In the Euthydemus, Socrates is presented as an eager student of seemingly trivial arts, earning derision both for desiring to master the peculiar art of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus and for studying the harp in his old age. I explain Socrates’ interest in these apparently trivial arts by way of a novel reading of the first protreptic argument, suggesting that the wisdom Socrates praises is complex in nature, securing the happiness of its possessor only insofar as it is composed (...) of both ordinary productive knowledge and ethically productive knowledge. This reading of the first protreptic makes sense of the otherwise perplexing second protreptic, explaining why Socrates is so keen to identify an art which makes what it uses. Wisdom acts as a reliable source of benefit only insofar as it is a complex composed of multiple different arts and types of knowledge. These arts, however, can only be acquired one at a time – if no single art is capable of combining the powers of both ordinary productive knowledge and ethically productive knowledge in the way that wisdom as a whole does, then the pursuit of wisdom will fail to offer reliable benefit despite the reliably beneficial nature of its possession. Thus, it is appropriate for the Euthydemus to conclude with Socrates telling Crito to take courage and pursue philosophy despite the seemingly harmful effects that its pursuit has had on others. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus represent the danger facing the aspiring philosopher, the possibility of being ruined by independent possession of the particular kind of ordinary productive knowledge on which philosophical activity depends – verbal mastery, the grasp of subtle conceptual distinctions needed both to argumentatively reveal reality and to argumentatively obscure it, to reliably equivocate and to reliably avoid equivocation. (shrink)

Headmaster of King Edward's School in Birmingham for fourteen years, Edwin Hamilton Gifford also held a number of ecclesiastical posts, including select preacher at both Cambridge and Oxford. Better known for his biblical and patristic scholarship, he also prepared this edition of the Euthydemus, Plato's most comical dialogue. Thought to be an early work, depicting a discussion between Socrates and two sophists trained in eristic, it is among the earliest-known treatises on logic, satirising various fallacies that were subsequently categorised (...) by Aristotle. Published in 1905, a generation after Jowett's standard translation, this edition was intended for university and advanced school students. A thorough introduction is given in English, followed by the Greek text, extensive notes, and indexes of vocabulary and names. As such, this reissue illuminates the educational preoccupations of both early twentieth-century England and classical Athens. (shrink)

At Euthydemus 278–282, Socrates produces an argument that has almost universally been agreed to entail that wisdom is sufficient for happiness, necessary for happiness, or both. According to these standard readings, this is because Socrates ties wisdom to correct use of one's assets. Since wisdom is necessary or sufficient for correct use and correct use is necessary or sufficient for happiness, wisdom bears the same relation(s) to happiness, mutatis mutandis. I propose a split-level reading of this passage. On the (...) level of natures, Socrates aims to establish that a causal-explanatory relation holds between the nature of wisdom and correctness such that wisdom by nature always produces correctness; ignorance, conversely, by nature never produces correctness. However, on the level of individuals, the causal relations are defeasible such that the wise sometimes fail and the ignorant sometimes succeed. Thus this reading does not entail that having wisdom is necessary or sufficient for correct use or for happiness. If this split-level reading is correct, then this passage, the locus classicus for the necessity and sufficiency theses, fails to establish either. (shrink)

We contrived at last, somehow or other, to agree in a general conclusion, that he who had wisdom had no need of fortune.

