Chapter XXI: Euthydemus (1)

[Side-note: Dramatic and comic exuberance of the Euthydêmus. Judgments of various critics.]

Dramatic vivacity, and comic force, holding up various persons to ridicule or contempt, are attributes which Plato manifests often and abundantly. But the dialogue in which these qualities reach their maximum, is, the Euthydêmus. Some portions of it approach to the Nubes of Aristophanes: so that Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and other admiring critics have some difficulty in explaining, to their own satisfaction,[1] how Plato, the sublime moralist and lawgiver, can here have admitted so much trifling and buffoonery. Ast even rejects the dialogue as spurious; declaring it to be unworthy of Plato and insisting on various peculiarities, defects, and even absurdities, which offend his critical taste. His conclusion in this case has found no favour: yet I think it is based on reasons quite as forcible as those upon which other dialogues have been condemned:[2] upon reasons, which, even if admitted, might prove that the dialogue was an inferior performance, but would not prove that Plato was not the author.

[Footnote 1: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Euthydemos, vol. iii. pp. 400-403-407; Stallbaum. Proleg. in Euthydem. p. 14.]

[Footnote 2: Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, pp. 408-418.]

[Side-note: Scenery and personages.]

Sokrates recounts (to Kriton) a conversation in which he has just been engaged with two Sophists, Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus, in the undressing-room belonging to the gymnasium of the Lykeium. There were present, besides, Kleinias, a youth of remarkable beauty and intelligence, cousin of the great Alkibiades--Ktesippus, an adult man, yet still young, friend of Sokrates and devotedly attached to Kleinias--and a crowd of unnamed persons, partly friends of Kleinias, partly admirers and supporters of the two Sophists.

[Side-note: The two Sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus: manner in which they are here presented.]

This couple are described and treated throughout by Sokrates, with the utmost admiration and respect: that is, in terms designating such feelings, but intended as the extreme of irony or caricature. They are masters of the art of Contention, in its three varieties[3]--1. Arms, and the command of soldiers. 2. Judicial and political rhetoric, fighting an opponent before the assembled Dikasts or people. 3. Contentious Dialectic--they can reduce every respondent to a contradiction, if he will only continue to answer their questions--whether what he says be true or false.[4] All or each of these accomplishments they are prepared to teach to any pupil who will pay the required fee: the standing sarcasm of Plato against the paid teacher, occurring here as in so many other places. Lastly, they are brothers, old and almost toothless--natives of Chios, colonists from thence to Thurii, and exiles from Thurii and resident at Athens, yet visiting other cities for the purpose of giving lessons.[5] Their dialectic skill is described as a recent acquisition,--made during their old age, only in the preceding year,--and completing their excellence as professors of the tripartite Eristic. But they now devote themselves to it more than to the other two parts. Moreover they advertise themselves as teachers of virtue.

[Footnote 3: Plato, Euthyd. pp. 271-272.]

[Footnote 4: Plat. Euthyd. p. 272 B. [Greek: e)xele/gchein to\ a)ei\ lego/menon, o(moi/ôs e)a/n te pseu=dos e)a/n t' a)lêthe\s ê)=|]: p. 275 C. [Greek: ou)de\n diaphe/rei, e)a\n mo/non e)the/lê| a)pokri/nesthai o( neani/skos.]]

[Footnote 5: Plat. Euthyd. p. 273 B-C. "quamvis essent ætate grandiores et _edentuli_" says Stallbaum in his Proleg. p. 10. He seems to infer this from page 294 C; the inference, though not very certain, is plausible.

Steinhart, in his Einleitung zum Euthydemos (vol. ii. p. 2 of Hieronym. Müller's translation of Plato) repeats these antecedents of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, as recited in the dialogue before us, as if they were matter of real history, exemplifications of the character of the class called Sophists. He might just as well produce what is said by the comic poets Eupolis and Aristophanes--the proceedings as recounted by the Sokratic disciple in the [Greek: phrontistê/rion] (Nubes)--as evidence about the character of Sokrates.]

[Side-note: Conversation carried on with Kleinias, first by Sokrates, next by the two Sophists.]

The two Sophists, having announced themselves as competent to teach virtue and stimulate pupils to a virtuous life, are entreated by Sokrates to exercise their beneficent influence upon the youth Kleinias, in whose improvement he as well as Ktesippus feels the warmest interest. Sokrates gives a specimen of what he wishes by putting a series of questions himself. Euthydêmus follows, and begins questioning Kleinias; who, after answering three or four successive questions, is forced to contradict himself. Dionysodorus then takes up the last answer of Kleinias, puts him through another series of interrogations, and makes him contradict himself again. In this manner the two Sophists toss the youthful respondent backwards and forwards to each other, each contriving to entangle him in some puzzle and contradiction. They even apply the same process to Sokrates, who cannot avoid being entangled in the net; and to Ktesippus, who becomes exasperated, and retorts upon them with contemptuous asperity. The alternate interference of the two Sophists is described with great smartness and animation; which is promoted by the use of the dual number, peculiar to the Greek language, employed by Plato in speaking of them.

[Side-note: Contrast between the two different modes of interrogation.]

This mode of dialectic, conducted by the two Sophists, is interrupted on two several occasions by a counter-exhibition of dialectic on the part of Sokrates: who, under colour of again showing to the couple a specimen of that which he wishes them to do, puts two successive batches of questions to Kleinias in his own manner.[6] The contrast between Sokrates and the two Sophists, in the same work, carried on respectively by him and by them, of interrogating Kleinias, is evidently meant as one of the special matters to arrest attention in the dialogue. The questions put by the couple are made to turn chiefly on verbal quibbles and ambiguities: they are purposely designed to make the respondent contradict himself, and are proclaimed to be certain of bringing about this result, provided the respondent will conform to the laws of dialectic--by confining his answer to the special point of the question, without adding any qualification of his own, or asking for farther explanation from the questioner, or reverting to any antecedent answer lying apart from the actual question of the moment.[7] Sokrates, on the contrary, addresses interrogations, each of which has a clear and substantive meaning, and most of which Kleinias is able to answer without embarrassment: he professes no other design except that of encouraging Kleinias to virtue, and assisting him to determine in what virtue consists: he resorts to no known quibbles or words of equivocal import. The effect of the interrogations is represented as being, not to confound and silence the youth, but to quicken and stimulate his mind and to call forth an unexpected amount of latent knowledge: insomuch that he makes one or two answers very much beyond his years, exciting the greatest astonishment and admiration, in Sokrates as well as in Kriton.[8] In this respect, the youth Kleinias serves the same illustrative purpose as the youthful slave in the Menon:[9] each is supposed to be quickened by the interrogatory of Sokrates, into a manifestation of knowledge noway expected, nor traceable to any teaching. But in the Menon, this magical evocation of knowledge from an untaught youth is explained by the theory of reminiscence, pre-existence, and omniscience, of the soul: while in the Euthydêmus, no allusion is made to any such theory, nor to any other cause except the stimulus of the Sokratic cross-questioning.

