Euthydemus

This is an odd dialogue that doesn't fit the typical 'Socratic' pattern.  Not least because Socrates doesn't really do much talking in it.  It begins in the frame story mode with Socrates recounting to his friend Crito a conversation he had yesterday with Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, two men from Chios who claim that they can teach anyone wisdom and virtue in just a few days.  Once we enter the recollection though, where Socrates and his companions ask them to demonstrate their remarkable method, E&D do most of the talking, since they are cast in the mode of (alleged) instructors.  So Socrates ends up opposite his customary side -- forced to answer questions rather than ask them.  There are a couple of important exceptions to this inversion though, which we'll come to in a moment.

As you might expect from their ginsu knife type advertisement of total consciousness, the instant virtue and wisdom that E&D teach are just too good to be true.  They are the archetypical sophists whose wisdom amounts to nothing more than a series of word games.  Demonstrating their teaching method means wrestling Socrates et. al. in a string of meaningless verbal gymnastics.  The pair, like good cop/bad cop partners, always manage to simultaneously affirm and refute whatever is in question, including their own statements.  It's like arguing with that clever but incredibly annoying guy you knew in freshman civ class who was just out to score points with the snappiest comeback.  So yeah, probably me.  There's not much point in going through any of their "arguments" because I think it's pretty clear that they are meant as jokes.  I quote one passage here just to give you a flavor for how silly they are; silly enough to be lost in translation.

   You know then, he said, what the proper business of each craftsman is? For instance, you know whose business it is to work metal?
   Yes, I do—the blacksmith's.
   Well then, what about making pots?
   The potter's.
   And again, to slaughter and skin, and to boil and roast the pieces after cutting them up?
   The cook's, I said.
   Now if a man does the proper business, he said, he will do rightly? Very much so.
   And the proper business in the case of the cook is, as you say, to cut up and skin?27 You did agree to that didn't you?
   Yes, I did, I said, but forgive me.
  Then it is clear, he said, that if someone kills the cook and cuts him up, and then boils him and roasts him, he will be doing the proper business. And if anyone hammers the blacksmith himself, and puts the potter on the wheel, he will also be doing the proper business.
[27. The Greek here is ambiguous between "it's proper for a cook to cut up and skin" and "it's proper to cut up and skin a cook." This English must be heard as having the same two readings.] (301d)

 

Socrates doesn't intervene much as E&D proceed, instead letting his companions answer most questions.  While these folks sometimes get annoyed by the vacuousness of the jokes, Socrates generously treats them as harmless play.  But he does attempt to keep the farce on track.  Since he asked E&D to demonstrate their wisdom specifically by showing everyone how they would encourage a new student to take up the pursuit of wisdom to begin with, he twice steers them back to this theme.  Each time he good-naturedly suggests that they have just been pulling everyone's leg with their arguments so far and should stop teasing.  Then he lays out a short argument of his own, by way of giving an example of how he, though certainly not a professional wise man like EorD, would go about interesting someone in the study of virtue and wisdom.  

The first time, he establishes, in classic Socratic fashion, that nothing is truly good in itself except for knowledge of the good; all the other good things like health or wealth we might want to possess are of no use to us if we don't have the good sense and wisdom to use them properly for our benefit.  In his second interruption, he discovers that most knowledge can help us make something (money or medicine or shoes) but is itself silent on the best use and overall value of those things it teaches us to make.  Wisdom, though, must be a kind of knowledge that combines knowing how best to use something with the ability to make it.

And the same is true of the generals, he said. Whenever they capture some city, or a camp, they hand it over to the statesmen— for they themselves have no idea of how to use the things they have captured—just in the same way, I imagine, that quail hunters hand theirs over to quail keepers. So, he said, if we are in need of that art which will itself know how to use what it acquires through making or capturing, and if it is an art of this sort which will make us happy, then, he said, we must look for some other art besides that of generalship. (290d)  

In keeping with the pattern we've seen, once we reach this circularity in a definition -- a knowledge that knows the value of itself -- the conversation falls apart.  Here, Socrates can't figure out which knowledge would fit the bill.  After debunking the above idea that the general possesses this knowledge, he wonders whether it isn't the statesman he's looking for.   But Socrates' first interjection has already undermined the idea that even the statesman can simultaneously teach men not merely what is good, but how to use what is good wisely and for their own benefit.

SOCRATES: And Clinias and I of course agreed that nothing is good except some sort of knowledge.
CRITO: Yes, you said that.
SOCRATES: Then the other results which a person might attribute to the statesman's art—and these, of course, would be numerous, as for instance, making the citizens rich and free and not disturbed by faction—all these appeared to be neither good nor evil; but this art had to make them wise and to provide them with a share of knowledge if it was to be the one that benefited them and made them happy. (292b)

So in the end, as always, Socrates has shown us that nothing can be more important or more valuable than wisdom, but also that we have no idea what wisdom is.  Everytime we go looking for philosophical wisdom, knowledge of what is really valuable in life, we come back knowing about some particular thing that may or may not be valuable, but without any ultimate theory of what makes that thing valuable for us, and under what conditions.

Both of Socrates' interruptions are more or less ignored by the sophists, who continue to put a straight face on their verbal jousting long past the point where it has become ridiculous.  Eventually, when Socrates and company begin imitating the wordplay "arguments" of E&D, the whole works acquires a vaudeville atmosphere.  I think the fact that these are meant to be comic characters is unmissable.  In other words, I think the text makes clear that we are not supposed to seriously evaluate the content of what these guys are saying.

