defense: Plato and his opponents on rhetoric and the good.Rachel Barney - 2010 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 48 (1):95-121.
Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists.Marina McCoy - 2007 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Phaedrus. Plato & Harvey Yunis (eds.) - 1956 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Emerson and the Democratization of Plato's “True Rhetoric”.Roger Thompson - 2015 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 48 (2):117-138.
Technique and teleology in plato's rhetoric.Doug Al-Maini - 2005 - The European Legacy 10 (4):283-298.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-01-10

Downloads
16 (#903,096)

6 months
6 (#510,793)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

.David Lamb (ed.) - 1987 - Croom Helm.
Medicine as metaphor in Plato.Joel Warren Lidz - 1995 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 20 (5):527-541.
Rhetoric and Reality in Plato's "Phaedrus".David A. White - 1993 - State University of New York Press.

View all 6 references / Add more references