[Footnote 6: Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 279-288.]

[Footnote 7: Plat. Euthyd. pp. 275 E--276 E. [Greek: Pa/nta toiau=ta ê(mei=s e)rôtô=men a)/phukta], pp. 287 B--295 B--296 A, &c.]

[Footnote 8: Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 290-291. The unexpected wisdom, exhibited by the youth Kleinias in his concluding answer, can be understood only as illustrating the obstetric efficacy of Sokratic interrogations. See Winckelmann, Proleg. ad Euthyd. pp. xxxiii. xxxiv. The words [Greek: tô=n kreitto/nôn] must have the usual signification, as recognised by Routh and Heindorf, though Schleiermacher treats it as absurd, p. 552, notes.]

[Footnote 9: Plato, Menon, pp. 82-85.]

[Side-note: Wherein this contrast does not consist.]

In the dialogue _Euthydêmus_, then, one main purpose of Plato is to exhibit in contrast two distinct modes of questioning: one practised by Euthydemus and Dionysodorus; the other, by Sokrates. Of these two, it is the first which is shown up in the most copious and elaborate manner: the second is made subordinate, serving mainly as a standard of comparison with the first. We must take care however to understand in what the contrast between the two consists, and in what it does not consist.

The contrast does not consist in this--that Sokrates so contrives his string of questions as to bring out some established and positive conclusion, while Euthydemus and his brother leave everything in perplexity. Such is not the fact. Sokrates ends without any result, and with a confession of his inability to find any. Professing earnest anxiety to stimulate Kleinias in the path of virtue, he is at the same time unable to define what the capital condition of virtue is.[10] On this point, then, there is no contrast between Sokrates and his competitors: if they land their pupil in embarrassment, so does he. Nor, again, does Sokrates stand distinguished from them by affirming (or rather implying in his questions) nothing but what is true and indisputable.[11]

[Footnote 10: Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 291 A--293 A; Plat. Kleitophon, pp. 409-410.]

[Footnote 11: See Plat. Euthydêm. p. 281 C-D, where undoubtedly the positions laid down by Sokrates would not have passed without contradiction by an opponent.]

[Side-note: Wherein it does consist.]

The real contrast between the competitors, consists, first in the pretensions--next in the method. The two Sophists are described as persons of exorbitant arrogance, professing to teach virtue,[12] and claiming a fee as if they did teach it: Sokrates disdains the fee, doubts whether such teaching is possible, and professes only to encourage or help forward on the road a willing pupil. The pupil in this case is a given subject, Kleinias, a modest and intelligent youth: and the whole scene passes in public before an indiscriminate audience. To such a pupil, what is needed is, encouragement and guidance. Both of these are really administered by the questions of Sokrates, which are all suggestive and pertinent to the matter in hand, though failing to reach a satisfactory result: moreover, Sokrates attends only to Kleinias, and is indifferent to the effect on the audience around. The two Sophists, on the contrary, do not say a word pertinent to the object desired. Far from seeking (as they promised) to encourage Kleinias,[13] they confuse and humiliate him from the beginning: all their implements for teaching consist only of logical puzzles; lastly, their main purpose is to elicit applause from the by-standers, by reducing both the modest Kleinias and every other respondent to contradiction and stand-still.

[Footnote 12: Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 273 D, 275 A, 304 B.]

[Footnote 13: Plat. Euthyd. p. 278 C. [Greek: e)pha/tên ga\r e)pidei/xasthai tê\n protreptikê\n sophi/an.]]

[Side-note: Abuse of fallacies by the Sophists--their bidding for the applause of the by-standers.]

Such is the real contrast between Sokrates and the two Sophists, and such is the real scene which we read in the dialogue. The presence, as well as the loud manifestations of an indiscriminate crowd in the Lykeium, are essential features of the drama.[14] The point of view which Plato is working out, is, the abusive employment, the excess, and the misplacement, of logical puzzles: which he brings before us as administered for the humiliation of a youth who requires opposite treatment, in the prosecution of an object which they do not really promote and before undiscerning auditors, for whose applause the two Sophists are bidding.[15] The whole debate upon these fallacies is rendered ridiculous; and when conducted with Ktesippus, degenerates into wrangling and ribaldry.

[Footnote 14: The [Greek: o)/chlos] (surrounding multitude) is especially insisted on in the first sentence of the dialogue, and is perpetually adverted to throughout all the recital of Sokrates to Kriton, pp. 276 B-D, 303 B.]

[Footnote 15: Plat. Euthydêm. p. 303 B.]

[Side-note: Comparison of the Euthydêmus with the Parmenidês.]

The bearing of the Euthydêmus, as I here state it, will be better understood if we contrast it with the Parmenidês. In this last-mentioned dialogue, the amount of negative dialectic and contradiction is greater and more serious than that which we read in the Euthydêmus. One single case of it is elaborately built up in the long Antinomies at the close of the Parmenidês (which occupy as much space, and contain nearly as much sophistry, as the speeches assigned to the two Sophists in Euthydêmus), while we are given to understand that many more remain behind.[16] These perplexing Antinomies (addressed by the veteran Parmenides to Sokrates as his junior), after a variety of other objections against the Platonic theory of Ideas, which theory Sokrates has been introduced as affirming,--are drawn up for the avowed purpose of checking premature affirmation, and of illustrating the difficult exercises and problems which must be solved, before affirmation can become justifiable. This task, though long and laborious, cannot be evaded (we are here told) by aspirants in philosophy. But it is a task which ought only to be undertaken in conjunction with a few select companions. "Before any large audience, it would be unseemly and inadmissible: for the public are not aware that without such roundabout and devious journey in all directions, no man can hit upon truth or acquire intelligence."[17]

[Footnote 16: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B. I shall revert to this point when I notice the Parmenidês.]

