Having
located the Sophist in the art of Image-making, the Eleatic Stranger proceeds:
‘Agreed then that we should at once quarter the ground by dividing the art of
Image-making (Dedoktai toinun hoti
tachista diairein tȇn eidȏlopoikȇn technȇn), and if, as soon as we descend
into that enclosure (kai katabantas eis
autȇn), we meet with the Sophist at bay (ean men hȇmas euthus ho sophistȇs hupomeinȇi), we should arrest him
(sullabein auton) on the royal
warrant of reason (kata ta epestalmena
hupo tou basilikou logou), report the capture, and hand him over to the
sovereign (k’akeinȏi paradontas apophȇnai
tȇn agran).’ (Soph. 235b8-c2, tr.
F. M. Cornford) Cornford notes: ‘Apelt illustrates the illusion to the Persian
method (called ‘draw-netting’, sagȇneia)
of sweeping up the whole population of a district by means of a line of
soldiers holding hands and marching across it. It is several times mentioned by
Herodotus (e. g. vi. 31) and Plato (Laws
698d) says that Datis, ten years before Salamis, sent word to Athens that he
had captured all the Eritreans by this method, under Darius’ orders (the ‘royal
warrant’) to transport all Eritreans and Athenians to Persia. The method is an
admirable image for the procedure of the last section which has drawn the
notion of Image-making or Imitation like a net round all the types called
‘Sophists’ collected for review. The net also includes other ‘imitators’, all
the varieties of artists.’ (F. M. Cornford, Plato’s
Theory of Knowledge, London 1935, p. 196)
In the Laws Plato says in the given passage:
‘Now Datis and his myriads soon became complete masters of Eretria, and he sent
a fearful report to Athens that no Eretrian had escaped him; for the soldiers
of Datis had joined hands (sunapsantes
gar ara tas cheiras) and netted the whole of Eretria (sagȇneusaien pasan tȇn Eretrikȇn). And this report, whether well or
ill founded, was terrible to all the Hellenes, and above all to the Athenians.’
(Tr. Jowett) This passage is part of Plato’s praise of the ancient constitution
of Athens ‘when reverence was our queen and mistress (despotis enȇn tis aidȏs), and made us willing to live in obedience
to the laws which then prevailed (di hȇn
douleuontes tois tote nomois zȇn ȇthelomen, 698b5-6, tr. Jowett). It was
because of this willingness to be guided by aidȏs
(Liddell and Scott: ‘as a moral feeling, reverence,
awe, respect for the feeling or opinion of others or of one’s own
conscience, and so shame, self-respect,
sense of honour’) that the Athenians escaped the fate of the Eritreans.
I find it
difficult to imagine that Plato wanted to evoke this picture in the mind of his
readers – the Eleatic Stranger in the mind of his Athenian audience – at the
point of raising the expectation that he and Theaetetus were about to capture
the Sophist.
Plato’s Second Letter can help us find the clue
to the Stranger’s kata ta epestalmena
hupo tou basilikou logou, which Cornford translates ‘on the royal warrant
of reason’, but which may simply mean ‘according to the royal word sent to us’.
For in that letter Plato discusses the sophists with which Dionysius was
surrounded: ‘You were surprised at my sending you Polyxenus [a sophist credited
with formulating some form of the ‘Third Man Argument’ against the Forms] to
you; but now as of old I repeat the same statement about Lycophron also and the
others you have with you, that, as respects dialectic, you are far superior to
them all both in natural intelligence and in argumentative ability; and I
maintain that if anyone of them is beaten in argument, this defeat is not
voluntary (kai oudeis autȏn hekȏn
exelenchetai), as some imagine, but involuntary. All the same, it appears
that you treat them with the greatest consideration and make them presents. So
much, then, about these men: too much, indeed, about such as they.’ (314c7-d7,
tr. R. G. Bury)
Dionysius
wanted to know what Plato thought about the sophists, and it is not difficult
to imagine that Plato thought that Dionysius deserved a more thorough answer
than the one he gave him in the Second
Letter.
The royal
logos in the Sophist required that
the Sophist should be captured (sullabein
auton) and handed over to him (ekeinȏi
paradontas, 235b10-c1). These words point to the Euthydemus where Socrates maintains that all arts and branches of
knowledge must hand their findings and products over to the royal art: ‘The
kingly art was identified by us with the political (edoxe gar dȇ hȇmin hȇ politikȇ kai hȇ basilikȇ technȇ hȇ autȇ einai)
… To this royal or political art (Tautȇi
tȇi technȇi) all the arts, including the art of the general (kai hȇ stratȇgikȇ kai hai allai), render
up the supremacy over the works (products or deeds) (paradidonai archein tȏn ergȏn) which they themselves produce (hȏn autai dȇmiourgoi eisin), that being
the only art which knew how to use them (hȏs
monȇi epistamenȇi chrȇsthai).’ (291c4-9). Seen in the light of the royal
art depicted in the Euthydemus, the
reference to the royal logos commanding the Eleatic Stranger [i.e. Plato] to
capture the Sophist in the Sophist
responds to Dionysius’ inquisitiveness as to what Plato’s business was in his
coming to Syracuse, and seeks to allay all his mistrust of him, referred to in
the Second Letter (312a); the
supremacy belongs to the king, the philosopher with his findings enlightens
him.
