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

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.