[Footnote 17: Plat. Parmen. pp. 135-136. [Greek: e(/lkuson de\ sauto\n kai\ gu/mnasai ma=llon dia\ tê=s dokou/sês a)chrê/stou ei)=nai kai\ kaloume/nês u(po\ tô=n pollô=n a)doleschi/as, e(/ôs e(/ti ne/os ei)=--ei) me\n ou)=n plei/ous ê(=men, ou)k a)\n a)/xion ê)=n dei=sthai], (to request Parmenides to give a specimen of dialectic) [Greek: a)prepê= ga\r ta\ toiau=ta pollô=n e)nanti/on le/gein, a)/llôs te kai\ têlikou/tô|; a)gnoou=si ga\r oi( polloi\ o(/ti a)/neu tau/tês tê=s dia\ pa/ntôn diexo/dou te kai\ pla/nês, a)du/naton e)ntucho/nta tô=| a)lêthei= nou=n schei=n.]]

[Side-note: Necessity of settling accounts with the negative, before we venture upon the affirmative, is common to both: in the one the process is solitary and serious; in the other, it is vulgarised and ludicrous.]

This important proposition--That before a man can be entitled to lay down with confidence any affirmative theory, in the domain of philosophy or "reasoned truth," he must have had before him the various knots tied by negative dialectic, and must find out the way of untying them--is a postulate which lies at the bottom of Plato's Dialogues of Search, as I have remarked in the eighth chapter of this work. But there is much difference in the time, manner, and circumstances, under which such knots are brought before the student for solution. In the Parmenidês the process is presented as one both serious and indispensable, yet requiring some precautions: the public must be excluded, for they do not understand the purpose: and the student under examination must be one who is competent or more than competent to bear the heavy burthen put upon him, as Sokrates is represented to be in the Parmenidês.[18] In the Euthydêmus, on the contrary, the process is intended to be made ridiculous; accordingly these precautions are disregarded. The crowd of indiscriminate auditors are not only present, but are the persons whose feelings the two Sophists address--and who either admire what is said as dexterous legerdemain, or laugh at the interchange of thrusts, as the duel becomes warmer: in fact, the debate ends with general mirth, in which the couple themselves are among the loudest.[19] Lastly, Kleinias, the youth under interrogation, is a modest novice; not represented, like Lysis in the dialogue just reviewed, as in danger of corruption from the exorbitant flatteries of an Erastes, nor as requiring a lowering medicine to be administered by a judicious friend. When the Xenophontic (historical) Sokrates cross-examines and humiliates Euthydêmus (a youth, but nevertheless more advanced than Kleinias in the Platonic Euthydêmus is represented to be), we shall see that he not only lays a train for the process by antecedent suggestions, but takes especial care to attack Euthydêmus when alone.[20] The cross-examination pursued by Sokrates inflicts upon this accomplished young man the severest distress and humiliation, and would have been utterly intolerable, if there had been by-standers clapping their hands (as we read in the Platonic Euthydêmus) whenever the respondent was driven into a corner. We see that it was hardly tolerable even when the respondent was alone with Sokrates; for though Euthydêmus bore up against the temporary suffering, cultivated the society of Sokrates, and was handled by him more gently afterwards; yet there were many other youths whom Sokrates cross-examined in the same way, and who suffered so much humiliation from the first solitary colloquy, that they never again came near him (so Xenophon expressly tells us)[21] for a second. This is quite enough to show us how important is the injunction delivered in the Platonic Parmenidês--to carry on these testing colloquies apart from indiscriminate auditors, in the presence, at most, of a few select companions.

[Footnote 18: See the compliments to Sokrates, on his strenuous ardour and vocation for philosophy, addressed by Parmenides, p. 135 D.]

[Footnote 19: Plat. Euthyd. p. 303 B. [Greek: E)ntau=tha me/ntoi, ô)= phi/le Kri/tôn, ou)deis o(/stis ou) tô=n paro/ntôn u(perepê/nese to\n lo/gon, kai\ tô\ a)/ndre] (Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus) [Greek: gelô=nte kai\ krotou=nte kai\ chai/ronte o)li/gou pareta/thêsan.]]

[Footnote 20: Xenophon. Memor. iv. 2, 5-8. [Greek: ô(s d' ê)/|stheto] (Sokrates) [Greek: au)to\n e)toimo/teron u(pome/nonta, o(/te diale/goito, kai\ prothumo/teron a)kou/onta, _mo/nos ê)=lthen_ ei)s to\ ê(niopoiei=on; parakathezome/non d' au)tô=| tou= Eu)thudê/mou, Ei)=pe/ moi, e)/phê], &c.]

[Footnote 21: Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 39-40. Compare the remarks of Sokrates in Plato, Theætêtus, p. 151 C.]

[Side-note: Opinion of Stallbaum and other critics about the Euthydêmus, that Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus represent the way in which Protagoras and Gorgias talked to their auditors.]

Stallbaum, Steinhart, and other commentators denounce in severe terms the Eristics or controversial Sophists of Athens, as disciples of Protagoras and Gorgias, infected with the mania of questioning and disputing every thing, and thereby corrupting the minds of youth. They tell us that Sokrates was the constant enemy of this school, but that nevertheless he was unjustly confounded with them by the comic poets, and others; from which confusion alone his unpopularity with the Athenian people arose.[22] In the Platonic dialogue of Euthydêmus the two Sophists (according to these commentators) represent the way in which Protagoras and Gorgias with their disciples reasoned: and the purpose of the dialogue is to contrast this with the way in which Sokrates reasoned.

[Footnote 22: Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 9-11-13; Winckelmann, Proleg. ad eundem, pp. xxxiii.-xxxiv.]

[Side-note: That opinion is unfounded. Sokrates was much more Eristic than Protagoras, who generally manifested himself by continuous speech or lecture.]

