Hos pharmakon chresimon: myth as a ‘rethorical remedy’ within Plato’s Kallipolis
Abstract
The paper aims to investigate the relationship between rhetorical and medical fields in Plato’s dialogues through the lens of myth as a “useful remedy”. For Plato myth is a middle way between truth and lie, as well as health and disease, justice and injustice, good and evil. In this way, it can have both an educational and a therapeutic function in the ideal city only after a “surgical” selection of the typical contents of traditional poetry. Plato also criticizes traditional rhetoric and medicine: while rhetorical persuasion is aimed only at itself, Hippocratic medicine is unqualified to be the highest techne because it deals only with the body and not with the soul, unlike philosophy. The rhetoric-medicine link gets more complicated considering the refoundation of a healthy mythology, as the myth of “noble lie” shows. The noble lie constitutes a necessary political remedy to preserve city health and aims to persuade rulers and citizens (regarded as patients) to have a common ancestry and different tasks to be undertaken within the city. However, in the last century, this complex intersection between rhetoric and medicine gave rise to mystifications and misunderstandings of Plato’s intentions, as Popper and the following debate demonstrates.
References
Broze, Michèle (1986), «Mensonge et justice chez Platon», in Revue Internationale de Philosophie, vol. 40, n. 156-157 (1/2), pp. 38-48.
Calabi, Francesca (1998), La nobile menzogna, in Vegetti, Mario, a cura di, Platone, Repubblica, vol. II, Bibliopolis, Napoli 1998, pp. 445-457.
Cerri, Giovanni (1991), Platone sociologo della comunicazione, Il Saggiatore, Milano.
Collobert, Catherine, Destrée, Pierre, Gonzalez Francisco J. (2012), eds, Plato and Myth. Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, Brill, Leiden-Boston.
Destrée, Pierre, Herrmann, Fritz-Gregor (2011), eds, Plato and the Poets, Brill, Leiden-Boston.
Droz, Geneviève (1992), Les mythes platoniciens, Éditions du Seuil, Paris (I miti platonici, traduzione di Paolo Bollini, Dedalo, Bari 1994).
Esiodo, Opere, a cura di Aristide Colonna, UTET, Torino 1977.
Ferrari, Franco (2006), I miti di Platone, BUR-Rizzoli, Milano.
Gastaldi, Silvia (1998), Paideia/mythologia, in Vegetti, Mario, a cura di, Platone, Repubblica, vol. 2, Bibliopolis, Napoli 1998, pp. 333-92.
Ghibellini, Alberto (2004), «La nobile menzogna in Platone», in Giornale di Metafisica, n. 26, pp. 301-32.
Hahm, David E. (1969), «Plato’s Noble Lie and Political Brotherhood», in Classica et Mediaevalia, n. 30, pp. 211-27.
Hall, Robert W. (1967), «On the Myth of the Metals in the Republic», in Apeiron, vol. 1, n. 2, pp. 28-32.
Hannaford, Ivan (1996), Race. The History of an Idea in the West, Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, D.C.
Joly, Robert (1983), Platon Phèdre et Hippocrate; vingt ans après, in Lasserre, F., Mudry, Ph., eds, Formes de pensée dans la Collection Hippocratique. Actes du IV Colloque International Hippocratique, Lausanne 21-26 septembre 1981, Droz, Genève, pp. 407-422.
Jouanna, Jacques (1977), «La Collection Hippocratique et Platon (Phèdre 269c-272a)», in Revue des Études Grecques, vol. 90, pp. 15-28.
Levin, Susan B. (2014), Plato’s Rivalry with Medicine. A Struggle and Its Dissolution, Oxford University Press, New York.
Mansfeld, Jaap (1980), «Plato and the Method of Hippocrates», in Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 21, pp. 341-362.
Moore, Christopher (2012), The Myth of Theuth in the Phaedrus, in Collobert, Catherine, Destrée, Pierre, Gonzalez Francisco J., eds, Plato and Myth. Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, Brill, Leiden-Boston, pp. 279-303.
Most, Glenn W. (2012), Plato’s Exoteric Myths, in Collobert, Catherine, Destrée, Pierre, Gonzalez Francisco J., eds, Plato and Myth. Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, Brill, Leiden-Boston, pp. 13-24.
Plastira-Valkanou, Maria (1998), «Medicine and Fine Cuisine in Plato’s Gorgias», in L’Antiquité Classique, vol. 67, pp. 195-201.
Platone, Fedro, a cura di Roberto Velardi, BUR-Rizzoli, Milano 2006.
Platone, Gorgia, a cura di Giuseppe Zanetto, BUR-Rizzoli, Milano 1994.
Platone, Repubblica, a cura di Mario Vegetti, BUR-Rizzoli, Milano 2007.
Platone, Simposio, introduzione di Vincenzo di Benedetto, traduzione e note di Franco Ferrari, BUR-Rizzoli, Milano 1986.
Popper, Karl R. (1945), The Open Society and Its Enemies. Vol. I The Spell of Plato, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
Rowett, Catherine (2016), «Why the Philosopher Kings will believe the Noble Lie», in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, vol. 50, pp. 67-100.
Schofield, Malcolm (2007), The Noble Lie, in Ferrari, Giovanni R. F., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic, Cambridge University Press, pp. 138-164.
Trabattoni, Franco (2009), Platone, Carocci, Roma.
Vegetti, Mario (1996), «Kompsoi Asklepiades: la critica di Platone alla medicina nel III libro della Repubblica», in Polyhistor. Studies in the History and Historiography of Ancient Philosophy, vol. 72, pp. 61-75.
Vegetti, Mario (1999), Guida alla lettura della Repubblica, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
Vegetti, Mario (2009), Un paradigma in cielo. Platone politico da Aristotele al Novecento, Carocci, Roma.
Vernant, Jean-Pierre (1966), «Le mythe hésiodique des races. Sur un essai de mise au point», in Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes, vol. 40, pp. 247-276.
Vlastos, Gregory (1977), The Theory of Social Justice in the Polis in Plato’s Republic, in North, Helen F., ed., Interpretations of Plato. A Swarthmore Symposium, J. Brill, Leiden, pp. 1-40.
Zembaty, Jane S. (1988), «Plato’s Republic and Greek Morality on Lying», in Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 26, n. 4, pp. 517-545.
Works published in RIFL are released under Creative Commons Licence:Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
