How does a culture unwittingly sow the seeds of intergenerational mistrust? When does youth begin to suspect that adult camaraderie may be deeply flawed? Revolutions begin in the younger generation, rather than the seasoned adults. Something in the cultural soil goes bad.
The Euthydemus envisions one variety of these seeds of mistrust and reveals that they usually begin to sprout informally, even playfully, in arenas like the Lyceum where young men mixed as freely with adult men as our own youth do at school, camp, or church socials. The young are always watching and wondering what makes adults tick. Their natural inclination to imitate the ways of adults is a deep source of cultural stability because it tends to ensure that what an adult does today will be emulated by a youth tomorrow. Youth is more tender, though, and more easily bruised than most of us like to admit, or to remember. If adults are perverse, sarcastic, or eristic with youth, or if adults advance their own sense of pride at the expense of youth, they must bear the shame and blame for what follows. This is one of the deep underlying messages of this dialogue in which two adults seize a chance to provoke laughter and win recognition at the expense of a vulnerable young man. The second and more pointed message is this: laughter is serious business.
What does philosophy have to offer by way of understanding and mending such rifts?
Socrates’ dear friend Crito opens the dialogue with a question: “Who was it, Socrates, with whom you were conversing (diale/gou) yesterday in the Lyceum. The crowed standing around you was so large that although I approached wanting to hear I
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could not. Yet I had a look by standing on tiptoe, and it seemed you were speaking with some stranger. Who was it” (271a1-5).
The inaccessible conversation takes many forms; but standing at a distance among a crowd of onlookers ensures that one will have little access to any important nuances. The maddening frustration that attends reading this dialogue was probably matched by the furious irritation Plato must have felt writing it. Crito himself experienced a similar frustration at being unable to follow the conversation, and even as Plato marks the distance separating Socrates from the other adult speakers, the crowded setting points to the fact that the average Athenian onlooker is often on the fringes of philosophic endeavors; like Crito, he is rarely in a position to participate or appreciate the subtleties of the dialectical displays taking place just beyond him.
Some scholars of this dialogue belong to the crowd that cannot quite make it out. They identify and label its many fallacies and silly puns in the belief that the dialogue was Plato’s way of demonstrating his own facility with the rules and regulations of logic. But this interpretation ignores the setting, the speakers and their motivations; it is impervious to the warnings lying below the surface of the words.
Narrow readings tend to overlook the dialogues’ roots in real life. Most of us can remember encounters with adults that were similarly playful on the surface but that left us with the same icky aftertaste that Socrates displays when he recalls the conversation for Crito. These emotional residues play a more significant role in the dialogue than any numbering or analyzing of logical fallacies can reveal. If Socrates must purge himself of the conversation, it is little wonder if the onlookers walk away slightly stunned or discombobulated. It is only Crito’s personal friendship with Socrates that allows him a chance to clarify today what he strained to hear and comprehend yesterday. The other onlookers who were gathered there do not enjoy that opportunity; they have all gone
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home to their families with their initial impressions and suspicions in tact. As a member of that crowd, Crito’s point of view will eventually emerge as a salient feature attending our evaluation of philosophic conversation and the art of dialectic. As readers, though, we are part of the crowd. That is intentional.
The opening frame of the Euthydemus places Socrates like a hoplite shield-bearer next to a youth he is trying both to educate and to protect. On their flanks are two adult brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus. Although sincere and heartfelt one-to-one conversation is the badge of Socratic philosophic practice, Socrates cannot always choose his partners, nor steer their thoughts and conversational practice toward noble ends. The
Euthydemus shows how a little philosophy can be used as a weapon, a “net of words,” for
ends other than the pursuit of truth, beauty, and justice. Those ends include generating laughter. Who hasn’t thought at one time or another that philosophers say the silliest things in the strangest ways?
Socrates is only too glad to recount the conversation for Crito, though one can tell by his tone that he does not take the men he conversed with seriously and that he is still rankled. Sometimes the only way to relieve one’s present distress is to relive its origins.
