The Philosopher and the Care of the Soul: Plutarch’s Use of Medical Similes and Metaphors as a Didactic Strategy in Ethics

Abstract

This article analyses the rhetorical interpenetration between the semantic field of medicine and that of practical philosophy that can be found in plutarchean pamphlets on ethical and moral issues. This interpenetration contributes to the overlap between the two professional figures who normally deal in a unique way with each discipline, the doctor and the philosopher. Plutarch, indeed, using the rhetorical tool of comparison, aims to describe the vice that oppresses the soul through the illness that troubles the body. Because of this, he aims also to show the philosopher’s job through that of doctor and he aims to communicate the usefulness of the τέχνη περὶ βίον through the socially recognized usefulness of medicine.