Now, in this opinion, I think that there is much of unfounded assumption, as well as a misconception of the real contrast intended in the Platonic Euthydêmus. Comparing Protagoras with Sokrates, I maintain that Sokrates was decidedly the more Eristic of the two, and left behind him a greater number of active disciples. In so far as we can trust the picture given by Plato in the dialogue called Protagoras, we learn that the Sophist of that name chiefly manifested himself in long continuous speeches or rhetoric; and though he also professed, if required, to enter into dialectic colloquy, in this art he was no match for Sokrates.[23] Moreover, we know by the evidence of Sokrates himself, that _he_ was an Eristic not only by taste, but on principle, and by a sense of duty. He tells us, in the Platonic Apology, that he felt himself under a divine mission to go about convicting men of ignorance, and that he had prosecuted this vocation throughout many years of a long life. Every one of these convictions must have been brought about by one or more disputes of his own seeking: every such dispute, with occasional exceptions, made him unpopular, in the outset at least, with the person convicted: the rather, as his ability in the process is known, upon the testimony of Xenophon[24] as well as of Plato, to have been consummate. It is therefore a mistake to decry Protagoras and the Protagoreans (if there were any) as the special Eristics, and to represent Sokrates as a tutelary genius, the opponent of such habits. If the commentators are right (which I do not think they are) in declaring the Athenian mind to have been perverted by Eristic, Sokrates is much more chargeable with the mischief than Protagoras. And the comic poets, when they treated Sokrates as a specimen and teacher of Eristic, proceeded very naturally upon what they actually saw or heard of him.[25]

[Footnote 23: See Plat. Protag., especially pp. 329 and 336. About the eristic disposition of Sokrates, see the striking passage in Plato, Theætêt. 169 B-C; also Lachês, 187, 188.]

[Footnote 24: Xen. Mem. i. 2.]

[Footnote 25: Stallbaum, Proleg. in Platon. Euthydêm. pp. 50-51. "Sed hoc utcunque se habet, illud quidem ex Aristophane pariter atque ex ipso Platone evidenter apparet, Socratem non tantum ab orationum scriptoribus, sed etiam ab aliis, in vanissimorum sophistaram loco habitum fuisse."]

[Side-note: Sokrates in the Euthydêmus is drawn suitably to the purpose of that dialogue.]

The fact is, that the Platonic Sokrates when he talks with the two Sophists in the dialogue Euthydêmus, is a character drawn by Plato for the purpose of that dialogue, and is very different from the real historical Sokrates, whom the public of Athens saw and heard in the market-place or gymnasia. He is depicted as a gentle, soothing, encouraging talker, with his claws drawn in, and affecting inability even to hold his own against the two Sophists: such indeed as he sometimes may have been in conversing with particular persons (so Xenophon[26] takes pains to remind his readers in the Memorabilia), but with entire elimination of that characteristic aggressive Elenchus for which he himself (in the Platonic Apology) takes credit, and which the auditors usually heard him exhibit.

[Footnote 26: Xen. Mem. i. 4, 1; iv. 2, 40.]

[Side-note: The two Sophists in the Euthydêmus are not to be taken as real persons, or representatives of real persons.]

This picture, accurate or not, suited the dramatic scheme of the Euthydêmus. Such, in my judgment, is the value and meaning of the Euthydêmus, as far as regards personal contrasts. One style of reasoning is represented by Sokrates, the other by the two Sophists: both are the creatures of Plato, having the same dramatic reality as Sokrates and Strepsiades, or the [Greek: Di/kaios Lo/gos] and [Greek: A)/dikos Lo/gos], of Aristophanes, but no more. That they correspond to any actual persons at Athens, is neither proved nor probable. The comic poets introduce Sokrates as talking what was either nonsensical, or offensive to the feelings of the Athenians: and Sokrates (in the Platonic Apology) complains that the Dikasts judged him, not according to what he had really said or done, but according to the impression made on them by this dramatic picture. The Athenian Sophists would have equal right to complain of those critics, who not only speak of Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus with a degree of acrimony applicable only to historical persons, but also describe them as representative types of Protagoras, Gorgias, and their disciples.[27]

[Footnote 27: The language of Schleiermacher is more moderate than that of Stallbaum, Steinhart, and others. He thinks moreover, that the polemical purpose of this dialogue is directed not against Protagoras or Gorgias, but against the Megarics and against Antisthenes, who (so Schleiermacher supposes) had brought the attack upon themselves by attacking Plato first (Einleitung zum Euthyd. p. 404 seq.). Schleiermacher cannot make out who the two Sophists were personally, but he conceives them as obscure persons, deserving no notice.

This is a conjecture which admits of no proof; but if any real victim is here intended by Plato, we may just as reasonably suppose Antisthenes as Protagoras.]

[Side-note: Colloquy of Sokrates with Kleinias--possession of good things is useless, unless we also have intelligence how to use them.]

The conversation of Sokrates with the youth Kleinias is remarkable for its plainness and simplicity. His purpose is to implant or inflame in the youth the aspiration and effort towards wisdom or knowledge ([Greek: philosophi/a], in its etymological sense). "You, like every one else, wish to do well or to be happy. The way to be happy is, to have many good things. Every one knows this: every one knows too, that among these good things, wealth is an indisputable item:[28] likewise health, beauty, bodily activity, good birth, power over others, honour in our city, temperance, justice, courage, wisdom, &c. Good fortune does not count as a distinct item, because it resolves itself into wisdom.[29]--But it is not enough to have all these good things: we must not only have them but use them: moreover, we must use them not wrongly, but rightly. If we use them wrongly, they will not produce their appropriate consequences. They will even make us more miserable than if we had them not, because the possession of them will prompt us to be active and meddlesome: whereas, if we have them not, we shall keep in the back-ground and do little.[30] But to use these good things rightly, depends upon wisdom, knowledge, intelligence. It thus appears that the enumerated items are not really good, except on the assumption that they are under the guidance of intelligence: if they are under the guidance of ignorance, they are not good; nay, they even produce more harm than good, since they are active instruments in the service of a foolish master.[31]

[Footnote 28: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 279 A. [Greek: a)gatha\ de\ poi=a a)/ra tô=n o)/ntôn tugcha/nei ê(mi=n o)/nta? ê)\ ou) chalepo\n ou)de\ semnou= a)ndro\s pa/nu ti ou)de\ tou=to e)/oiken ei)=nai eu(rei=n? pa=s ga\r a)\n ê(mi=n ei)/poi o(/ti to\ ploutei=n a)gatho/n?]]

[Footnote 29: Plato, Euthydêm. pp. 279-280.]

[Footnote 30: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 281 C. [Greek: ê(=tton de\ kakô=s pra/ttôn, a)/thlios ê(=tton a)\n ei)/ê.]]

[Footnote 31: Plato, Euthyd. p. 282 E. If we compare this with p. 279 C-D we shall see that the argument of Sokrates is open to the exception which he himself takes in the case of [Greek: eu)tuchi/a--di\s tau)ta\ le/gein]. Wisdom is counted twice over.]

[Side-note: But intelligence--of what? It must be such intelligence, or such an art, as will include both the making of what we want, and the right use of it when made.]

