In Euthydemus, Plato doesn’t just give us Socratic inquiry—he gives us its parody. Two sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, engage in relentless verbal games to show off their so called “wisdom,” turning argument into promotion and logic into absurdity.
Socrates, watched with interest and irony, and tried to steer the dialogue back to a meaningful question:
What does it really mean to become wise—and how do we avoid being fooled by cleverness?
This dialogue is part satire, part warning. It reminds us that the line between philosophy and manipulation is thin—and that not every debate is a search for truth.
Euthydemus asks:
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Are we capable of unbiased inquiry?
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How do we know when we’ve encountered true knowledge?
Euthydemus
The dialogue of Euthydemus was an extension of Plato’s politics and part of his repeated tests to ascertain whether people can be taught virtue and work together to make a well-run society. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus created a wild display of rhetoric, anticipating all the challenges that lovers of truth in modern politics have to face when trying to make constructive improvements while suffering gaslighting emanating from the destructive.
SOC: “Tell me this, whether you would be able to make only that man good who has already been persuaded that he should learn from you, or also the one who has not yet been persuaded because he does not entirely believe either that this matter, virtue, is teachable or that you two are its teachers? Come on, is it the work of this same art—to persuade both that virtue is teachable and that you two are the ones from whom someone could learn it most beautifully—or is it the work of another one?”
Immediately, the word games began with Euthydemus trapping the listener Cleinias with the distinction between being and becoming.
EUTH: “Cleinias, who are the ones who learn among human beings, the wise or the ignorant?”
CLE: “The wise are ones who learn.”
EUTH: “Are there some you call teachers, or not? At the time you were learning, you did not yet know the things that you were learning? Ah, then you were wise, when you did not know these things? Isn’t it the case that if you were not wise, you were ignorant? Ah, then it’s the ignorant who learn, Cleinias, and not the wise, as you think.”
DION: “Euthydemus deceived you, Cleinias. Tell me, is learning not grasping knowledge of what one learns? Ah, then the learners are among those who grasp and not among those who have?”
Being patient, Socrates tried to include important guardrails to the discussion to make it focus on what makes people happy.
SOC: “Do all we human beings wish to do well? Since we wish to do well, how might we do so?”
He listed what many people needed, including goods, wealth, health, beauty, status, power, and honor. “What about being moderate and just and courageous? Do you think that if we were to include these as goods that we would do so correctly or not? Good fortune, Cleinias, which everyone, even the lowest sorts, says is the greatest of goods.” Pivoting back to skill, Socrates reminded that “if wisdom is present, the one for whom it is present has no need of good fortune.” The stress between being and becoming was continued by Socrates to remind that static objects and skill potential need to be utilized for any benefit to be gained. But to be able to use something requires knowledge in the end.
SOC: “In working and using wood, surely nothing other than a knowledge, carpentry, accomplishes correct use? With respect to their correct use is it knowledge that guides and keeps our activity correct, or is it something else? Then knowledge not only offers good fortune to human beings with respect to every possession and action, it seems, but also causes them to do well. Well then, in the name of Zeus! What benefit would there be from any other possessions without prudence and wisdom? Would a human being be blamed, then, who acquired and did many things without intelligence, or few? If one did less, would he not make fewer mistakes, and making fewer mistakes wouldn’t he do less badly, and doing less badly, wouldn’t he be less wretched?
He went on to list more virtues and attributes necessary for success, such as being…
- Wealthy
- Strong
- Honorable
- Courageous
- Employed
- Quick and efficient
These frustrating dialogues that end in aporia become less so when readers find the seeds of questioning laid by Socrates to allow for further deliberation beyond any rhetorical attempts to “win.” With so many attributes required for success, Socrates allowed for individuals to have inner contradictions and inner battles, whereas his interlocuters denied such complexity. Socrates accepted that one could lie and talk about imaginary things, but from his opponents, a true concept was the same as something that could be verified. Socrates of course wanted concrete verification. Concrete verification can be argued to be abuse by those who love to gaslight. The problem with trying to win for its own sake is that confusion, obfuscation, and denial can get in the way, and this opens politics up to corrupt people who simply want any excuse to gain access to resources. Socrates may have been mistreated in the dialogue, but his patience didn’t require deceptive tactics because his sole mission was truth, and he didn’t egotistically require that the truth only come from him, just that truth was able to find its way into all areas of the polis to make a just society.
