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EUTHYDEMUS

by Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

INTRODUCTION.

The Euthydemus, though apt to be regarded by us only as an elaborate jest,
has also a very serious purpose. It may fairly claim to be the oldest
treatise on logic; for that science originates in the misunderstandings
which necessarily accompany the first efforts of speculation. Several of
the fallacies which are satirized in it reappear in the Sophistici Elenchi
of Aristotle and are retained at the end of our manuals of logic. But if
the order of history were followed, they should be placed not at the end
but at the beginning of them; for they belong to the age in which the human
mind was first making the attempt to distinguish thought from sense, and to
separate the universal from the particular or individual. How to put
together words or ideas, how to escape ambiguities in the meaning of terms
or in the structure of propositions, how to resist the fixed impression of
an 'eternal being' or 'perpetual flux,' how to distinguish between words
and things--these were problems not easy of solution in the infancy of
philosophy. They presented the same kind of difficulty to the half-
educated man which spelling or arithmetic do to the mind of a child. It
was long before the new world of ideas which had been sought after with
such passionate yearning was set in order and made ready for use. To us
the fallacies which arise in the pre-Socratic philosophy are trivial and
obsolete because we are no longer liable to fall into the errors which are
expressed by them. The intellectual world has become better assured to us,
and we are less likely to be imposed upon by illusions of words.

The logic of Aristotle is for the most part latent in the dialogues of
Plato. The nature of definition is explained not by rules but by examples
in the Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Protagoras, Meno, Euthyphro, Theaetetus,
Gorgias, Republic; the nature of division is likewise illustrated by
examples in the Sophist and Statesman; a scheme of categories is found in
the Philebus; the true doctrine of contradiction is taught, and the fallacy
of arguing in a circle is exposed in the Republic; the nature of synthesis
and analysis is graphically described in the Phaedrus; the nature of words
is analysed in the Cratylus; the form of the syllogism is indicated in the
genealogical trees of the Sophist and Statesman; a true doctrine of
predication and an analysis of the sentence are given in the Sophist; the
different meanings of one and being are worked out in the Parmenides. Here
we have most of the important elements of logic, not yet systematized or
reduced to an art or science, but scattered up and down as they would
naturally occur in ordinary discourse. They are of little or no use or
significance to us; but because we have grown out of the need of them we
should not therefore despise them. They are still interesting and
instructive for the light which they shed on the history of the human mind.

There are indeed many old fallacies which linger among us, and new ones are
constantly springing up. But they are not of the kind to which ancient
logic can be usefully applied. The weapons of common sense, not the
analytics of Aristotle, are needed for their overthrow. Nor is the use of
the Aristotelian logic any longer natural to us. We no longer put
arguments into the form of syllogisms like the schoolmen; the simple use of
language has been, happily, restored to us. Neither do we discuss the
nature of the proposition, nor extract hidden truths from the copula, nor
dispute any longer about nominalism and realism. We do not confuse the
form with the matter of knowledge, or invent laws of thought, or imagine
that any single science furnishes a principle of reasoning to all the rest.
Neither do we require categories or heads of argument to be invented for
our use. Those who have no knowledge of logic, like some of our great
physical philosophers, seem to be quite as good reasoners as those who
have. Most of the ancient puzzles have been settled on the basis of usage
and common sense; there is no need to reopen them. No science should raise
problems or invent forms of thought which add nothing to knowledge and are
of no use in assisting the acquisition of it. This seems to be the natural
limit of logic and metaphysics; if they give us a more comprehensive or a
more definite view of the different spheres of knowledge they are to be
studied; if not, not. The better part of ancient logic appears hardly in
our own day to have a separate existence; it is absorbed in two other
sciences: (1) rhetoric, if indeed this ancient art be not also fading away
into literary criticism; (2) the science of language, under which all
questions relating to words and propositions and the combinations of them
may properly be included.

