HIPPOCRATES IN CONTEXT Papers read at the XIth International Hippocrates Colloquium University of Newcastle upon Tyne 27-31 August 2002 EDITED BY PHILIP J. VAN DER EIJK REG, % oN 09th Sy ‘riva . % 1683" BRILL LEIDEN - BOSTON 2005THE WAY TO WISDOM IN PLATO’S PHAEDRUS AND IN THE HIPPOCRATIC CORPUS* Elsa Garcia Novo ‘Summary In the Platonic Phaedrus, Socrates leads his friend to truth and knowledge. This path has, in my opinion, three steps. To perceive through the senses (aisthanesthai), to remember past experiences (anamimnéskesthai) and to know (noein, i.e. to perceive the truth through the mind, ‘pilot of the soul’). In the Hippocratic Corpus we can find a parallel way to discover truth. The physi- cian keenly perceives through the senses. He remembers past experiences (other patients). From many cases, he gets to know the course and the nature of dis- ease. He reaches the truth as far as it is possible to mortal men. INTRODUCTION In the Platonic Phaedrus, Socrates leads his friend to truth and knowl- edge as opposed to fallacy, the latter being represented in the dia- logue by Lysias’ speech, a sample of sophistic reasoning. In a very clever way, Plato travels to the core of men. It is not an easy lane; people who cannot grasp anything but facts will see throughout the dialogue just two individuals speaking of love, rhetoric and beauty, and will hear a once-upon-a-time tale. As for people who are sufficiently mindful: those the author will lead from rhetoric to wisdom, from love to philosophy, from beauty to truth. Surely Plato does not state the actual message. He lets the read- ers learn it if they are able to. He makes the audience go round and round,' like the soul above the heavens, so that by picking, now and then, a bit of knowledge, they can finally tell the difference between fallacy and truth, between the ability to persuade and wisdom. * Paper supported by the Project BFF 2000-0706 (MCYT). “The repetition of peri- in Plato’s Phaedrus 247 c 1-248 c 5 is remarkable.288 ELSA GARCIA NOVO In fact they will no longer ask,? because they will abide by the truth. Even Phaedrus, who is presented to us as a nobody,’ as the first sentence of the dialogue shows (227 a 1), is wisely led by Socrates from the position of an uninterested person who does not under- stand to that of a man asking for the right virtues together with Socrates (279 b 8-c 7) at the end of the piece.* In my opinion, Plato constructs this path to knowledge in three steps that he does not put forward explicitly? Piato’s PxszpRus: Step | To perceive through the senses (aisthanesthai). The mise en scine, with the natural description of the locus amoenus where Socrates and his friend stop to speak, is a way to make Phaedrus keenly perceptive. Seeing the beauty of the place, hearing the cicadas, smelling the freshness of the trees, touching the grass and the rivulet, feeling at midday the heat and the coolness of the water, lying in a comfortable position: those are the sensations highlighted by Socrates (Phdr. 228 e 4-230 ¢ 5). He insists on being alert, fully conscious (258 e 6-259 d 8). In this way the philosopher makes us understand that the right use of the senses is a necessary first level on our way to learning.® Such is, in my opinion, the role of the pleasant place next to the river, usually understood, from W.H. Thompson to Ernst Heitsch, as a pretty description of an actual landscape,’ which arouses Socrates’ enthusiasm.