Socrates was preparing to leave the Lyceum when his divine sign bid him to stay. A few minutes later two older men, Dionysodorus and his brother Euthydemus, appear with a group of rowdy followers, “their pupils” (maqhtai\), Socrates calls them. Not long after their arrival the fine young son of Axiochus, Clinias, arrives attended by his friends and admirers, most notably Ctesippus, who, Socrates notes parenthetically, has “a very noble and good nature, except that his youth makes him a bit hotheaded (u9bristh\j)” (273a7-b1).
Unlike the two brothers, who have ignored the solitary Socrates, Clinias immediately approaches the philosopher and sits down beside him. In this Clinias
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manifests trust and openness, and his friends and admirers follow in turn. But as their gathering shapes up, Socrates notices the two brothers evincing a covert interest from across the way: “first they stood talking to each other, looking toward us from time to time—for I attended to them very closely—and then they approached and one, Euthydemus, sat down beside the boy and the other sat down to my left, and the others arranged themselves at random” (273b4-8).
One gets the distinct impression that Socrates and his friends are marks, targets. Socrates does not know much about the brothers, but he does know a little. They are former colonists now in exile (feu/gontej) from Thurii who have been knocking around Athens together, now and then putting on displays fighting in armor, or more recently composing speeches for those who have business in the courts. One can assume that colonies generally need and want people; if Thurii has banished the brothers, their offense could not have been trivial.
Why stay? Doesn’t Socrates suspect enough already to suggest to Clinias and his friends, “Hey, let’s all go play knucklebones or practice some wrestling.” Perhaps there is nowhere to run. Perhaps Socrates stays to try to control the situation. If the prevalence of sophistical and eristic conversation is becoming as widespread in Athens as Plato’s dialogues suggest, then perhaps the better part of valor requires Socrates to remain as a shield to protect Clinias and his friends from these rowdies who are making their way toward them.
Socrates generously introduces the brothers to his young friend as wise in serious matters. They are skilled, he explains, in military as well as juridical affairs. Why does he not mention their having been kicked out of Thurii? Is it manners? Perhaps he is hoping to preserve the young men’s respect for their elders, even those elders who do not wholly deserve it.
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The brothers, though, “regarded my words with disdain. They laughed and looked at one another and Euthydemus said, ‘we are no longer serious about these things, Socrates; we treat them as mere appendages to our real business’” (273d1-4).
What can prompt men to reject their past endeavors in this way? Socrates wonders the same thing.
“Virtue, Socrates—which we think we can provide to men better and more quickly than anyone” (273d8-9).
Ah, moral education is their new venture. Now, I might have said to these two, “Puhleeze. We are not impressed. You two oafs wouldn’t know virtue if it bit you in the behind.” But I would say it, or think it, partly because I already mistrust adult bravado.
That Socrates takes such a wild boast seriously is a feature of his honest and deep belief that people can improve. He himself has recently begun taking music lessons from the harpist Connus, and although his fellow students constantly laugh at him, he perseveres (272c). If, by some stroke of luck, these brothers have actually discovered that they can impart virtue to others, then it would be a far greater blessing than being able to play the harp.
“Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, please do all you can to gratify these men and display your skills (e0pidei/casqon) for my sake” (274d4-6). Then, indicating Clinias, he implores the bothers to “persuade this young man here that he must philosophize and care for virtue” (275a5-6). The brothers are eager to oblige. Euthydemus addresses the young man first, beginning what can only be described as a tag team assault:
“Clinias, who among men are the learners, the wise or the ignorant” (275d3-4). Socrates marks this moment for Crito: “This being a significant question, the boy blushed and looked at me confused (a0porh/saj). And I, seeing him discomfited, said, ‘Buck up, Clinias, and answer courageously, whatever you think. It may result in a great
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boon’” (275d5-e2). When youth blush before adults, it is sign of their deep goodness and desire to do well. Had Clinias simply brazened any old answer without hesitation, we wouldn’t know his character nearly so well.
