Talk:Historical Rhetorics/Plato's Relationship to Rhetoric/Clark, Randall Baldwin. “Geriatrics.”

I thought I'd use this space to provide a little bit of commentary about Clark, aside from the summary: Clark makes the ancient blunder of correlating “persuasion” with the rational and with technical medicine, and “rhetoric” with the irrational healing of pharmacon. This is not born out in Plato’s example of the ideal “good physician,” whose dominant characteristic is his freedom, as opposed to the slave physician who has no choice but to work, and is therefore brutal and rude to his (also enslaved) patients. This is not a difference between reason and non-reason, but between artful rhetoric and none, monetary motive and lack of monetary motive, ethic and lack of ethic. However, Clark’s in-depth research into the philosophy and practices of classical medicine, as well as the major impact it had on all forms of public discourse is very valuable, and worth the read.

68.200.53.27 (discuss) 18:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)Jessica Masri Eberhard