SOC: “If, Cleinias, wisdom is teachable, and does not come to human beings spontaneously—for we still have not investigated this, and we, you and I, have not yet agreed to this. Exhibit for the lad what follows whether it is necessary for him to acquire all knowledge, or whether there is some one knowledge that it is necessary to grasp in order to be happy and a good man, and what it is.”
DION: “Do you all say that you want him to become wise? And now is Cleinias wise or not? And you all want him to become wise, and not be ignorant? So that which he is not, you all want him to become, and that which he is now, to be no longer? So you want him to be no longer what he now is, and, it seems, to be dead? Such friends and lovers are worth a lot, who would above all things make their favorite dead.”
EUTH: “Is there anywhere where there are things that are not? Then could anyone do anything about things that are not that could make them [exist] when they are nowhere? What about this? Whenever the rhetors speak to the people, do they do nothing? And if they do something, they also make? So then speaking is doing and making? So no one speaks about what is not, for then he would make something—and you agreed that no one is able to make what is not. So according to your argument no one lies, and if Dionysodorus speaks, he speaks the true things and the things that are.”
DION: “Is it the case that the good things are in a good way and the bad things in a bad way? And you agree that those who are noble and good speak of matters as they are? And those who are good speak in a bad way about bad things, if in fact that is how they are.”
EUTH: “And about the great do they speak greatly, and hotly about the hot?”
CTS: “Very surely and they speak coldly about the cold and say they converse coldly.”
The bullying quality of the debate continued in the way that is still recognizable in the modern world, where words are treated as violence as a way to stop the freedom of inquiry.
DION: “You are abusive, Ctesippus, abusive.”
CTS: “Well-born Dionysodorus don’t call contradicting abusing. For abusing is something else.”
The challenge still held for Socrates. He wanted to know if they could make people better? His opponents moved to the tactic of getting competitors to admit too quickly to one formulation or another and they tried to prevent any reflections, reconsiderations or redefinitions.
DION: “Do you make your arguments, Ctesippus, as though contradicting exists? Does the speech for each thing refer to each thing as it is or as it is not?”
CTS: “As it is.”
DION: “If I remember, Ctesippus, even just now we exhibited that no one speaks about anything as it is not. For it appeared that no one speaks what is not. Would we contradict [each other] if we were both giving the speech about the same matter? Or would we therefore be saying the same things? But when neither of us give the speech about the matter do we thus contradict each other? Or would neither of us recall the matter at all? Ah, but whenever I say something about some thing, and you say something else about some other thing, do we contradict each other? Or do I speak about the matter, while you say nothing at all [about it]? For how would the one not speaking [about something] contradict the one speaking [about it]?”
SOC: “So there is no such thing as speaking falsehoods? Is such an argument possible? Either the one who speaks, speaks truly, or he does not speak? Is it not possible then to speak falsehoods, but possible to have an opinion about them?”
By not accepting falsehoods, they could also avoid refutations, ignorance, or even mistakes. These ridiculous tactics required a listener to be confused, and also forgetful, which politicians have relied on time and again up to today, but they also forgot that their rhetorical weapons could be used against them.
SOC: “Look, if it isn’t possible to speak falsehoods, or to have false opinions, or to be ignorant, is it even possible for someone acting to make a mistake? For is it not possible for the one acting to make a mistake concerning what he does? Is this what you are saying?”
EUTH: “Absolutely.”
SOC: “If we do not make mistakes either in acting or speaking or thinking, what, in the name of Zeus, have you come here as teachers of, if things are this way? Or were you two not just now saying that you would transmit virtue most beautifully to any human being willing to learn?”
DION: “So, Socrates are you such a Cronos so as to remember now what we said at first? And if I said something last year would you remember it now, when you cannot make use of those things I say at present?”