Socrates’ daimonion, that numinous “presence” restraining him from error, is prominently featured in Plato’s Apology and plays an important role in several other dialogues.Socrates speaks of it often. It was, he reports, a constant feature of his life. It may also have caused his death because, as we read in the Euthyphro, he talked about the daimon so often that he aroused suspicion and resentment—and was finally indicted for impiety . It may seem a bit scandalous that the patron saint (...) of reason in the western tradition was a daimon-haunted personality. And many commentators tend to deemphasize the daimon, or at least not to fully investigate its role in Plato’s writing. But something essential is missed in this way. Accordingly, this essay focuses on the daimon in the Euthydemus, which is a macabre mystical comedy. Here we see that, while the daimon is a power that sets limits, it willingly associates itself with a mysticism of the limitless and we see how this association bears fruit in Plato’s other dialogues—especially in the notion of the Good. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Early in Plato’s Euthydemus, sophistical arguments threaten the intelligibility of the process of learning. According to M. M. McCabe, Socrates resists the sophists’ arguments by resisting their problematic replacement model of change. The replacement model proposes that one item (e.g., an unlearned one) is simply replaced with a nonidentical item (e.g., a learned one). Socrates is said to endorse a rival metaphysics of temporally extended, teleologically structured activities. The rival model allows an enduring subject to survive ‘aspect changes’ (...) by occupying distinct stages in a continuous, unified process. McCabe may be right that Socrates presupposes or favors a metaphysics of continuous, end-oriented activities. If so, there are independent reasons to strive to understand the teleological structure of the activity of learning. Nevertheless, I am not convinced that Socrates relies on such a metaphysics to resist the learning arguments at 275d—278d. I argue that Socrates appeals, instead, to the complexity of the learning process to recognize two distinct, yet related, uses of the term ‘learning.’ In order to resist the sophists’ arguments, Socrates recommends attending to ‘the correctness of names’. Socrates’s disambiguating response is sufficient to dissolve the sophistical arguments while remaining compatible with a variety of metaphysics of individuals and activities. (shrink)

"We must turn to the Euthydemus if we are to understand both Plato's earlier and his more mature work. Thomas Chance's book is an indispensible tool for penetrating to the sources of Plato's thinking on the nature of philosophy. This is the most impressive treatment of the dialogue so far available to scholars, and the interpretations offered will surely be the starting point for all future discussions."--G. B. Kerferd, Emeritus, University of Manchester "A sensitive and well-informed study of an (...) important and much neglected dialogue."--R. E. Allen, Northwestern University "A sensitive and well-informed study of an important and much neglected dialogue."--R. E. Allen "Chance's book [will be] an indispensable tool for penetrating to the sources of Plato's thinking.... The interpretations offered will surely be the starting point for all future discussions."--George Kerferd. (shrink)

Plato’s Socrates is often thought to hold that wisdom or virtue is sufficient for happiness, and Euthydemus 278-282 is often taken to be the locus classicus for this sufficiency thesis in Plato’s dialogues. But this view is misguided: Not only does Socrates here fail to argue for, assert, or even implicitly assume the sufficiency thesis, but the thesis turns out to be hard to square with the argument he does give. I argue for an interpretation of the passage that (...) explains the central importance of wisdom for Socrates without committing him to the sufficiency thesis. The result is that the Euthydemus displays a plausible but distinctively Socratic argument for making the pursuit of wisdom the central concern of one’s life. (shrink)

ABSTRACT M.M. McCabe argues that in Plato’s Euthydemus, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus hold a view she calls ‘chopped logos’. Chopped logos implies that nothing said is false, or opposed to any other statement, or entailed by any other statement. We focus on a key piece of evidence for chopped logos, the argument concluding that there is no such thing as contradiction (285e9–286b6), and defend a competing interpretation. The argument in question, and the eristic exchanges as a whole, are simply (...) examples of a dialectical game, a contest that is the verbal equivalent of physical competitions like wrestling or the pankration. The argument has no doctrinal significance and no deep connection with the other arguments of the dialogue. Its interest proves to be broadly methodological rather than doctrinal, a showpiece of eristic display. (shrink)

The Euthydemus presents a brilliantly comic contrast between Socratic and sophistic argument. Socrates' encounter with the sophistic brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus exposes the hollowness of their claim to teach virtue, unmasking it as a predilection for verbal pugilism and the peddling of paradox. The dialogue's humour is pointed, for the brothers' fallacies are often reminiscent of substantial dilemmas explored seriously elsewhere in Plato, and the farce of their manipulation is in sharp contrast to the sobriety with which Socrates (...) pursues his own protreptic questioning. But the strategies of this text are complex: the Euthydemus may be a playful satire of the desire to confound, yet beneath its knockabout humour a serious purpose is also visible. (shrink)