"But what intelligence do we want for the purpose? Is it _all_ intelligence? Or is there any one single variety of intelligence, by the possession of which we shall become good and happy?[32] Obviously, it must be must be such as will be profitable to us.[33] We have seen that there is no good in possessing wealth--that we should gain nothing by knowing how to acquire wealth or even to turn stones into gold, unless we at the same time knew how to use it rightly. Nor should we gain any thing by knowing how to make ourselves healthy, or even immortal, unless we knew how to employ rightly our health or immortality. We want knowledge or intelligence, of such a nature, as to include both acting, making, or construction and rightly using what we have done, made, or constructed.[34] The makers of lyres and flutes may be men of skill, but they cannot play upon the instruments which they have made: the logographers compose fine discourses, but hand them over for others to deliver. Even masters in the most distinguished arts--such as military commanders, geometers, arithmeticians, astronomers, &c., do not come up to our requirement. They are all of them varieties under the general class _hunters_: they find and seize, but hand over what they have seized for others to use. The hunter, when he has caught or killed game, hands it over to the cook; the general, when he has taken a town, delivers it to the political leader or minister: the geometer makes over his theorems to be employed by the dialectician or comprehensive philosopher.[35]

[Footnote 32: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 282 E. Sokrates here breaks off the string of questions to Kleinias, but resumes them, p. 288 D.]

[Footnote 33: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 288 D. [Greek: ti/na pot' ou)=n a)\n ktêsa/menoi e)pistê/mên o)rthô=s ktêsai/metha? a)=r' ou) tou=to me\n a(plou=n, o(/ti tau/tên ê(/tis ê(ma=s o)nê/sei?]]

[Footnote 34: Plato, Euthyd. p. 289 B. [Greek: toiau/tês tino\s a)/r' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mês dei=, e)n ê(=| sumpe/ptôken a(/ma to/ te poiei=n kai\ to\ e)pi/stasthai chrê=sthai ô(=| a)\n poiê=|.]]

[Footnote 35: Plato, Euthyd. p.290 C-D.]

[Side-note: Where is such an art to be found? The regal or political art looks like it; but what does this art do for us? No answer can be found. Ends in puzzle.]

"Where then can we find such an art--such a variety of knowledge or intelligence--as we are seeking? The regal or political art looks like it: that art which regulates and enforces all the arrangements of the city. But what is the work which this art performs? What product does it yield, as the medical art supplies good health, and the farmer's art, provision? What good does it effect? You may say that it makes the citizens wealthy, free, harmonious in their intercourse. But we have already seen that these acquisitions are not good, unless they be under the guidance of intelligence: that nothing is really good, except some variety of intelligence.[36] Does the regal art then confer knowledge? If so, does it confer every variety of knowledge--that of the carpenter, currier, &c., as well as others? Not certainly any of these, for we have already settled that they are in themselves neither good nor bad. The regal art can thus impart no knowledge except itself; and what is _itself_? how are we to use it? If we say, that we shall render other men _good_--the question again recurs, _Good_--in what respect? _useful_--for what purpose?[37]

[Footnote 36: Plato, Euthyd. p. 292 B. [Greek: A)gatho\n de/ ge/ pou ô(mologê/samen a)llê/lois--ou)de\n ei)=nai a)/llo ê)\ e)pistê/mên tina/.]]

[Footnote 37: Plat. Euthydêm. p. 292 D. [Greek: A)lla\ ti/na dê\ e)pistê/mên? ê(=| ti/ chrêso/metha? tô=n me\n ga\r e)/rgôn ou)deno\s dei= au)tê\n dêmiourgo\n ei)=nai tô=n mê/te kakô=n mê/te a)gathô=n, e)pistê/mên de\ paradido/nai mêdemi/an a)/llên ê)\ au)tê\n e(autê/n; le/gômen dê\ ou)=n, ti/s pote e)/stin au(tê\ ê(=| ti/ chrêso/metha?]]

"Here then" (concludes Sokrates), "we come to a dead lock: we can find no issue.[38] We cannot discover what the regal art does for us or gives us: yet this is the art which is to make us happy." In this difficulty, Sokrates turns to the two Sophists, and implores their help. The contrast between him and them is thus brought out.

[Footnote 38: Plat. Euthyd. p. 292 E.]

[Side-note: Review of the cross-examination just pursued by Sokrates. It is very suggestive--puts the mind upon what to look for.]

The argument of Sokrates, which I have thus abridged from the Euthydêmus, arrives at no solution: but it is nevertheless eminently suggestive, and puts the question in a way to receive solution. What is the regal or political art which directs or regulates all others? A man has many different impulses, dispositions, qualities, aptitudes, advantages, possessions, &c., which we describe by saying that he is an artist, a general, a tradesman, clever, just, temperate, brave, strong, rich, powerful, &c. But in the course of life, each particular situation has its different exigencies, while the prospective future has its exigencies also. The whole man is one, with all these distinct and sometimes conflicting attributes: in following one impulse, he must resist others--in turning his aptitudes to one object, he must turn them away from others--he must, as Plato says, distinguish the right use of his force from the wrong, by virtue of knowledge, intelligence, reason. Such discriminating intelligence, which in this dialogue is called the Regal or political art,--what is the object of it? It is intelligence or knowledge,--But _of what_? Not certainly of the way how each particular act is to be performed--how each particular end is to be attained. Each of these separately is the object of some special knowledge. But the whole of a man's life is passed in a series of such particular acts, each of which is the object of some special knowledge: what then remains as the object of Regal or political intelligence, upon which our happiness is said to depend? Or how can it have any object at all?

[Side-note: Comparison with other dialogues--Republic, Philêbus, Protagoras. The only distinct answer is found in the Protagoras.]

The question here raised is present to Plato's mind in other dialogues, and occurs under other words, as for example, What is good? Good is the object of the Regal or political intelligence; but what is Good? In the Republic he raises this question, but declines to answer it, confessing that he could not make it intelligible to his hearers:[39] in the Gorgias, he takes pains to tell us what it _is not_: in the Philêbus, he does indeed tell us what it is, but in terms which need explanation quite as much as the term which they are brought to explain. There is only one dialogue in which the question is answered affirmatively, in clear and unmistakable language, and with considerable development--and that is, the Protagoras: where Sokrates asserts and proves at length, that Good is at the bottom identical with pleasure, and Evil with pain: that the measuring or calculating intelligence is the truly regal art of life, upon which the attainment of Good depends: and that the object of that intelligence--the items which we are to measure, calculate, and compare--is pleasures and pains, so as to secure to ourselves as much as possible of the former, and escape as much as possible of the latter.