To continue dead or imaginary sciences, which make no signs of progress and
have no definite sphere, tends to interfere with the prosecution of living
ones. The study of them is apt to blind the judgment and to render men
incapable of seeing the value of evidence, and even of appreciating the
nature of truth. Nor should we allow the living science to become confused
with the dead by an ambiguity of language. The term logic has two
different meanings, an ancient and a modern one, and we vainly try to
bridge the gulf between them. Many perplexities are avoided by keeping
them apart. There might certainly be a new science of logic; it would not
however be built up out of the fragments of the old, but would be distinct
from them--relative to the state of knowledge which exists at the present
time, and based chiefly on the methods of Modern Inductive philosophy.
Such a science might have two legitimate fields: first, the refutation and
explanation of false philosophies still hovering in the air as they appear
from the point of view of later experience or are comprehended in the
history of the human mind, as in a larger horizon: secondly, it might
furnish new forms of thought more adequate to the expression of all the
diversities and oppositions of knowledge which have grown up in these
latter days; it might also suggest new methods of enquiry derived from the
comparison of the sciences. Few will deny that the introduction of the
words 'subject' and 'object' and the Hegelian reconciliation of opposites
have been 'most gracious aids' to psychology, or that the methods of Bacon
and Mill have shed a light far and wide on the realms of knowledge. These
two great studies, the one destructive and corrective of error, the other
conservative and constructive of truth, might be a first and second part of
logic. Ancient logic would be the propaedeutic or gate of approach to
logical science,--nothing more. But to pursue such speculations further,
though not irrelevant, might lead us too far away from the argument of the
dialogue.

The Euthydemus is, of all the Dialogues of Plato, that in which he
approaches most nearly to the comic poet. The mirth is broader, the irony
more sustained, the contrast between Socrates and the two Sophists,
although veiled, penetrates deeper than in any other of his writings. Even
Thrasymachus, in the Republic, is at last pacified, and becomes a friendly
and interested auditor of the great discourse. But in the Euthydemus the
mask is never dropped; the accustomed irony of Socrates continues to the
end...

Socrates narrates to Crito a remarkable scene in which he has himself taken
part, and in which the two brothers, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, are the
chief performers. They are natives of Chios, who had settled at Thurii,
but were driven out, and in former days had been known at Athens as
professors of rhetoric and of the art of fighting in armour. To this they
have now added a new accomplishment--the art of Eristic, or fighting with
words, which they are likewise willing to teach 'for a consideration.' But
they can also teach virtue in a very short time and in the very best
manner. Socrates, who is always on the look-out for teachers of virtue, is
interested in the youth Cleinias, the grandson of the great Alcibiades, and
is desirous that he should have the benefit of their instructions. He is
ready to fall down and worship them; although the greatness of their
professions does arouse in his mind a temporary incredulity.

A circle gathers round them, in the midst of which are Socrates, the two
brothers, the youth Cleinias, who is watched by the eager eyes of his lover
Ctesippus, and others. The performance begins; and such a performance as
might well seem to require an invocation of Memory and the Muses. It is
agreed that the brothers shall question Cleinias. 'Cleinias,' says
Euthydemus, 'who learn, the wise or the unwise?' 'The wise,' is the reply;
given with blushing and hesitation. 'And yet when you learned you did not
know and were not wise.' Then Dionysodorus takes up the ball: 'Who are
they who learn dictation of the grammar-master; the wise or the foolish
boys?' 'The wise.' 'Then, after all, the wise learn.' 'And do they
learn,' said Euthydemus, 'what they know or what they do not know?' 'The
latter.' 'And dictation is a dictation of letters?' 'Yes.' 'And you know
letters?' 'Yes.' 'Then you learn what you know.' 'But,' retorts
Dionysodorus, 'is not learning acquiring knowledge?' 'Yes.' 'And you
acquire that which you have not got already?' 'Yes.' 'Then you learn that
which you do not know.'

Socrates is afraid that the youth Cleinias may be discouraged at these
repeated overthrows. He therefore explains to him the nature of the
process to which he is being subjected. The two strangers are not serious;
there are jests at the mysteries which precede the enthronement, and he is
being initiated into the mysteries of the sophistical ritual. This is all
a sort of horse-play, which is now ended. The exhortation to virtue will
follow, and Socrates himself (if the wise men will not laugh at him) is
desirous of showing the way in which such an exhortation should be carried
on, according to his own poor notion. He proceeds to question Cleinias.
The result of the investigation may be summed up as follows:--