If Platonic dialogues are dramas, then Socrates' interlocutors can be understood in their full humanity rather than foils for Socrates. This essay examines Crito, not as he appears in the dialogue named after him, but in the Euthydemus, where he reveals himself to a much greater degree. Here Crito is revealed as a successful businessman, a lover of money, who also has protective feelings about his son Critobolus. The physical frailty is a cause of concern. By understanding Crito in (...) these terms, it is possible to discern how the passion of envy governs much the way Crito responds to events. One also discovers that Crito does not always say what he means, but has a tendency to only reveal his own vulnerabilities after he has learned of the vulnerabilities of those with whom he is conversing, in this case, Socrates. But Crito is not entirely selfish. As a father, and as a friend of Socrates, he is also driven by a desire to be philanthropic. The nature of Crito's philanthropy is made manifest in the way he chastises Socrates for admitting, in public, that he does not necessarily believe in the gods of the city. Crito understands the consequences for Socrates of such an admission. Finally, Crito, the lover of money, also has an understanding of what philosophy is: something that can be owned. It is more like what an ideology is than the Socratic quest for wisdom. This analysis prepares one for a return to Plato's Crito, and to a consideration of the relationship of the Socratic life to politics and money-making. (shrink)

Departing on a demonstration which aims to show to young Cleinias how one ought to care about wisdom and virtue, Socrates asks at 278e2 whether people want to do well (εὐ πράττειν). Εὐ πράττειν is ambiguous. It can mean being happy and prospering, or doing what is right and doing it well. Socrates will later exploit this ambiguity, but at this point he uses this expression merely to announce his conviction that every human being (pathological cases aside, perhaps) desires to (...) be happy (278e2-7). He does not examine how this desire figures in the psychology of action. Instead, and more fundamentally, he seeks to identify the things that would make us happy, or the good things as he calls them (279a2-4). In this passage, only those things are said to be good that make their possessor happy. Socrates does not present his view on what it is to be happy. But he goes on to advance confidently controversial claims about which things are good for us to possess and which are not. In and of itself, this implies that he has a view on happiness which enables him to identify these things, even though he does not offer an explicit statement of it. Here, I attempt to articulate the conception of happiness that is presupposed by Socrates in this passage. Since he does not reveal it explicitly, I will have to use the information he offers in which it is revealed implicitly. More precisely, I am going to ask what sort of a conception of happiness and unhappiness we need to attribute to Socrates in order to explain adequately his claims about what makes us happy and unhappy. To test the adequacy of the articulation I develop, I examine whether it can help us make sense of these claims and his defence for them. The same test of adequacy I apply also to some influential interpretations already on offer. (shrink)

The author of Plato's Use of Fallacy has provided a felicitous new translation of the Euthydemus. Notes are supplied to explain arguments which depend on peculiarities of Greek. The introduction points out, but deliberately avoids settling, questions raised by the dialogue, allowing Plato to speak for himself.—R. J. W.

Scholarship on the Euthydemus has largely focused on the protreptic character of the Euthydemus—that is, the manner by which Socrates attempts to turn the young Cleinias toward philosophy. By focusing on the dramatic structure of the text, and above all its comic tenor, this article argues that it is Crito—he to whom Socrates tells his hilarious story of his encounter with the two sophist-brothers—who is the real object of Socrates’s protreptic speech.

Can the Euthydemus illuminate the philosophical significance of sophistry? In answering this question, I ask why the most direct and sustained confrontations between Socrates and the two brothers should all center on time and the soul. The Euthydemus, I argue, is a not primarily a polemic against eristic manipulation of language, but a diagnosis of the soul’s ambiguous unity. It shows that sophistic speech emerges from the soul’s way of relating to its own temporal character and to logos. (...) Stated differently, a central theme of this dialogue is one which, we are repeatedly told, the Greeks had not yet thematized--the nature of interiority. (shrink)