> ? Ch de Saint-Exupéry (1948). > Cf. Garcia Novo (forthcoming). * Cf. Hackforth (1952) 13 and Capelletti (2000) 260. * For an opposite view to the Tubingen school, considering that this dialogue is not a key to the understanding of the whole Platonic position, see now Kithn (2000). ° For the epistemological debate between the validity of perception and knowl. edge, cf. Lloyd (1979) 129-138. For sense-perception as distinct from knowledge in Plato, see Plato's Theactetus, and cf. Cornford (1935) 29-109 and Crombie (1963) 1-32. Aristotle did not consider any of the senses to be Wisdom. ‘Again, we do not regard any of the senses as wisdom (sophian); yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge (gniseis) of particulars. But they do not tell us the ‘why’ of anything—e.g. why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot’: Metaphysics (henceforth Met) 981 b 9-13. Trans. Ross (1926 = 1984) 1553. ” The commentaries on this dialogue take the description of the place as simply a real description and make an estimation of the distance to Athens, the kind of tree, étc., but they do not underline the importance given by Socrates to the use of the senses. Cf among many others Thompson (1868) 911, Robin (1933) ix—xii, Brisson (2000) 30-82, and 197-198, nn. 48-55, and Heitsch (19974) 72 and n. 83, with bibliography. * Ch Hackforth (1952) 14 and Friedkinder (1969b) 220.THE WAY TO WISDOM IN PLATO’S PHAEDRUS 289 Piato’s PxazpRus: Step 2 To remember past experiences (anamimnéskesthai). We are told by Socrates that, once in the physical world, the soul preserves its past experi- ences—the vision of beauty, i.e. truth, above the heavens, when the soul accompanied a god (Phdr. 249 c 1-250 c 6)—by means of remem- brance. In fact some gifted people have, in my opinion, an innate vision of beauty or truth. The moment such people perceive a beau- tiful object or grasp a piece of truth, they relate it to their own notion of what is true. For ordinary people, the past experiences conform to a background that allows them to associate new sensations with older ones. Memory, as distinct from remembrance, plays a role here. Aristotle, at the beginning of the Metaphysics, relates perception, experience, and mem- ory: ‘And from memory experience is produced in men; for many memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a sin- gle experience.’ Piato’s PHAEDRUS: STEP 3 The third level is to know (noein), i.e. to perceive the truth through the mind, pilot of the soul’ (Phdr. 247 c 2-247 e 6).!° People are able to remember single experiences, but only some of them would conceive, in their mind, truth. Those would analyse an object, a notion or a soul into its parts, and, once they grasped its nature and its function, they would recompose the whole, thus reaching a synthesis: As Plato puts it, ‘(to) bring a dispersed plural- ity under a single form, seeing it all together. ..”" (265 d 3-5), and again, ‘(to) divide into forms, following their natural articulation . . .”” (265 e 1-2). ® Met. 980 b 28-981 a 1 (trans. Ross 1926 (= 1984) 1554). °” ‘Alatheia or aléthés appear some fifty two times in this dialogue (TLG). Especially interesting is the passage where the place above heavens (huperouranion tnpon) is related with truth itself (Phdr. 247 c 3-d 1): ‘Of that place beyond the heavens none of our earthly poets has yet sung, and none shall sing worthily. But this is the man- ner of it, for assuredly we must be bold to speak what is true, above all when our discourse is upon truth.’ (trans, Hackforth (1952) 78). For a discussion of the mean- ing of alétheia in Plato see Friedlander (1969a) 221-229. ic wiay te i8éov oovopvea. éeyew th KOM Steoxappéver to. Exoctov aprlSuevos BAAov nov} xepi ob Av dei SiSdoxew eéAp. (For translation see Hackforth (1952) 132.) 2 ad adAw Kor’ etn S6vacbar Braréuvew Kat’ &pOpa ft xépuxev (For translation290 ELSA GARCIA NOVO ‘Now I am myself, Phaedrus, a lover of these divisions and col- lections (diairesedn kai sunagégén),'* so that I may be able both to speak and to think’, says Socrates, ‘and if I think anyone else has the nat- ural capacity to look to one and to many, I pursue him “in his foot- steps as if he were a god”? (266 b 3~7).!