So gathering up his pluck, Clinias answers. But his earnest response provokes two rapid displays of eristic gymnastics, which provoke in turn delighted applause and laughter from the followers of the two outcasts from Thurii. Dionysodorus even has the gall to whisper to Socrates that it was their aim all along to throw the boy for a loop (276e).
Why continue? Don’t most of us really dislike this sort of word play? Now that we see that the gist of the brothers’ “art” is to target others for fun, why not just get up and go? Making sport of another is no way to improve his confidence, after all, much less turn him toward wisdom or virtue.
There is a sense, though, that running away only leaves the thugs on the field. So Socrates intervenes. He tries to preserve a semblance of intergenerational trust by telling young Clinias that the men are just “playing” with him before they make good their claims and promises.
To show the men what he wants from them, and to prove his point to Clinias, he provides a little demonstration of genuine dialectic during which Clinias comports himself admirably. Yet when he turns Clinias back over to the two men they simply start in on him again.
At this point, young Ctesippus becomes angry. He does not like the brothers’ manner, he disapproves of their tone, and he cannot stand what they are attempting to accomplish at the expense of his friend. Ctesippus begins to function as a shield and a menacing distraction.
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Socrates tries to pacify Ctesippus and volunteers to submit to the brothers’ questions himself. Ctesippus will have none of it. Warning Dionysodorus to watch his mouth, he leaps into the ring and Dionysodorus works him over. But Ctesippus will not be cowed. After a brief exchange between Socrates and Dionysodorus Ctesippus interjects: “You say amazing things, O men from Thurii, or Chios, or from wherever and however you like to take your names. Talking nonsense doesn’t bother you at all” (288a8-b2). One cannot help but admire Ctesippus and root for him against these bullies. One can feel the tension between the two groups rising.
Socrates again tries to repair this rift of competitive mistrust by ensuring Ctesippus of the brothers’ wisdom and promising that “something thoroughly noble (pa/gkalon) in them will appear when they begin to be serious” (288c3-4). He then volunteers yet again to take the lead and show the brothers what he has in mind. He questions Clinias for a second time and once again the young man performs well.
Of course Crito, standing on the fringes, had missed all of this; and he now confesses enthusiastic amazement at Clinias’ insights and warm approval of the direction of their conversation. For Socrates and Clinias had begun in earnest to seek the art that can, if properly employed, make people both wise and good (288d-290d). As he listens to Socrates’ recollection, Crito himself takes up their question, for who wouldn’t want to acquire both wisdom and goodness if he could? Crito wonders how it turned out, but Socrates confesses that their questions only generated more questions. Crito observes, “By Zeus, Socrates, it appears you all got very confused (a0pori/an)” (292e6-7).
Socrates laments that all he could do was “unloose a loud voice and beg the foreigners, as if I were summoning the divine twins, to save us, me and the boy, from this
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mighty wave of argument,58 and to be completely serious and reveal the nature of that knowledge in possession of which one can live nobly the rest of one’s life” (293a1-6).
Be serious. Please, be serious.
Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, however, have only one trick in their bag. Ignoring Socrates’ plea to speak in earnest, they return to their eristic, logic-chopping display, once again provoking uproarious laughter and knee-slapping applause in their followers.
Someone, though, has lost all patience. Ctesippus breaks in angrily to demand a proof that the two buffoons know all they claim. “In the name of Zeus, Dionysodorus, produce some evidence…by which I will know that you two are telling the truth” (294b11-c2).
Of course, the pair can’t manage it, and they quickly return to harassing Socrates, who finally begins to resist their verbal trickery. He confounds their attempts to trip him up by qualifying and restricting the scope of his answers, by asking questions of his own, and by refusing to respond to inquiries whose precise meaning is not apparent. He soon realizes, however, that Euthydemus is becoming angry and so he decides to yield to the man. “If it seems good to you,” he says, “to proceed [without my qualifications], then we must do so. For you know how to converse (diale/gesqai) far better than I, who have only the art (te/xnhn) of an amateur” (295d7-e3). To avoid anger and to maintain civility on both sides has become Socrates’ goal.