All men desire good; and good means the possession of goods, such as
wealth, health, beauty, birth, power, honour; not forgetting the virtues
and wisdom. And yet in this enumeration the greatest good of all is
omitted. What is that? Good fortune. But what need is there of good
fortune when we have wisdom already:--in every art and business are not the
wise also the fortunate? This is admitted. And again, the possession of
goods is not enough; there must also be a right use of them which can only
be given by knowledge: in themselves they are neither good nor evil--
knowledge and wisdom are the only good, and ignorance and folly the only
evil. The conclusion is that we must get 'wisdom.' But can wisdom be
taught? 'Yes,' says Cleinias. The ingenuousness of the youth delights
Socrates, who is at once relieved from the necessity of discussing one of
his great puzzles. 'Since wisdom is the only good, he must become a
philosopher, or lover of wisdom.' 'That I will,' says Cleinias.

After Socrates has given this specimen of his own mode of instruction, the
two brothers recommence their exhortation to virtue, which is of quite
another sort.

'You want Cleinias to be wise?' 'Yes.' 'And he is not wise yet?' 'No.'
'Then you want him to be what he is not, and not to be what he is?--not to
be--that is, to perish. Pretty lovers and friends you must all be!'

Here Ctesippus, the lover of Cleinias, interposes in great excitement,
thinking that he will teach the two Sophists a lesson of good manners. But
he is quickly entangled in the meshes of their sophistry; and as a storm
seems to be gathering Socrates pacifies him with a joke, and Ctesippus then
says that he is not reviling the two Sophists, he is only contradicting
them. 'But,' says Dionysodorus, 'there is no such thing as contradiction.
When you and I describe the same thing, or you describe one thing and I
describe another, how can there be a contradiction?' Ctesippus is unable
to reply.

Socrates has already heard of the denial of contradiction, and would like
to be informed by the great master of the art, 'What is the meaning of this
paradox? Is there no such thing as error, ignorance, falsehood? Then what
are they professing to teach?' The two Sophists complain that Socrates is
ready to answer what they said a year ago, but is 'non-plussed' at what
they are saying now. 'What does the word "non-plussed" mean?' Socrates is
informed, in reply, that words are lifeless things, and lifeless things
have no sense or meaning. Ctesippus again breaks out, and again has to be
pacified by Socrates, who renews the conversation with Cleinias. The two
Sophists are like Proteus in the variety of their transformations, and he,
like Menelaus in the Odyssey, hopes to restore them to their natural form.

He had arrived at the conclusion that Cleinias must become a philosopher.
And philosophy is the possession of knowledge; and knowledge must be of a
kind which is profitable and may be used. What knowledge is there which
has such a nature? Not the knowledge which is required in any particular
art; nor again the art of the composer of speeches, who knows how to write
them, but cannot speak them, although he too must be admitted to be a kind
of enchanter of wild animals. Neither is the knowledge which we are
seeking the knowledge of the general. For the general makes over his prey
to the statesman, as the huntsman does to the cook, or the taker of quails
to the keeper of quails; he has not the use of that which he acquires. The
two enquirers, Cleinias and Socrates, are described as wandering about in a
wilderness, vainly searching after the art of life and happiness. At last
they fix upon the kingly art, as having the desired sort of knowledge. But
the kingly art only gives men those goods which are neither good nor evil:
and if we say further that it makes us wise, in what does it make us wise?
Not in special arts, such as cobbling or carpentering, but only in itself:
or say again that it makes us good, there is no answer to the question,
'good in what?' At length in despair Cleinias and Socrates turn to the
'Dioscuri' and request their aid.