SOC: “What else does your phrase intend, that ‘I cannot make use of your speeches?'”
DION: “Do those that intend have a soul when they intend, or are they without a soul?”
SOC: “They have a soul.”
DION: “Do you know any phrase that has a soul?”
SOC: “No, by Zeus!”
DION: “Why, then, did you just now ask what my phrase intended?”
SOC: “What else other than that I made a mistake on account of my stupidity? Or didn’t I make a mistake but spoke correctly when I said that phrases intend? Do you say I made a mistake or not? For if I didn’t make a mistake, you will not refute me, and although you’re wise you will not be able to make use of my argument. Whereas if I did make a mistake, you do not speak correctly when you say that it isn’t possible to make a mistake. I’m not speaking about things you were saying last year. The argument seems, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus to remain in the same place, falling itself while knocking down others just as of old, and not even your art has discovered how to avoid suffering this, even though it is amazing in its precision with words. Cleinias remind me where we left off then. I, at any rate, believe that it was here somewhere: We ended agreeing that it is necessary to philosophize. Right?”
CTS: “Yes.”
To bring the discussion back to the original purpose, Socrates returned to the point of philosophy, which was to maximize what was good for the polis, which can be as listed below:
- We all wish to be happy
- Happiness comes through conventional goods and wisdom
- Good fortune is unnecessary for happiness because it is provided by wisdom
- But conventional goods depend on wisdom; without it, they prove to be evils
- So knowledge, the only unconditional good, can make people happy
- Because we wish to be happy and we require knowledge of how to achieve it, we should all try to be as wise as possible and seek those who can transmit their wisdom
- Wisdom is teachable
- Wisdom comes through philosophy
- So it is necessary to practice philosophy, which requires a love of wisdom
Plato was constantly searching for his Philosopher King that could create a happy society, but because knowledge was much more multifaceted and complex than he thought, and certainly beyond his buffoonish competitors, it’s quite possible to have a class of grifters or tyrants that lack the knowledge on how to steer a city. This was why Socrates was searching for a method of learning to transmit knowledge from person to person, providing an education, so a happy city could be possible. Education is a humiliating experience for many people, and Socrates had to face resistances to basic scientific validation. To be rejected, due to ignorance or a lack of skill, meant a threat to survival, and so rejected people would be tempted to demand resources without validation of what they could legitimately provide in exchange. Ridiculous answers with an axe to grind appear more like a shakedown.
SOC: “I believe I have discovered it. Generalship seems to me to be the art more than any other that one must acquire to be happy. For it seemed to us that the political and the kingly arts were the same. Generalship and all the rest hand over the works of which they are the craftsmen to this art to rule, as if it alone knows how to use them. And this clearly seemed to us to be the one that we were seeking, and the cause of acting correctly in the city, and it alone seemed to us to sit in the stern of the city, and by piloting and ruling everything to make everything useful. And what about kingship when it rules over everything that it rules? What does it accomplish? It must hand over something good to us? And we surely agreed with each other that nothing is good other than some knowledge. Isn’t it the case that the other works that one might say belong to politics—and these would surely be many, for example, providing wealthy, free, and faction-free citizens—these appeared neither bad nor good. But this art must make us wise and impart knowledge, if it is going to benefit us and make us happy.”
DION: “All know everything, if they know one thing.”
SOC: “So you two are capable of stitching leather?”
DION: “Yes, and also cobbling, by Zeus.”
SOC: “And also these sorts of things: are you capable [of saying] how many stars there are and sand?”
DION: “Absolutely. Don’t you believe that we will agree to this as well?”
CTS: “In the name of Zeus, Dionysodorus, you two exhibit to me some evidence of these things by which I will see that what you two say is true. Do you know how many teeth Euthydemus has, and does Euthydemus know how many you have?”
DION: “Does it not suffice for you to hear that we know everything?”
SOC: “And do you two know everything only now, or also always? And when you two were children and as soon as you came into being you knew everything?”
DION: “Always as well.”
EUTH: “Do you distrust us, Socrates? I will exhibit that you too agree with these amazing things.”