Which sets up a bit of a problem for the interpretation of the end of the dialog.  Because after Socrates finishes recounting the increasingly comic conversation to Crito, he praises E&D to the sky.

Even I myself was so affected by it as to declare that I had never in my life seen such wise men; and I was so absolutely captivated by their wisdom that I began to praise and extol them and said, O happy pair, what miraculous endowment you possess to have brought such a thing to perfection in so short a time! Among the many other fine things which belong to your arguments, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, there is one which is the most magnificent of all, that you care nothing for the many, or in fact, for men of consequence or reputation, but only for persons of your own sort. And I am convinced that there are very few men like you who would appreciate these arguments, but that the majority understand them so little that I feel sure they would be more ashamed to refute others with arguments of this sort than to be refuted by them. (303c)

Now, if this isn't socratic irony, I'll eat my shorts.  At the same time though, Socrates doesn't just denounce these guys as impostors, either to their face during the conversation, nor to his friend when he relates it privately the next day.  In fact, he even seems to semi-seriously ask the latter's opinion.  Of course Crito says that they sound like idiots.  And he says he spoke with another friend who was also present at the same conversation and concluded the Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are deadbeats, so to speak.  But Socrates dismisses Crito's friend as merely jealous and won't even agree with Crito that they are useless.

So the mystery is why Socrates is showing E&D such patience and goodwill when they seem to be making a mockery of the philosophy he considers so important?  We see a clear contrast between his own example and the way they proceed.  The text sets them up as laughing stocks.  Socrates' praise drips with irony.  So what does Plato want to tell us by not letting Socrates simply unload on these two?  

One thing I'm pretty sure it's not meant to tell us is what the editor claims it is.

Do Socrates, and Plato, agree? It seems not—that at least is the implication of Socrates' praise, no doubt ironically overdrawn, and of his refusal to join in the denunciation. True philosophy, and real devotion to it, require an interest in logic and argument for its own sake, whether or not it is used correctly or yields valid support for true conclusions. Even the misuse of reason has its gripping appeal to one who would model his life on the proper use of it. Socrates is himself no 'eristic'—his approach to Clinias is fostering, not refutatory, and his firm interest throughout is in the truth, not mere verbal victory. But he (or Plato) refuses to reject, dismiss, and denounce the arguments of the eristics, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, as 'of no value whatsoever', as 'worthless' and 'ridiculous'. They have their own power, as all uses of reason do, and must be respectfully examined and analyzed—even while one does not accept their conclusions.

It stretches credulity to claim that Plato wants to show us that the men in the black pajamas are a worthy fucking adversary in the contest for the title "philosopher".  These guys are not showing an "interest in logic and argument for its own sake"; they're just nihilists.  Their logic is a joke and they reach no conclusions we might accept or reject at all.  Yet John M. Cooper is onto something here when he says that these foolish arguments have a certain power.  

I think what Plato is trying to show us is that even these fools can have the power to prompt us to think for ourselves, and that in the pursuit of philosophy, this is the only power that counts.  This is not because any of their arguments deserve consideration, but simply because they clearly illustrate to us that in philosophy, many who hang out a shingle are charlatans.  We cannot operate on trust in expertise.  We are stuck figuring out who is a good teacher for ourselves.  The action of the dialog reveals that telling the difference between these sophists and the real philosopher can't depend on whether they sound like they know what they're talking about or on what we think of the conclusions they reach.  Socrates paints himself as a bumbling novice and reaches no conclusions.  E&D claim to be professionals yet also lead us nowhere.  The point is actually that only you can judge expertise in philosophy, though you can only do this by pursuing for yourself the question of what is valuable.  You must become a philosopher.   And you can, instantaneously, by starting to pursue these questions!   Socrates makes this clear in the final lines of the dialog, where a flummoxed Crito still wants to know how to solve the initial problem and encourage his son to study wisdom.

   CRITO: ... whenever I take a look at any of those persons who set up to educate men, I am amazed; and every last one of them strikes me as utterly grotesque, to speak frankly between ourselves. So the result is that I cannot see how I am to persuade the boy to take up philosophy.
   SOCRATES: My dear Crito, don't you realize that in every pursuit most of the practitioners are paltry and of no account whereas the serious men are few and beyond price? For instance, doesn't gymnastics strike you as a fine thing? And money making and rhetoric and the art of the general?
   CRITO: Yes, of course they do.
   SOCRATES: Well then, in each of these cases don't you notice that the b majority give a laughable performance of their respective tasks?
   CRITO: Yes indeed—you are speaking the exact truth.
   SOCRATES: And just because this is so, do you intend to run away from all these pursuits and entrust your son to none of them?
   CRITO: No, this would not be reasonable, Socrates.
   SOCRATES: Then don't do what you ought not to, Crito, but pay no attention to the practitioners of philosophy, whether good or bad. Rather give serious consideration to the thing itself: if it seems to you negligible, then turn everyone from it, not just your sons. But if it seems to you to be what I think it is, then take heart, pursue it, practice it, both you and yours, as the proverb says. (307a)

Overall, I think the point of the dialog is to illustrate the open-mindedness of the true philosopher.  Not in the more modern sense of believing anything, no matter how far fetched, that logic and evidence lead us to believe.  But in the sense that we can learn something from any situation, no matter how ludicrous, if we refuse to get annoyed or dismissive, and avoid engaging in ad hominem attacks.  Socrates is totally open-minded, without it turning into gullibility.