But just as one’s fingers will not play the harp at one’s command, neither can Socrates stop qualifying the brothers’ quibbles. At one point the brothers themselves bark
58 Literally, “from the third wave of the argument (th=j trikumi/aj tou= lo/gou).” Compare the Republic 472a ff (th=j trikumi/aj: 472a4).
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at each other for “spoiling the argument,” which Socrates seizes as proof that they don’t know what they are talking about (297 a-b).
Ctesippus can’t bear it any longer. Throughout the raucous display, he has been watching, learning, and when he next enters the conversation, he is armed and ready to give it to the brothers as good as they have given it to their victims. This he accomplishes with a great guffaw to the astounded admiration and applause of his friends. “And Clinias was very pleased and he laughed, and Ctesippus swelled more than ten sizes. I think that he, Ctesippus, is deviously clever and has become so by hearing these things from these very men—for such wisdom is obtainable from no one else presently alive” (300d5-9). What goes around has finally come around. The brothers are confounded and beaten at their own game.
But rather than feeling vicariously victorious, Socrates is mortified. “Why do you laugh, Clinias, at such serious and beautiful matters?” (300e1-2).
Before Clinias can answer Dionysodorus goes in again after Socrates, the upshot of which leaves the poor man knocked out by the argument and lying speechless. Ctesippus then, coming to the philosopher’s aid, declares, “Bravo, Heracles, a beautiful argument!” and “O Poseidon, the clever arguments! I give up; these men are invincible!” (303a6-9).
The whole crowd of onlookers now erupts with cheering and unified laughter and applause till “they were all but worn out;” and they continued to the point that “the pillars in the Lyceum themselves almost resounded and were delighted with the men” (303b3- 7).
Socrates openly credits the two brothers with Ctesippus’ victories. Their techniques are so easy to pick up that it has taken the young man no time at all to acquire and employ them himself. Ctesippus has learned to wield the verbal weapons and imitate
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the sly tactics of the bully-brother buffoons. The next time he needs this sort of eristic talent, he will have it.
There is a sense in which Ctesippus’ final victory is saturated by a feeling of loss. Why should any youth have to learn to manage and deflect adult aggression in this, or any other, way? Why do adults play it fast and loose with kids? If adults want to be jackasses, fine. But leave the youth alone. Socrates may have saved Clinias; he could not save Ctesippus.
But now, as Socrates concludes his account, Crito recalls something that reveals a new perspective on yesterday’s events. There was at least one exception in the crowd of cheering people; another onlooker, and he wasn’t laughing. As the crowd dispersed the man approached Crito and asked whether he studied with “these wise men” (304d7). No, no, Crito explains—besides, he couldn’t even hear what was going on. He asks the man his opinion of the proceedings. The stranger is disdainful: he dismisses the conversation as nonsense and idle chatter. He then condemns “philosophy”—which term Crito himself applies to the conversation—as worthless. Had Crito been able to hear, he adds, he would have been ashamed for Socrates, whose willingness to participate in the brothers’ display he characterizes as odd (a1topoj). The entire business, he concludes, is trivial and the men who engage in it are ridiculous (304e-305a).
Crito’s revelation stuns Socrates. He doesn’t know what to say. He immediately wants to know who this man, this critic of philosophy, is. Is he an orator, he wonders, or a writer of speeches? Crito assures him that he is not an orator, adding that he does know a lot about the business, and that he is clever and composes clever speeches.
Now Socrates offers a most interesting assessment of the unknown critic who has called him “odd” and philosophy “worthless.”
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“These are the men, Crito, whom Prodicus says are the boundary between the philosophical and the political man; they think they are the wisest of all men and that in