Brill, Sara A.2019-09-252019-09-252009-01-06200619389485http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/171737Historically, interpretations of Eryximachus' character in the Symposium have risen and fallen with an author's interpretation of Plato's position on technē. For Werner Jaeger, for instance, Eryximachus' speech falls into place with Plato's frequent use of medicine as a metaphor for his 'ethical science'.[1] This interpretation does of course assume that Plato has an 'ethical science'. Stanley Rosen, rejecting this assumption, reads the sketch as illustrating the necessity of maintaining a critical stance toward medicine and toward the tendency for technical over-specialization of which, Rosen claims, medicine is the epitome.[2] The view, shared by both Jaeger and Rosen, that Plato sketches his Eryximachus as representative of the medical art and uses medicine as a paradigm for technē is at least as old as Ficino[3] and is nearly ubiquitous in contemporary scholarship on the Symposium, even amongst scholars who otherwise sharply disagree about the content and significance of Eryximachus' speech.[4]engWith permission of the license/copyright holderbusiness ethicsmoralityMethods of ethicsPhilosophical ethicsArticle