Euthydemus argues that Socrates knows something; and as he cannot know and
not know, he cannot know some things and not know others, and therefore he
knows all things: he and Dionysodorus and all other men know all things.
'Do they know shoemaking, etc?' 'Yes.' The sceptical Ctesippus would like
to have some evidence of this extraordinary statement: he will believe if
Euthydemus will tell him how many teeth Dionysodorus has, and if
Dionysodorus will give him a like piece of information about Euthydemus.
Even Socrates is incredulous, and indulges in a little raillery at the
expense of the brothers. But he restrains himself, remembering that if the
men who are to be his teachers think him stupid they will take no pains
with him. Another fallacy is produced which turns on the absoluteness of
the verb 'to know.' And here Dionysodorus is caught 'napping,' and is
induced by Socrates to confess that 'he does not know the good to be
unjust.' Socrates appeals to his brother Euthydemus; at the same time he
acknowledges that he cannot, like Heracles, fight against a Hydra, and even
Heracles, on the approach of a second monster, called upon his nephew
Iolaus to help. Dionysodorus rejoins that Iolaus was no more the nephew of
Heracles than of Socrates. For a nephew is a nephew, and a brother is a
brother, and a father is a father, not of one man only, but of all; nor of
men only, but of dogs and sea-monsters. Ctesippus makes merry with the
consequences which follow: 'Much good has your father got out of the
wisdom of his puppies.'

'But,' says Euthydemus, unabashed, 'nobody wants much good.' Medicine is a
good, arms are a good, money is a good, and yet there may be too much of
them in wrong places. 'No,' says Ctesippus, 'there cannot be too much
gold.' And would you be happy if you had three talents of gold in your
belly, a talent in your pate, and a stater in either eye?' Ctesippus,
imitating the new wisdom, replies, 'And do not the Scythians reckon those
to be the happiest of men who have their skulls gilded and see the inside
of them?' 'Do you see,' retorts Euthydemus, 'what has the quality of
vision or what has not the quality of vision?' 'What has the quality of
vision.' 'And you see our garments?' 'Yes.' 'Then our garments have the
quality of vision.' A similar play of words follows, which is successfully
retorted by Ctesippus, to the great delight of Cleinias, who is rebuked by
Socrates for laughing at such solemn and beautiful things.

'But are there any beautiful things? And if there are such, are they the
same or not the same as absolute beauty?' Socrates replies that they are
not the same, but each of them has some beauty present with it. 'And are
you an ox because you have an ox present with you?' After a few more
amphiboliae, in which Socrates, like Ctesippus, in self-defence borrows the
weapons of the brothers, they both confess that the two heroes are
invincible; and the scene concludes with a grand chorus of shouting and
laughing, and a panegyrical oration from Socrates:--

First, he praises the indifference of Dionysodorus and Euthydemus to public
opinion; for most persons would rather be refuted by such arguments than
use them in the refutation of others. Secondly, he remarks upon their
impartiality; for they stop their own mouths, as well as those of other
people. Thirdly, he notes their liberality, which makes them give away
their secret to all the world: they should be more reserved, and let no
one be present at this exhibition who does not pay them a handsome fee; or
better still they might practise on one another only. He concludes with a
respectful request that they will receive him and Cleinias among their
disciples.

Crito tells Socrates that he has heard one of the audience criticise
severely this wisdom,--not sparing Socrates himself for countenancing such
an exhibition. Socrates asks what manner of man was this censorious
critic. 'Not an orator, but a great composer of speeches.' Socrates
understands that he is an amphibious animal, half philosopher, half
politician; one of a class who have the highest opinion of themselves and a
spite against philosophers, whom they imagine to be their rivals. They are
a class who are very likely to get mauled by Euthydemus and his friends,
and have a great notion of their own wisdom; for they imagine themselves to
have all the advantages and none of the drawbacks both of politics and of
philosophy. They do not understand the principles of combination, and
hence are ignorant that the union of two good things which have different
ends produces a compound inferior to either of them taken separately.

Crito is anxious about the education of his children, one of whom is
growing up. The description of Dionysodorus and Euthydemus suggests to him
the reflection that the professors of education are strange beings.
Socrates consoles him with the remark that the good in all professions are
few, and recommends that 'he and his house' should continue to serve
philosophy, and not mind about its professors.

...

There is a stage in the history of philosophy in which the old is dying
out, and the new has not yet come into full life. Great philosophies like
the Eleatic or Heraclitean, which have enlarged the boundaries of the human
mind, begin to pass away in words. They subsist only as forms which have
rooted themselves in language--as troublesome elements of thought which
cannot be either used or explained away. The same absoluteness which was
once attributed to abstractions is now attached to the words which are the
signs of them. The philosophy which in the first and second generation was
a great and inspiring effort of reflection, in the third becomes
sophistical, verbal, eristic.