* From plurality, the mind reaches a single notion; from many rep- resentations of the true, it picks out a single truth (beauty itself, 249 b 6-249 c 1). On the other hand, from individual cases it arrives at generalisation. Thus people who reach this third step achieve knowledge and wisdom. Hipocratic Corpus: Step | In the Hippocratic Corpus we can find a parallel way to discover truth. The physician keenly perceives through the senses. We read every- where that he has to look, to hear, to touch, to smell, even to taste; to perceive the heat, cold, humidity and dryness: such a perception is the primary information that a Hippocratic physician gets from the patient (Ancient Medicine, chapter 9).!° ; He has to be aware: ‘...I recommend... to pay attention (pros- echein ton noun) to the. whole of the medical art’, is the advice of the author of Regimen in Acute Diseases." The signs of disease have to be thoroughly examined, as we are told in Prognosis and Promhetic 2,"7 because the physician cannot but see Hackforth (1952) 133). For the syntax and conjectures to the passage see de Vries (1969) 215-216. '® On collection and division in this context see Guthrie (1975) 427-431. " Trans. Rowe (2000) 103. 'S De vetere medicina 9 (1.588,14-590,1 L = I p. 9.17-20 Kahlewein = pp. 41.10-42.10 Heiberg = I pp. 26.1-28.40 Jones = pp. 127.15-129.13 Jouanna). '© guot 8° avddver nev [év] néon cf téxvp mpocéxew tdv vodv (év del. Kiihlewei De diaeta in morbis acutis 2 2.230.1-2 L. = 1 110, 14-15 Kiihlewein (ch. 4) = p. 64.1-2 Jones (ch. 4) = VI 2, p. 37.11-12 Joly (ch. 4). " Cf. Prognosticon (henceforth Prog.) ch. 2 (2:116.2-3 L. = I p. 80.8-9 Kithlewein = IT p. 10.25 Jones = p. 195.11 Alexanderson); ch. 9 (2.132,14-15 L. = I p. 87.5 Kiuhlewein = II p. 20.12-13 Jones = p. 205.3 Alexanderson); Prorrhetizon 2.1 (9.8,2-6 L. = p. 2.12-18 Mondrain (1984) = VIII p. 220.7-10 Potter (ch. 2); ch. 2 (9.10,4-5 L. = p. 4.4-5 Mondrain = VII p. 222.11-12 Potter); ch. 3 (9.10,23-24 L. = p. 5.8 Mondrain = VIII p. 224.7-8 Potter; etc.). ITHE WAY TO WISDOM IN PLATO’S PHAEDRUS 291 rely on his own senses, as opposed to modern physicians trapped in the results provided by their ‘perfect’ machines, whose results are based upon statistical data gathered by countless generations of machines. Many a time the present-day physician has lost not only the possibility of learning through their senses but also the need of diagnosing by means of deducing the truth, since it is ‘packaged’ in the instruction book along with the machine. Hipocratic Corpus: Step 2 He remembers past experiences: other cases, other patients, other sensations, which he has experienced by himself or he has learned by listening to his master or his colleagues, or by reading their trea- tises (cf. Prorrhetic 2, chapter 4).!° He writes down new cases, as in the Epidemics, to be used as a memorandum.’ Hrrpocratic Corpus: Step 3 There are practitioners who would not reach the third level. In The Art, chapter 9, we read: ‘Without doubt no man who sees only with his eyes can know anything of what has been here described.” As Socrates says, it is necessary to know the nature of the matter we are searching on,” but experience (empeiria) and habit (ibé) are not enough (Phdr. 270 b 5-6). Something else is necessary, to ‘apply one’s mind to’ (prosechein ton noon).22 At the Erlangen Hippocrates Colloquium I presented some lin- guistic ways that reflect the method of analysis or synthesis in the '® Promh. 