[Footnote 39: Plato, Republic, vi. pp. 505-506.]

In my remarks on the Protagoras, I shall state the view which I take of the doctrine laid down in that dialogue by Sokrates. Persons may think the answer insufficient: most of the Platonic critics declare it to be absolutely wrong. But at any rate it is the only distinct answer which Plato ever gives, to the question raised by Sokrates in the Euthydêmus and elsewhere.

[Side-note: The talk of the two Sophists, though ironically admired while it is going on, is shown at the end to produce no real admiration, but the contrary.]

From the abstract just given of the argument of Sokrates in the Euthydêmus, it will be seen to be serious and pertinent, though ending with a confession of failure. The observations placed in contrast with it and ascribed to the two Sophists, are distinguished by being neither serious nor pertinent; but parodies of debate for the most part, put together for the express purpose of appearing obviously silly to the reader. Plato keeps up the dramatic or ironical appearance, that they are admired and welcomed not only by the hearers, but even by Sokrates himself. Nevertheless, it is made clear at the end that all this is nothing but irony, and that the talk which Plato ascribes to Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus produced, according to his own showing, no sentiment of esteem for their abilities among the by-standers, but quite the reverse. Whether there were individual Sophists at Athens who talked in that style, we can neither affirm nor deny: but that there were an established class of persons who did so, and made both money and reputation by it, we can securely deny. It is the more surprising that the Platonic commentators should desire us to regard Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus as representative samples of a special class named Sophists, since one of the most eminent of those commentators (Stallbaum),[40] both admits that Sokrates himself was generally numbered in the class and called by the name and affirms also (incorrectly, in my opinion) that the interrogations of Sokrates, which in this dialogue stand contrasted with those of the two Sophists, do not enunciate the opinions either of Sokrates or of Plato himself, but the opinions of these very Sophists, which Plato adopts and utters for the occasion.[41]

[Footnote 40: Stallbaum, Proleg. in Platon. Euthydem. p. 50. "Illud quidem ex Aristophane pariter atque ipso Platone evidenter apparet, Socratem non tantum ab orationum scriptoribus, sed etiam ab aliis in vanissimorum sophistarum numero habitum fuisse." Ib. p. 49 (cited in a previous note). "Videtur pervulgata fuisse hominum opinio, quâ Socratem inter vanos sophistas numerandum esse existimabant." Again p. 44, where Stallbaum tells us that Sokrates was considered by many to belong "misellorum Sophistarum gregi".]

[Footnote 41: Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Plat. Euthydem. p. 30. "Cavendum est magnopere, ne quæ hic à Socrate disputantur, pro ipsius decretis habeamus: _sunt enim omnia ad mentem Sophistarum disputata_, quos ille, reprehensis eorum opinionibus, sperat eo adductum iri, ut gravem prudentemque earum defensionem suscipiant." Compare p. 66. Stallbaum says that Plato often reasons, adopting for the occasion the doctrine of the Sophists. See his Prolegg. to the Lachês and Charmidês, and still more his Proleg. to the Protagoras, where he tells us that Plato introduces his spokesman Sokrates not only as arguing _ex mente Sophistarum_, but also as employing captious and delusive artifice, such as in this dialogue is ascribed to Euthydemus and Dionysodorus.--pp. 23-24. "Itaque Socrates, missâ hujus rei disputatione, repentè ad alia progreditur, scilicet _similibus loqueis_ hominem denuo irretiturus. Nemini facilé obscurum erit, hoc quoque loco Protagoram _argutis conclusiunculis deludi_" (_i.e._ by Sokrates) "atque _callidé eo permoveri,_" &c. "Quanquam nemo erit, quin videat, _callidé deludi Protagoram_, ubi ex eo, quod qui injusté faciat, is neutiquam agat [Greek: sôphro/nôs], protinus colligitur justitiam et [Greek: sôphrosu/nê] unum idemque esse."--p. 25. "Disputat enim Socrates pleraque omnia ad mentem ipsius Protagoræ."--p. 30. "Platonem ipsum hæc non probâsse, sed e vulgi opinione et mente explicasse, vel illud non obscuré significat," &c.--p. 33.]

[Side-note: Mistaken representations about the Sophists--Aristotle's definition--no distinguishable line can be drawn between the Sophist and the Dialectician.]

The received supposition that there were at Athens a class of men called Sophists who made money and reputation by obvious fallacies employed to bring about contradictions in dialogue--appears to me to pervert the representations given of ancient philosophy. Aristotle defines a Sophist to be "one who seeks to make money by apparent wisdom which is not real wisdom":--the Sophist (he says) is an Eristic who, besides money-making, seeks for nothing but victory in debate and humiliation of his opponent:--Distinguishing the Dialectician from the Sophist (he says), the Dialectician impugns or defends, by probable arguments, probable tenets--that is, tenets which are believed by a numerous public or by a few wise and eminent individuals:--while the Sophist deals with tenets which are probable only in appearance and not in reality--that is to say, tenets which almost every one by the slightest attention recognises as false.[42] This definition is founded, partly on the personal character and purpose ascribed to the Sophist: partly upon the distinction between apparent and real wisdom, assumed to be known and permanent. Now such pseudo-wisdom was declared by Sokrates to be the natural state of all mankind, even the most eminent, which it was his mission to expose: moreover, the determination, what is to be comprised in this description, must depend upon the judges to whom it is submitted, since much of the works of Aristotle and Plato would come under the category, in the judgment of modern readers both vulgar and instructed. But apart from this relative and variable character of the definition, when applied to philosophy generally--we may confidently assert, that there never was any real class of intellectual men, in a given time or place, to whom it could possibly apply. Of individuals, the varieties are innumerable: but no professional body of men ever acquired gain or celebrity by maintaining theses, and employing arguments, which every one could easily detect as false. Every man employs sophisms more or less; every man does so inadvertently, some do it by design also; moreover, almost every reasoner does it largely, in the estimation of his opponents. No distinct line can be drawn between the Sophist and the Dialectician: the definition given by Aristotle applies to an ideal in his own mind, but to no reality without: Protagoras and Prodikus no more correspond to it than Sokrates and Plato. Aristotle observes, with great truth, that all men are dialecticians and testers of reasoning, up to a certain point: he might have added that they are all Sophists also, up to a certain point.[43] Moreover, when he attempts to found a scientific classification of intellectual processes upon a difference in the purposes of different practitioners--whether they employ the same process for money or display, or beneficence, or mental satisfaction to themselves--this is altogether unphilosophical. The medical art is the same, whether employed to advise gratis, or in exchange for a fee.[44]