In the Second Letter Plato wrote to Dionysius:
‘You have done right now in sending Archedemus; and in the future also, after
he returns to you and reports to you my suggestions (kai apangellȇi ta par emou), you will probably be beset by other perplexities.
Then, if you are rightly advised, you will send Archedemus back to me, and he
with his cargo will return to you again. And if you do this twice or thrice,
and fully test what I send you (kai
basanisȇis ta par emou pemphthenta hikanȏs), I shall be surprised if your
present difficulties do not assume quite a new aspect.’ (313d4-e2) When Plato was
sending the Second Letter to
Dionysius, it may be presumed that the Euthydemus
was part of the cargo; for although it was written more than a quarter of a
century prior to Plato’s involvement with Dionysius, it was written as if in
response to what this involvement demanded.
Apart from
Socrates and the young aristocrat Cleinias, the main interlocutors in the Euthedemus are two brothers, sophists (sophistai, 271c1), Euthydemus and
Dionysodorus, who profess to teach virtue (aretȇn)
and to impart it better and quicker than any man (273d8-9). Socrates: ‘But are
you quite sure about this, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus? The promise is so vast,
that a feeling of incredulity steals over me.’ – Euthydemus: ‘You may take our
word for the fact.’ – Socrates: ‘Then I think you happier in having such a
treasure than the Great King (ȇ megan
basilea) is in the possession of his kingdom.’ (274a1-7, tr. Jowett) In the
Sophist the Stranger refers to the Great
King as follows: ‘We must admit that refutation is the greatest and chiefest of
purifications, and he who has not been refuted, though he be the Great King (basileus ho megas) himself, is in an
awful state of impurity; he is uninstructed and deformed in those things in
which he who would be truly blessed ought to be fairest and purest.’ (230d6-e3,
tr. Jowett) Speaking of the Great King in the Sophist, Plato speaks to Dionysius, as I believe, for Dionysius had
pretended to know the nature of the First, ‘the King of All, for whose sake all
things are, and which is the cause of all things that are beautiful’ (Second Letter 312e1-3), which if he knew
he would be truly blessed, but in fact his ‘view of the truth sways now this
way, now that, round about the apparent object; whereas the true object is
totally different.’ (S. L. 313b7-c1,
tr. Bury)
When the two
sophists in the Euthydemus maintained
that ‘of all men who are now living’ they are most likely to stimulate the
young Cleinias to philosophy and to the study of virtue, Socrates implored them
‘to persuade the youth whom you see here that he ought to be a philosopher and
study virtue’ (274e-275a). Euthydemus began by asking Cleinias: ‘Are those who
learn the wise or the ignorant?’ Dionysodorus whispered into Socrates’ ear:
‘Whichever the youngster answers, I prophesy that he will be refuted.’ (275d-e)
The whole subsequent performance of the two sophists consists in eliciting a
statement from their interlocutor, be it Cleinias, Socrates or Ctesippus
(Cleinias’ admirer), and then refuting it.
In the Sophist the Stranger begins by defining
the Sophist as man who ‘professes to form acquaintances only for the sake of
virtue, and demands reward in the shape of money’ (223a3-4, tr. Jowett), and on
that basis he goes on to define him firstly as ‘a paid hunter after wealth and
youth’, secondly ‘as a merchant in the goods of the soul’, thirdly as ‘a retailer
of the same wares’, fourthly as a ‘manufacturer of the wares he sold’, and
fifthly as ‘an athlete, a fighter in arguments, who appropriated to himself the
art of eristic’, the sixth is ‘the purifier of the soul of opinions that stand
in the way of learning’ (231d-e). What runs as a common thread through all
these six provisional definitions is antilogikȇ,
the art of pitting arguments against arguments (232b); in the Euthydemus it is exemplified by the
performance of the two sophists.
There are
telling correspondences between the Euthydemus
and the Sophist.
In the Euthydemus Socrates presents the two
sophists with an example of ‘the hortatory philosophy’, as Jowett translates
Plato’s tȇn protreptikȇn sophian
(278c5). He begins by asking Cleinias: ‘Don’t all men (Ara ge pantes anthrȏpoi), don’t we all want to do well (boulometha eu prattein, 278e3)?’ He ends
with the words: ‘Now (nun oun), as
you think that wisdom can be taught (epeidȇ
soi kai didakton dokei), and that wisdom only can make a man happy and
fortunate (kai monon tȏn ontȏn eudaimona
kai eutuchȇ poiein ton anthrȏpon), will you not acknowledge that all of us
ought to love wisdom (allo ti ȇ phaiȇs an
anankaion einai philosophein), and you individually will try to love her (kai autos en nȏi echeis auto poiein)?’ –
Cleinias answers: ‘Certainly (Panu men
oun), Socrates (ȏ Sȏkrates), I
will do my best (hȏs hoion te malista).’