Traditional interpretations of the Euthydemus find little of value in its sophistical sections. Where value is found at all it is in those aspects of the sophistic display which point to serious issues in other dialogues. This paper argues that there is methodological value intrinsic to the sophistic sections, that taken together these displays make a coherent and valuable contribution to an understanding of sophistic argumentation, and of the foundations of correct reasoning. Each of the sections deals in some (...) way with the principle of contradiction; it is the manipulation of this principle which produces the sophistic tricks, and the principle itself which reveals and organizes around itself the many sides of the sophistic display. The first display offers an apparent refutation of this principle, one based only on verbal ambiguity. In the second display the principle is denied from Parmenidean and Heraclitean perspectives, and the implications of such are analyzed. In the third display the brothers misapply this principle to relational predicates so as to work their tricks. Plato reveals here the necessity and limits of the principle of contradiction, and how its denial and misuse stand at the basis of various sophistical arguments. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article explores the role of Isocrates in Plato’s Euthydemus, with special attention given to M.M. McCabe’s defense of Socratic philosophy against the sophistic challenges of Euthydemus and Dionysodoros. I defend two main theses: (1) Isocratean philosophy refutes what McCabe calls ‘chopped logos’ (a sophistic theory of logic and meaning) and (2) Isocratean philosophy, like its Socratic rival, is committed to reflection and to the consistency of logoi but, unlike its Socratic rival, it is committed to them (...) for strictly pragmatic reasons. As support for these theses, I argue that Isocrates holds a pragmatic theory of truth, that Isocratean philosophy meets all the requirements of what McCabe calls a ‘reflective commitment,’ and that Isocrates’ particular brand of pragmatism avoids the unscrupulous opportunism that worries McCabe about pragmatism generally. I conclude with considerations about how Isocrates figures into the central themes and drama of the Euthydemus. (shrink)

The essay examines the description of virtue as a craft that governs the proper use of possessions in Plato’s Euthydemus and Stoicism. In the first part, I discuss Socrates’ parallel between wisdom and the crafts in the Euthydemus, and the resulting argument concerning the value of external and bodily possessions. I then offer some objections, showing how Socrates’ craft analogy allows one to think of possessions as good and ultimately fails to offer a defense of virtue’s sufficiency for (...) happiness. In the second part, I examine the Stoics’ craft analogy and note a number of differences from Socrates’ account in the Euthydemus. These include the Stoic claim that external advantages never make any contribution to happiness, even when properly used, and the claim that, unlike other crafts, wisdom does not require any external possessions in order to be exercised and yield benefit and happiness. I then place these differences against the backdrop of the debate regarding virtue’s sufficiency for happiness and argue that the Stoic craft model of virtue fares better than its Socratic antecedent. (shrink)

I argue that the fallacy concerning false speech (283e-284c) in Plato’s Euthydemus does not entail conflation of the alleged existential and veridical senses of ‘einai’ (‘to be’), but instead confusion regarding predicative statements. I consider this passage by advancing interpretations of nonbeing and the structure of true and false speech in the Sophist. I aim to refute those who hold that this passage demands an ‘existential’ sense of ‘einai ’ by offering a more Platonic interpretation.

Provides an interpretation of Plato's Euthydemus as a unified piece of literature, taking into account both its dramatic and its philosophical aspects.