[Footnote 42: Aristotel. Topic, i. 1, p. 100, b. 21. [Greek: e)/ndoxa de\ ta\ dokou=nta pa=sin ê)\ toi=s plei/stois ê)\ toi=s sophoi=s, kai\ tou/tois ê)\ pa=sin ê)\ toi=s plei/stois ê)\ toi=s ma/lista gnôri/mois kai\ e)ndo/xois. E)ristiko\s de\ e)/sti sullogismo\s o( e)k phainome/nôn e)ndo/xôn, mê\ o)/ntôn de\--kai\ o( e)x e)ndo/xôn ê)\ phainome/nôn e)ndo/xôn phaino/menos. Ou)the\n ga\r tô=n legome/nôn e)ndo/xôn e)pipolai/on e)/chei pantelô=s tê\n phantasi/an, katha/per peri\ ta\s tô=n e)ristikô=n lo/gôn a)rcha\s sumbe/bêken e)/chein. Parachrê=ma ga\r kai\ ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu\ toi=s kai\ mikra\ sunora=|n duname/nois, kata/dêlos e)n au)toi=s ê( tou= pseu/dous e)/sti phu/sis.]

De Sophisticis Elenchis, i. p. 165, a. 21. [Greek: e)/sti ga\r ê( sophistikê\ phainome/nê sophi/a, ou)=sa d' ou)/; kai\ o( sophistê\s chrêmatistê\s a)po\ phainome/nês sophi/as, a)ll' ou)k ou)/sês], p. 165, b. 10, p. 171, b. 8-27. [Greek: Oi( phile/rides, e)ristikoi\, a)gônistikoi\], are persons who break the rules of dialectic ([Greek: a)dikomachi/a]) for the purpose of gaining victory; [Greek: oi( sophistai\] are those who do the same thing for the purpose of getting money. See also Metaphys. iii. 1004, b. 17.]

[Footnote 43: Aristot. Sophist. Elench. p. 172, a. 30.]

[Footnote 44: Aristot. Rhetor, i. 1, 1355, b. 18. He here admits that the only difference between the Dialectician and the Sophist lies in their purposes--that the mental activity employed by both is the same. [Greek: o( ga\r sophistiko\s ou)k e)n tê=| duna/mei a)ll' e)n tê=| proaire/sei; plê\n e)ntau=tha me\n] (in Rhetoric) [Greek: e)/stai o( me\n kata\ tê\n e)pistê/mên o( de\ kata\ tê\n proai/resin, r(ê/tôr, e)kei= de\] (in Dialectic) [Greek: sophistê\s me\n kata\ tê\n proai/resin, dialektiko\s de\ ou) kata\ tê\n proai/resin, a)lla\ kata\ tê\n du/namin.]]

[Side-note: Philosophical purpose of the Euthydêmus--exposure of fallacies, in Plato's dramatic manner, by multiplication of particular examples.]

Though I maintain that no class of professional Sophists (in the meaning given to that term by the Platonic critics after Plato and Aristotle) ever existed--and though the distinction between the paid and the gratuitous discourser is altogether unworthy to enter into the history of philosophy--yet I am not the less persuaded that the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, and the treatise of Aristotle De Sophisticis Elenchis, are very striking and useful compositions. This last-mentioned treatise was composed by Aristotle very much under the stimulus of the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, to which it refers several times--and for the purpose of distributing the variety of possible fallacies under a limited number of general heads, each described by its appropriate characteristic, and represented by its illustrative type. Such attempt at arrangement--one of the many valuable contributions of Aristotle to the theory of reasoning--is expressly claimed by him as his own. He takes a just pride in having been the first to introduce system where none had introduced it before.[45] No such system was known to Plato, who (in the Euthydêmus) enumerates a string of fallacies one after another without any project of classifying them, and who presents them as it were in concrete, as applied by certain disputants in an imaginary dialogue. The purpose is, to make these fallacies appear conspicuously in their character of fallacies: a purpose which is assisted by presenting the propounders of them as ridiculous and contemptible. The lively fancy of Plato attaches suitable accessories to Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus. They are old men, who have been all their lives engaged in teaching rhetoric and tactics, but have recently taken to dialectic, and acquired perfect mastery thereof without any trouble--who make extravagant promises--and who as talkers play into each other's hands, making a shuttlecock of the respondent, a modest novice every way unsuitable for such treatment.

[Footnote 45: See the last chapter of the treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis.]

[Side-note: Aristotle (Soph. Elench.) attempts a classification of fallacies: Plato enumerates them without classification.]

Thus different is the Platonic manner, from the Aristotelian manner, of exposing fallacies. But those exhibited in the former appear as members of one or more among the classes framed by the latter. The fallacies which we read in the Euthydêmus are chiefly verbal: but some are verbal, and something beyond.

[Side-note: Fallacies of equivocation propounded by the two Sophists in the Euthydêmus.]

Thus, for example, if we take the first sophism introduced by the two exhibitors, upon which they bring the youth Kleinias, by suitable questions, to declare successively both sides of the alternative--"Which of the two is it that learns, the wise or the ignorant?"--Sokrates himself elucidates it by pointing out that the terms used are equivocal:[46] You might answer it by using the language ascribed to Dionysodorus in another part of this dialogue--"Neither and Both".[47] The like may be said about the fallacy in page 284 D--"Are there persons who speak of things as they are? Good men speak of things as they are: they speak of good men well, of bad men badly: therefore, of course, they speak of stout men stoutly, and of hot men hotly. Ay! rejoins the respondent Ktesippus, angrily--they speak of cold men coldly, and say that they talk coldly."[48] These are fallacies of double meaning of words--or double construction of phrases: as we read also in page 287 D, where the same Greek verb ([Greek: noei=n]) may be construed either to _think_ or to _mean_: so that when Sokrates talks about what a predication _means_--the Sophists ask him--"Does anything _think_, except things having a soul? Did you ever know any predication that had a soul?"

[Footnote 46: Plato, Euthydêm. pp. 275 D--278 D. Aristotle also adverts to this fallacy, but without naming the Euthydêmus. See Soph. El. 4, 165, b. 30.]