The exhausting brainwashing required the unconvinced Socrates to entertain their need to use all or nothing arguments where dualism, detail, and nuance were disallowed. Socrates referred to a soul, and this rooted his competitors when they were venturing into infinite levels of contradiction, latitude, entitlement, and amorality. In regards to the arguments they made about family relations, Mary P. Nicholls and Denise Schaffer could see the consequences that if “someone who is a father of someone is therefore the father of all. The mother of one is the mother of all. A brother of anyone, similarly, is the brother of everyone. On the other hand, if Socrates’ father is not the father of his stepbrother, the argument goes, he is not a father, and Socrates is fatherless. The same argument, of course, proves that any man is motherless, and so does not have to worry about incest any more than he does about patricide.” By not allowing refutation, any attempts would be met with probable punishment. In reality, refutations would happen anytime a contradiction came up, but in a polis with these men in charge, the contradictions would be left unsaid, which would make distinctions between good and evil impossible. Obsequious followers who mistakenly used the skill of refutation would also have to take back their words, even if imagination, according to Socrates’ opposition, could only manifest if those daydreams were true. If I’m able to think it, it’s already true, because thought exists?
EUTH: “This [man] is again answering more than what is asked! For I, at least, am not asking you by means of what you know, but whether you know by means of something.”
With common sense, Socrates’ soul would require an object to be able to know anything.
SOC: “Whenever I know something it is always by means of this.”
EUTH: “Again, will you not stop adding qualifications? Is it always by means of this thing that you know?”
SOC: “Always since I must take away the ‘whenever.'”
EUTH: “So it’s the case that you always know by means of this thing; and inasmuch as you are always knowing, do you know some things by means of this thing by means of which you know, and others by means of another, or all things by means of this thing?”
SOC: “By means of this thing I know all the things, at any rate, that I know.”
EUTH: “This is that same qualification which has come back.”
SOC: “How might I say that I know such a thing as this, Euthydemus, that good men are unjust? Come on, tell, do I know this, or do I not know this?”
By not allowing bad to exist, because everything is “good,” in order to be “one,” then leaders who make laws could take what is obviously bad and make it seem good.
DION: “But how could the one be other than the other, when this other is present to it?”
SOC: “Isn’t it also the case that the same is the same and the other is the other? For surely the other, at any rate, isn’t the same, but I believe that not even a child would be at an impasse about this, that the other is other. But, Dionysodorus, you let this drop willingly, whereas in other ways you seem to me to have accomplished the work of conversation all-beautifully—like craftsmen who accomplish the works that are fitting to them.”
This gave Dionysodorus ideas, and he wanted to list all the people who do “fitting things,” such as coppersmiths, potters, and cooks.
DION: “Surely it’s clear that if someone, having slaughtered the cook and cut him up, were to boil and roast him, he would do fitting things. And if someone forges the coppersmith himself and pots the potter, thus also will he do fitting things.”
Socrates was noticing the danger and was trying to escape the conformist all or nothing accusations that would stigmatize and endanger his life as it eventually did.
Plato: Apology: https://rumble.com/v6tvdm3-plato-apology.html
DION: “Tell me, Socrates, do you have an ancestral Zeus?”
SOC: “I do not.”
DION: “Then you are a miserable human being, and no Athenian, if you have no ancestral gods nor holy things nor anything else either beautiful or good.”
SOC: “Hush, Dionysodorus, let it go and don’t educate me prematurely and harshly. For I have altars and household and paternal shrines as do other Athenians.”
DION: “Then other Athenians have no ancestral Zeus?”
He piled on for the kill by taking Socrates’ beliefs in a soul, and forced him to admit that the Gods have souls, which are among living beings, and “you have agreed that those are yours that you are able to give and sell and sacrifice, in fact, to whichever god you want…Come on then, tell me straightaway since you agree that Zeus and the other gods are yours, then is it possible for you to sell them or give them away or use them in whatever way you wish just as with the other living beings?”