This sourcebook, a corrected reprint of the University of South Carolina Press edition of 1972, contains a complete English translation of the sophist material collected in the critical edition of Diels-Krantz, as well as Euthydemus and a completely re-edited Antiphon.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Socrates Plays the Buffoon:Cautionary Protreptic in EuthydemusAnn N. MicheliniPlato's Euthydemus is somewhat uninteresting to traditional philosophers, who tend to treat the dialogues from the aspect of their theoretical content.1 The arguments repeatedly presented by Socrates' opponents are below Platonic standards,2 while Socrates carries on only a single, somewhat truncated logos of his own. The dialogue's primary interest lies elsewhere, in the odd use it makes of protreptic or (...) conversionary philosophical rhetoric and in its highly ambivalent examination of Socratic tactics. Socrates' adversaries are a pair of ludicrous charlatans, caricatures of the other fifth-century "Sophists"3 whom Plato satirized; but the tactics of the two brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, are also awkwardly close to those of Socrates himself. No other Platonic dialogue features interlocutors who make a habit of practicing the Socratic question-and-answer mode, and in no other dialogue does Socrates allow anyone but himself to assume the dominant role of interrogator. 4 The "sandwich" format, in which two Socratic discussions [End Page 509] are flanked by three series of arguments by the brothers, both contrasts Socrates and his opponents and points up their similarity.The encounter is marked by its concern for protreptic, the exhortation, pervasive in later philosophical writing, as it is in the fourth-century texts of Isocrates and Xenophon, to leave conventional ways of life and care for wisdom and moral virtue.5 At the beginning of the discussion (274d7-e5), Socrates asks Dionysodorus whether his wisdom can be transmitted to even one person not yet persuaded of its efficacy. Socrates rather tendentiously concludes from Dionysodorus' positive response that the brothers would therefore be best at exhortation to virtue, and throughout the discussion he persists in pushing them to demonstrate their protreptic.6 This desire in turn motivates his self-abasing relation to Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, whom Socrates continually begs, on behalf of his young friend Clinias, to reveal their priceless wisdom and save the boy from bad influences. Not only does Socrates set up the brothers as masters of protreptic but he even offers his own version, showing that wisdom is the key to happiness and concluding that it is "necessary to philosophize" (282d1) in order to be happy. The fact that protreptic language is so little in evidence in Plato's other work implies an exceptional status for Euthydemus, the only dialogue that both employs the terminology of protreptic and focuses on the problems of philosophic exhortation and conversion.The phrase "exhort to philosophy and virtue" is conventional: it appears very frequently in both Xenophon and Isocrates.7 But, while Socrates in Apology describes his vocation in terms of an open protreptic of rebuke and exhortation, his use of the elenchus in the dialogues [End Page 510] is more subtle and tactful.8 More important, the trope of exhortation to virtue is notable for its absence from almost all Platonic texts9 except Euthydemus and the eccentric Clitophon.10 The thematic importance of the phrase in Euthydemus is emphasized by repetition and by overlap between the reported dialogue and its setting, in which Socrates exhorts Crito to join him as a student of the brothers' wisdom, and in which Crito expresses his concerns about the education of his son (, 307a2). In his important work on protreptic, Konrad Gaiser attempted to derive later protreptic from speeches by fifth-century "Sophistic" teachers that were designed to win pupils for training in rhetoric and politics. But, while admonitory or moralizing discourses were composed by figures such as Prodicus and Hippias, as they were by others from Hesiod onward, it does not seem likely that the specifically conversionary protreptic that appears in fourth-century writers derives from thinkers who were primarily concerned with demonstrations of skill. The real source for protreptic is likely to have been the Socratics themselves, writers who used the unconventional Socratic persona both to rebuke immorality and to show the inadequacy of traditional moral concepts. This Socratic protreptic demanded nothing less than a change of life.11Whether the dialogue Clitophon is by Plato or not, it affords a valuable proof that protreptic was associated with Socratic technique: Clitophon, an associate of Thrasymachus in Republic... (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, we build upon M.M. McCabe's [2021] characterisation of two accounts of logos and Socratic endeavour in Plato's Euthydemus. We argue that the brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, are engaged in and committed to an endeavour which has features in common with Socrates’. It has an aim, rules, and is subject to failure. It is also a unified activity in which structure, process and continuity are important. However, the brothers’ only aim is impressing their audience and (...) they seem to have no interest in knowledge, truth or the kind of moral development that Socrates values. They are also committed to very few of Socrates’ rules for conversation. Our analysis of the brothers’ project shows us that Plato presents us with an interesting problem: how we should respond to people who engage in conversation with us but with an aim that seems trivial and without the rules that we think are crucial for intellectual and moral development. (shrink)

Many scholars find Socratic irony so obvious in the Euthydemus that they don’t bother to cite any textual support when they claim that Socrates does not sincerely mean something he says, e.g., when he praises Euthydemus and his brother. What these scholars overlook is the role of agapē in shaping Socrates’s view of other intellectuals. If we take his agapē into account, it is easy to see that while there is some irony in the Euthydemus, none of (...) it is Socratic. (shrink)