[Footnote 47: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 300 D. [Greek: Ou)de/tera kai\ a)mpho/tera]]

[Footnote 48: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 284 E. [Greek: tou\s gou=n psuchrou\s psuchrô=s le/gousi/ te kai\ phasi\ diale/gesthai.] The metaphorical sense of [Greek: psuchro\s] is _pointless_, _stupid_, _out of taste_, _out of place_, _&c._]

[Side-note: Fallacies--_à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter_--in the Euthydêmus.]

Again, the two Sophists undertake to prove that Sokrates, as well as the youth Kleinias and indeed every one else, knows everything. "Can any existing thing _be_ that which it is, and at the same time _not be_ that which it is?--No.--You know some things?--Yes.--Then if you know, _you are knowing_?--Certainly. I am knowing of those particular things.--That makes no difference: if you are knowing, you necessarily know everything.--Oh! no: for there are many things which I do not know.--Then if there be anything which you do not know, _you are not knowing_?--Yes, doubtless--of that particular thing.--Still you are _not knowing_: and just now you said that you were _knowing_: and thus, at one and the same time, you are what you are, and you are not what you are.[49]

[Footnote 49: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 293 C. Aristotle considers _know_ to be an equivocal word; he admits that in certain senses you may both _know_ and _not know_ the same thing. Anal. Prior. ii. 67, b. 8. Anal. Post. i. 71, a. 25.]

"But _you_ also" (retorts Sokrates upon the couple), "do not you also know some things, not know others?--By no means.--What! do you know nothing?--Far from it.--Then you know all things?--Certainly we do,--and you too: if you know one thing, you know all things.--What! do you know the art of the carpenter, the currier, the cobbler--the number of stars in the heaven, and of grains of sand in the desert, &c.?--Yes: we know all these things."

[Side-note: Obstinacy shown by the two Sophists in their replies--determination not to contradict themselves.]

The two Sophists maintain their consistency by making reply in the affirmative to each of these successive questions: though Ktesippus pushes them hard by enquiries as to a string of mean and diverse specialties.[50] This is one of the purposes of the dialogue: to represent the two Sophists as willing to answer any thing, however obviously wrong and false, for the purpose of avoiding defeat in the dispute--as using their best efforts to preserve themselves in the position of questioners, and to evade the position of respondents--and as exacting a categorical answer--Yes or No--to every question which they put without any qualifying words, and without any assurance that the meaning of the question was understood.[51]

[Footnote 50: Plato, Euthydêm. pp. 293-294.]

[Footnote 51: Plato, Euthydêm. pp. 295-296.]

The base of these fallacious inferences is, That respecting the same subject, you cannot both affirm and deny the same predicate: you cannot say, A is knowing--A is not knowing ([Greek: e)pistê/môn]). This is a fallacy more than verbal: it is recognised by Aristotle (and by all subsequent logicians) under the name--_à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter_.

It is very certain that this fallacy is often inadvertently committed by very competent reasoners, including both Plato and Aristotle.

[Side-note: Farther verbal equivocations.]

Again--Sophroniskus was my father--Chæredemus was the father of Patrokles.--Then Sophroniskus was different from a father: therefore he was not a father. You are different from a stone, therefore you are not a stone: you are different from gold, therefore you are not gold. By parity of reasoning, Sophroniskus is different from a father--therefore he is not a father. Accordingly, you, Sokrates, have no father.[52]

[Footnote 52: Plato, Euthydêm. pp. 297-298.]

But (retorts Ktesippus upon the couple) your father is different from my father.--Not at all.--How can that be?--What! is your father, then, the father of all men and of all animals?--Certainly he is. A man cannot be at the same time a father, and not a father. He cannot be at the same time a man, and not a man--gold, and not gold.[53]

[Footnote 53: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 298. Some of the fallacies in the dialogue ([Greek: Po/teron o(rô=sin oi( a)/nthrôpoi ta\ dunata\ o(ra=|n ê)\ ta\ a)du/nata? . . . Ê)= ou)ch oi(=o/n te sigô=nta le/gein?] p. 300 A) are hardly translatable into English, since they depend upon equivocal constructions peculiar to the Greek language. Aristotle refers them to the general head [Greek: par' a)mphiboli/an]. The same about [Greek: prosê/kei to\n ma/geiron katako/ptein], p. 301 D.]

You have got a dog (Euthydêmus says to Ktesippus).--Yes.--The dog is the father of puppies?--Yes.--The dog, being a father, is yours?--Certainly.--Then your father is a dog, and you are brother of the puppies.

You beat your dog sometimes? Then you beat your father.[54]

[Footnote 54: Plat. Euthyd. p. 298.]

Those animals, and those alone are _yours_ (sheep, oxen, &c.), which you can give away, or sell, or sacrifice at pleasure. But Zeus, Apollo, and Athênê are _your_ Gods. The Gods have a soul and are animals. Therefore your Gods are your animals. Now you told us that those alone were your animals, which you could give away, or sell, or sacrifice at pleasure. Therefore you can give away, or sell, or sacrifice at pleasure, Zeus, Apollo, and Athênê.[55]

[Footnote 55: Plat. Euthydêm. p. 302. This same fallacy, in substance, is given by Aristotle, De Sophist. El. 17, 176 a. 3, 179, a. 5, but with different exemplifying names and persons.]

This fallacy depends upon the double and equivocal meaning of _yours_--one of its different explanations being treated as if it were the only one.

[Side-note: Fallacies involving deeper logical principles--contradiction is impossible.--To speak falsely is impossible.]

Other puzzles cited in this dialogue go deeper:--Contradiction is impossible--To speak falsely is impossible.[56] These paradoxes were maintained by Antisthenes and others, and appear to have been matters of dialectic debate throughout the fourth and third centuries. I shall say more of them when I speak about the Megarics and Antisthenes. Here I only note, that in this dialogue, Ktesippus is represented as put to silence by them, and Sokrates as making an answer which is no answer at all.[57] We see how much trouble these paradoxes gave to Plato, when we read the Sophistês, in which he handles the last of the two in a manner elaborate, but (to my judgment) unsatisfactory.

[Footnote 56: Plato, Euthydêm. pp. 285-286.]

[Footnote 57: Plato, Euthydêm. pp. 286 B--287 A.]

[Side-note: Plato's Euthydêmus is the earliest known attempt to set out and expose fallacies--the only way of exposing fallacies is to exemplify the fallacy by particular cases, in which the conclusion proved is known _aliunde_ to be false and absurd.]