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.
The characters of the Dialogue are easily intelligible. There is
Socrates once more in the character of an old man; and his equal in
years, Crito, the father of Critobulus, like Lysimachus in the Laches,
his fellow demesman (Apol.), to whom the scene is narrated, and who once
or twice interrupts with a remark after the manner of the interlocutor
in the Phaedo, and adds his commentary at the end; Socrates makes
a playful allusion to his money-getting habits. There is the youth
Cleinias, the grandson of Alcibiades, who may be compared with Lysis,
Charmides, Menexenus, and other ingenuous youths out of whose mouths
Socrates draws his own lessons, and to whom he always seems to stand in
a kindly and sympathetic relation. Crito will not believe that Socrates
has not improved or perhaps invented the answers of Cleinias (compare
Phaedrus). The name of the grandson of Alcibiades, who is described as
long dead, (Greek), and who died at the age of forty-four, in the year
404 B.C., suggests not only that the intended scene of the Euthydemus
could not have been earlier than 404, but that as a fact this Dialogue
could not have been composed before 390 at the soonest. Ctesippus,
who is the lover of Cleinias, has been already introduced to us in the
Lysis, and seems there too to deserve the character which is here given
him, of a somewhat uproarious young man. But the chief study of all
is the picture of the two brothers, who are unapproachable in their
effrontery, equally careless of what they say to others and of what is
said to them, and never at a loss. They are 'Arcades ambo et cantare
pares et respondere parati.' Some superior degree of wit or subtlety is
attributed to Euthydemus, who sees the trap in which Socrates catches
Dionysodorus.
The epilogue or conclusion of the Dialogue has been criticised as
inconsistent with the general scheme. Such a criticism is like similar
criticisms on Shakespeare, and proceeds upon a narrow notion of the
variety which the Dialogue, like the drama, seems to admit. Plato in the
abundance of his dramatic power has chosen to write a play upon a play,
just as he often gives us an argument within an argument. At the same
time he takes the opportunity of assailing another class of persons
who are as alien from the spirit of philosophy as Euthydemus and
Dionysodorus. The Eclectic, the Syncretist, the Doctrinaire, have been
apt to have a bad name both in ancient and modern times. The persons
whom Plato ridicules in the epilogue to the Euthydemus are of this
class. They occupy a border-ground between philosophy and politics; they
keep out of the dangers of politics, and at the same time use philosophy
as a means of serving their own interests. Plato quaintly describes them
as making two good things, philosophy and politics, a little worse by
perverting the objects of both. Men like Antiphon or Lysias would be
types of the class. Out of a regard to the respectabilities of life,
they are disposed to censure the interest which Socrates takes in the
exhibition of the two brothers. They do not understand, any more than
Crito, that he is pursuing his vocation of detecting the follies of
mankind, which he finds 'not unpleasant.' (Compare Apol.)
Education is the common subject of all Plato's earlier Dialogues. The
concluding remark of Crito, that he has a difficulty in educating his
two sons, and the advice of Socrates to him that he should not give
up philosophy because he has no faith in philosophers, seems to be a
preparation for the more peremptory declaration of the Meno that 'Virtue
cannot be taught because there are no teachers.'
The reasons for placing the Euthydemus early in the series are: (1)
the similarity in plan and style to the Protagoras, Charmides, and
Lysis;--the relation of Socrates to the Sophists is still that of
humorous antagonism, not, as in the later Dialogues of Plato, of
embittered hatred; and the places and persons have a considerable family
likeness; (2) the Euthydemus belongs to the Socratic period in which
Socrates is represented as willing to learn, but unable to teach; and
in the spirit of Xenophon's Memorabilia, philosophy is defined as 'the
knowledge which will make us happy;' (3) we seem to have passed the
stage arrived at in the Protagoras, for Socrates is no longer discussing
whether virtue can be taught--from this question he is relieved by the
ingenuous declaration of the youth Cleinias; and (4) not yet to have
reached the point at which he asserts 'that there are no teachers.' Such
grounds are precarious, as arguments from style and plan are apt to
be (Greek). But no arguments equally strong can be urged in favour of
assigning to the Euthydemus any other position in the series.