In the final scene of the Euthydemus, Socrates argues that because the art of speechwriting merely partakes of the two good arts philosophy and politics, it places third in the contest for wisdom. I argue that this curious speech is a reverse eikos argument, directed at the speechwriters own eikos argument for the preeminence of their art. A careful analysis of the partaking relation reveals that it is rather Socratic dialectic which occupies this intermediate position between philosophy and politics. (...) This result entails that Socrates’ peculiar art is only a part of philosophy, and its practitioner only partially wise. (shrink)

ABSTRACT McCabe [2021: 137–40] identifies a crucial ambiguity in the terms ‘learns’ and ‘knows’. Such terms can be read as either ‘perfective’ or ‘imperfective’. This is an aspect difference. The former indicates a settled state, the latter a directed process. McCabe uses this insight to show how Socrates can rebut the sophists’ view of meaning, render compelling Socrates’ self-refutation arguments, and explain the Socratic connections between learning, knowledge, and how one should live. In the final section of the Euthydemus, (...) Euthydemus offers the ‘Omniscience Sophism’, and the related, rather cheeky, ‘Father Sophisms’. McCabe [ibid.: 140–2] suggests that the Omniscience Sophism might be addressed by identifying an aspect ambiguity, but does not follow up her point in detail. In this response, I argue that McCabe’s instinct is good and that a relative term, such as ‘knowledgeable’, can be understood as having two senses. That distinction is between what I call ‘fine-grained’ and ‘coarse-grained’ senses of ‘knowledgeable’. I suggest that this distinction that tracks McCabe’s aspect distinction between senses of ‘learns’ and best explains the fallacy committed in the Omniscience Sophism. (shrink)

We will investigate the relation between the notion of the craft of ruling in the "Euthydemus" and in the "Republic". In the "Euthydemus", Socrates' search for an account of wisdom leads to his identifying it as the craft of ruling in the city. In the "Republic", the craft of ruling in the city is the virtue of wisdom in the city and the analogue of wisdom in the soul. Still, the craft of ruling leads to aporia in the (...) former dialogue while in the latter it is a central feature of Socrates' account of justice -- both in the city and in the soul. Some commentators hold that the aporia at the end of the second protreptic interlude of the "Euthydemus" shows that Socrates' account of wisdom is fatally flawed and must be rejected. However, the difficulty for this position is that the craft of ruling from the "Euthydemus" is a hardy notion that plays an extremely important role in the "Republic". Indeed, reflecting this fact, other commentators hold that the aporia is solved in the "Republic". Still, what is so far missing is an analysis that clearly shows the way to this solution in the "Republic". In what follows, we will analyze the two protreptic inter-ludes in the "Euthydemus" in order to see how the aporia arises. As we shall see, Socrates presents the aporia as a labyrinth. Indeed, it is a labyrinth with a little noticed step that -- once it is noticed -- shows the way out. The result will be that the aporia of the "Euthydemus" points to a solution in which ruling in the soul implies a command of one's appetites and emotions. (shrink)

The structure of the Euthydemus, together with other more subtle hints, shows that Plato's purpose in the dialogue is to contrast two educational methods: eristic, as represented by the brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, and dialectic, as represented by Socrates. Plato has made the educational failure of eristic so evident in the dialogue that the question arises why he should have thought it worth attacking at such length. The reply is suggested that it was the sophists' claim to teach (...) virtue that was particularly galling to Plato. He wishes to show further, that the character of their eristic tricks is to deny the possibility of teaching at all, since the either/or basis of their arguments amounts to a denial of becoming. Plato brings these matters to a head less than half-way through the dialogue, at 286E, when he has Socrates ask his 'stupid question' as to what the sophists teach, if they really believe that there is no false speaking, no refutation, and no ignorance. The paper concludes by agreeing with Holger Thesleff that the Euthydemus is 'pedimental' in construction, although disagreeing with him as to where the central peripateia occurs. To place the turning point, as I would do, at 286E, is to show that the theme of the dialogue is paideia. (shrink)