2.4 (9.20, 12-13 L = p. 13.2-4 Mondrain = 234.18-20 Potter). " See K. Deichgraber (1971) and V. Langholf (1990). © De arte 11 (6.18, 14-15 L = p. 16.11-12 Heiberg = II p. 208.1-2 Jones = V1 p. 237.4-5 Jouanna). Trans. Jones. °\“As Hippocrates and the trie reasoning teach us to do”—says Socrates (PI. Phir. 270 ¢ 9-10)—a precise analysis would let us know “which capacity (dunamis) has, by nature, each part to act or to be a passive receptor, and which is the object of its action or the object which will act on it.” (270 d 4-3) Such method will lead us to a posterior synthesis that is needed even to think (266 b 5). ® This expression appears some eight times in the CH. Ci. Index Hippocraticus 52. npook yin,292 ELSA GARCIA NOVO Presocratics, the Hippocratic Corpus and Plato.”> Through analysis, the expert Hippocratic physician gets to know the function and nature of every part of the body; through synthesis, he considers the body as a whole, reaching the so-called holistic approach to medicine, dra- matically needed nowadays, when specialisation has broken men down to pieces. Collecting many cases and considering their like- nesses, the Hippocratic physician gets to know the nature and the course of one disease. I am not introducing here the subject of the Hippocratic method advocated by Socrates in the Phaedrus,2* a topic which has provoked different reactions.* The relevant likeness of the Hippocratic and the Platonic path to wisdom does not depend on a sentence: it is rather a common way of thinking, which works at the same time with the One and the Many, with the human body and its parts, with individuals and generalisations. Heinrich von Staden® and myself” have separately presented papers at the Hippocrates Colloquium in Nice about the importance of both individuality and generalisation in the Hippocratic Corpus. The Hippocratic doctor builds a bridge between pathology (patients) and nosology (diseases). This way he can tell the symptoms of such and such a disease and of such and such a patient, as well as the signs of recovery or death (cf. Prognostic chapter 1 and Prorrhetic 2, chapters 1—2).?* He reaches the truth as far as it is possible for mortal men (cf. Phdr. 278 d 2-6; Prorrh. 2.3;°9 and Ancient Medicine 12), i.e. ‘wrapped in doubt and in a human way’, as we read in the Prorrhetic IL! 2 See Garcia Novo"(1996). % Phdr. 270 ¢ 6-d 7; ch. n. 21. % See details and bibliography in Jouanna (1990) 77-81. Cf. now Vegetti (1995) 102-122. % See von’ Staden (2002). 2” Cf. Garcia Novo (2002). * Cf. Prog. 1 (2.112,7-11 L = Kiihlewein I p. 794-8 = Il p. 8.23-27 Jones = p. 194.6-9 Alexanderson); Prom. 2.1 (9.8,2-5 L 2.12-16 Mondrain = VII P- 220.7-11 Potter (ch. 2); ch. 2 (9.10,6-7 L = p. 4.5-7 Mondrain = VIII p- 222.13-14 Potter). ® See n. 31 for the text. ® VM 12 (1.596,1-598,2 L = I pp. 12.22-13.11 Kiihlewein = pp. 43.23-44.7 Heiberg = Ip. 32.1-16 Jones = pp. 132.10-133.6 Jouanna). 3! Boxéw 38 adtév ein GAnOds Aeron... xpdtov utv tov onnetov dv Aéyo texrpacbar todto yovre,, Excise. EvSo.astiic te Kai dvOpanivanc mpoeineiv .. . (Prom. 2.3 = 9.10,21-25 L = p. 5.6-9 Mondrain = VIII p. 224.5-9 Potter.)THE WAY TO WISDOM IN PLATO’S PHAEDRUS 293 ‘Perfectly exact truth is but rarely to be seen’, writes the author of Ancient Medicine referring to doctors (ch. 9).* ConcLusion This path to wisdom is not a question of mutual influence, but an expression of the way of thinking of wise Greek men. They have taught us how research has to be done. We have to observe the facts keenly, to remember the learned or experienced realities, to conjecture the conclusions going from generalisation to single objects, dividing and composing: our way to aim at the truth. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anastasiou, A. and D. Irmer (1999), Index Hippocraticus. Supplement, Gottingen. Brisson, L. (1989), Platon, Phédre. J. Derrida, La pharmacie de Platon, Paris (2000, cor- rected edn). Capelletti, G. (2000), ‘Simposio e Fedro: variazioni strutturali del discorso d’amore’, in: G. Casertano (ed.), La struttura del dialogo platonico, Naples, 253-261. 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