Title: The influence of Hippocratic medicine in Platos Gorgias and Republic.

Jess Ren Flores Castellanos

In the 5th Century BCE, a lot of technai flourished among the Greek world. This
enlightment was portrayed by authors such as Aeschylus in his Prometehus
Bound. One of the main technai developed during this time was the Hippocratic
medicine, which influence reached many areas across the Mediterranean. In
Platos works, we can see this influence. It is true that many scholars have
indicated the importance of medicine for Socrates as an ideal model of a techne in
the Dialogues; but the specific impact of the concept of medicine as was
understood by the Hippocratic tradition in Platos thought has not been sufficiently
pointed out.
In this paper, I will show that the Hippocratic idea of medicine as a techne that do
not create health, but instead one that guides its object to the perfection of its
physis marked the notion that Plato had about an ideal techne. This influence can
be tracked down in the Gorgias, when Socrates creates an analogy between
medicine and justice, leaving the door open to understand the latter as one form of
medicine of the soul. The politike techne, which involves justice, is further
developed in the Republic, where we can found an attempt to guide the soul to its
own perfection, just as medicine does with the body according to the Corpus
Hippocraticum.
This approach, which still has to be more developed, gives the opportunity to
understand the work of Plato in dialogue with the scientific and cultural context of
his time, and also to clarify some of his ideas in relation to a specific historical
phenomenon: Hippocratic medicine. Plato, as many Athenians, was excited with
technai as a way to combat tyche, but it is true that he regarded some form of
techne as better than others. The Hippocratic medicine was the closest one to that
ideal form, and it is important not to leave behind the study of this influence if we
are trying to understand Platos work in its historical context.