Socrates was forced into silence to avoid blasphemy. His friends came to his aid and they all gave up to allow the opponents a so called victory. “Then everyone present, dear Crito, gave abundant praise to the speech and the two men, until they almost died from laughing and clapping and rejoicing.”
The faint praise that Socrates dolled out expressed his fear of a conformism and tyranny. “O Blessed ones of an amazing nature, who have worked out such a matter so quickly and in so little time! Of all the beautiful things in your speeches, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, the most magnificent is that you have no care for the majority of human beings, nor for the respectable and reputable, but only for those similar to yourselves. For I well know that there are very few human beings like you who would appreciate these speeches, while the rest are so ignorant of them that I well know that they would be more ashamed of refuting others with these speeches than of being refuted themselves.” Socrates’ request to be trained by his opponents listed out more dangers “that your wisdom can be handed over quickly, that these things that you have so artfully discovered are such that any human being could learn them in a short time,” and that “you will take care not to speak in front of the many, so that they don’t learn this from you quickly and know no gratitude.” Most importantly, “it does not prevent making money.”
In the end, Euthydemus isn’t about beating sophists—it’s about asking: What truly benefits a soul? If an action doesn’t lead to real improvement, no amount of wit can redeem it. Until a populace is able to accept good and bad, or that things could be better or worse, and that knowledge is always partial in individuals, based on specialties that each person sacrifices their time on, knowledge has difficulty in reaching the highest levels of power to make an ever improving city-state. The role of the Philosopher King is to have the knowledge of mediation to facilitate exchanges with those specialties so as to increase social cohesion and reduce factionalism and violence.
Even if the fallacies may seem easy to see through, the subtext of the dialogue is that what is good for a city-state may not coincide with the self-interest of particular individuals. The goal is to have the right people with the right training working in the right places. Legislators in good faith have to keep their eye on the ball, as Sprague paraphrases: “A man will be happy and prosper if he possesses many goods, but only if he receives some benefit from these goods. A thing cannot benefit us unless we use it, so that our happiness will depend on the use of our possessions. Furthermore, it will depend on their right use, since it can be shown that more evil results when a man uses a thing wrongly than when he leaves it strictly alone. As far as right use is concerned, nothing seems to bring this about except knowledge. It seems, then, that we cannot get any benefit from our other possessions unless we have this one. If a person lacks knowledge, it will be better to have and do little than to have and do much, since much action with no sense can only result in evil and misery. The whole question of goods, then, is not whether they are good in themselves but whether they are guided by wisdom or by ignorance. Other things are not in themselves good or bad, but wisdom is good and ignorance is bad.”
What lingers in the subtext of Euthydemus is the fate of those Plato would have excluded from his ideal city. Where do they go? Must they become criminals? If they are mentally ill, how should they be treated morally? If the fringe never fit in society, must their political solution only be at the expense of the virtuous majority? Most likely, they would be applauding the sophists—because their interests converge: faking knowledge and societal contributions to siphon off wealth for misfits who need a place in the economy. There may be truths that are self-evident from the doctor’s point of view about diet and exercise, but is being right enough to persuade health changes in the resistant? What about evil, envy, and resentment amongst the ignorant? If the ignorant manage to convince enough people to start a violent revolution to overthrow the government, what are the mechanisms that can reverse the inevitable dystopia? History shows us that it’s sensible for the insecure to drop the pride, the mask of virtue, and admit that they will not be served by dystopian solutions. Can the ignorant learn by hitting rock bottom where all goods turn into bads? And so the deeper problem remains: How do we do justice for those who fail to learn, or who lack the skill or means to care for themselves? Do we moralize their ignorance, incarcerate them, or create systems that shield them from misery—even if they never become wise? Plato doesn’t answer that here. But we are still faced with this choice.
Plato: Euthydemus – Gregory A. Mcbrayer, Mary P. Nichols: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781585103058/
Plato’s Use of Fallacy: A Study of the Euthydemus and some Other Dialogues – by Rosamond Kent Sprague: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781138007710/
Playful Philosophy and Serious Sophistry – Georgia Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9783110368093/
Philosophy: https://psychreviews.org/category/philosophy03/