It is this stage of philosophy which Plato satirises in the Euthydemus.
The fallacies which are noted by him appear trifling to us now, but they
were not trifling in the age before logic, in the decline of the earlier
Greek philosophies, at a time when language was first beginning to perplex
human thought. Besides he is caricaturing them; they probably received
more subtle forms at the hands of those who seriously maintained them.
They are patent to us in Plato, and we are inclined to wonder how any one
could ever have been deceived by them; but we must remember also that there
was a time when the human mind was only with great difficulty disentangled
from such fallacies.

To appreciate fully the drift of the Euthydemus, we should imagine a mental
state in which not individuals only, but whole schools during more than one
generation, were animated by the desire to exclude the conception of rest,
and therefore the very word 'this' (Theaet.) from language; in which the
ideas of space, time, matter, motion, were proved to be contradictory and
imaginary; in which the nature of qualitative change was a puzzle, and even
differences of degree, when applied to abstract notions, were not
understood; in which there was no analysis of grammar, and mere puns or
plays of words received serious attention; in which contradiction itself
was denied, and, on the one hand, every predicate was affirmed to be true
of every subject, and on the other, it was held that no predicate was true
of any subject, and that nothing was, or was known, or could be spoken.
Let us imagine disputes carried on with religious earnestness and more than
scholastic subtlety, in which the catchwords of philosophy are completely
detached from their context. (Compare Theaet.) To such disputes the
humour, whether of Plato in the ancient, or of Pope and Swift in the modern
world, is the natural enemy. Nor must we forget that in modern times also
there is no fallacy so gross, no trick of language so transparent, no
abstraction so barren and unmeaning, no form of thought so contradictory to
experience, which has not been found to satisfy the minds of philosophical
enquirers at a certain stage, or when regarded from a certain point of view
only. The peculiarity of the fallacies of our own age is that we live
within them, and are therefore generally unconscious of them.

Aristotle has analysed several of the same fallacies in his book 'De
Sophisticis Elenchis,' which Plato, with equal command of their true
nature, has preferred to bring to the test of ridicule. At first we are
only struck with the broad humour of this 'reductio ad absurdum:' gradually
we perceive that some important questions begin to emerge. Here, as
everywhere else, Plato is making war against the philosophers who put words
in the place of things, who tear arguments to tatters, who deny
predication, and thus make knowledge impossible, to whom ideas and objects
of sense have no fixedness, but are in a state of perpetual oscillation and
transition. Two great truths seem to be indirectly taught through these
fallacies: (1) The uncertainty of language, which allows the same words to
be used in different meanings, or with different degrees of meaning: (2)
The necessary limitation or relative nature of all phenomena. Plato is
aware that his own doctrine of ideas, as well as the Eleatic Being and Not-
being, alike admit of being regarded as verbal fallacies. The sophism
advanced in the Meno, 'that you cannot enquire either into what you know or
do not know,' is lightly touched upon at the commencement of the Dialogue;
the thesis of Protagoras, that everything is true to him to whom it seems
to be true, is satirized. In contrast with these fallacies is maintained
the Socratic doctrine that happiness is gained by knowledge. The
grammatical puzzles with which the Dialogue concludes probably contain
allusions to tricks of language which may have been practised by the
disciples of Prodicus or Antisthenes. They would have had more point, if
we were acquainted with the writings against which Plato's humour is
directed. Most of the jests appear to have a serious meaning; but we have
lost the clue to some of them, and cannot determine whether, as in the
Cratylus, Plato has or has not mixed up purely unmeaning fun with his
satire.

The two discourses of Socrates may be contrasted in several respects with
the exhibition of the Sophists: (1) In their perfect relevancy to the
subject of discussion, whereas the Sophistical discourses are wholly
irrelevant: (2) In their enquiring sympathetic tone, which encourages the
youth, instead of 'knocking him down,' after the manner of the two
Sophists: (3) In the absence of any definite conclusion--for while
Socrates and the youth are agreed that philosophy is to be studied, they
are not able to arrive at any certain result about the art which is to
teach it. This is a question which will hereafter be answered in the
Republic; as the conception of the kingly art is more fully developed in
the Politicus, and the caricature of rhetoric in the Gorgias.

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