(282c8-d3, tr. Jowett)
Socrates was
eager to see ‘where the sophists would start in their exhortation to the young
man that he should practice wisdom and virtue (283a3-4). Dionysosorus, the
elder of the two brothers, began as follows: ‘Tell me, Socrates and the rest of
you who say that you want this young man to become wise, are you in jest or in
real earnest?’ When Socrates answered that they were all in profound earnest,
Dionysodorus resumed his questioning of Socrates: ‘And so you say that you wish
Cleiniss to become wise … And he is not wise yet … you wish him to become wise
and not ignorant … You wish him to be what he is not, and no longer to be what
he is? … You wish him no longer to be what he is, which can only mean that you
wish him to perish. Pretty lovers and friends they must be who want their
favourite not to be, or to perish.’ Ctesippus angrily interposed: ‘What can
make you tell such a lie about me and the others, which I hardly like to
repeat, as that I wish Cleinias to perish?’ Euthydemus stepped in: ‘And do you
think, Ctesippus, that it is possible to tell a lie?’ – Ctesippus: ‘I should be
mad to say anything else.’ – Euthydemus: ‘And in telling a lie, do you tell the
thing of which you speak or not? … And he who tells, tells that thing which he
tells, and no other? … And that is a distinct thing apart from other things? …
And he who says that thing says that which is? … And he who says that which is,
says the truth. And therefore Dionysodorus, if he says that which is, says the
truth of you and no lie.’ – Ctesippus: ‘But he is saying what is not.’
Euthydemus: ‘And that which is not is not? … And that which is not is nowhere?
… And can anyone do anything about that which has no existence, or do to
Cleinias that which is not and is nowhere? … Then no one says that which is
not, for in saying what is not he would be doing something; and you have already
acknowledged that no one can do what is not. And therefore, upon your own
showing (hȏste kata ton son logon),
no one says what is false (oudeis pseudȇ legei);
but if Dionysodorus says anything (all’
eiper legei Dionusodȏros), he says what is true and what is (t’alȇthȇ te kai ta onta legei).’
(283b4-284c6, tr. Jowett)
***
On the
margin of my Oxford text of Plato I noted Gifford’s remark: ‘Plato is referring
throughout the passage 283e7-284c6 to the doctrine of Parmenides, “Only that
which can be can be thought”, as stated in Proem
33-40, and more briefly in 43 chrȇ to
legein te noein t’ eon emmenai [which I would translate: ‘speaking and
thinking must be being’, J.T.].’
***
In the Sophists, just when the Stranger was
going to divide the art of Image-making (diairein
tȇn eidȏlopoiikȇn technȇn) and capture the Sophist, as the royal logos
enjoined (sullabein auton kata ta
epestalmena hupo tou basilikou logou, 235b8-c1), he realized that ‘this
“appearing” or “seeming” without really “being”, and the saying of something
which yet is not true – all these expressions have always been and still are
deeply involved in perplexity … The audacity of the statement lies in its
implication (Tetolmȇken ho logos houtos
hupothesthai) that “what is not” has being (to mȇ on einai); for in no other way could a falsehood come to have
being (pseudos gar ouk an allȏs egigneto
on) … Parmenides from beginning to end testified against this, constantly
telling us what he also says in his poem: “Never shall this be proved – that
things that are not are; but do thou, in thy inquiry, hold back thy thought
from this way.” (236e1-237a9, tr. Cornford). And so, to capture the Sophist in
the region of Image-making, the Stranger must commit an act, for which he fears
he might be accused of parricide (patraloian);
he must subject Parmenides’ thesis to examination and ‘establish by main force
that what is not (biazesthai to te mȇ on),
in some respect has being (hȏs esti kata
ti), and that what is (kai to on au
palin), in a way is not (hȏs ouk esti
pȇi)’ (241d3-7, tr. Cornford)
***
Let me end
this post by pointing to a correspondence between the Euthydemus and the Parmenides.
In the Parmenides all arguments
against the Forms raised by the historical Parmenides – the ‘greatest
difficulty’ is raised by Parmenides who steps out of his historical role and
predicts the coming of a man who will discover the Forms that can’t be refuted
by any objections raised against them –
impugn Socrates’ theory of participation of sensible things in the
Forms. In the Euthydemus the problem
of participation comes to the fore in the following passage:
Dionysodorus:
‘Socrates, did you ever see a beautiful thing (Su gar ȇdȇ ti pȏpot’ eides kalon pragma)?’ – Socrates: ‘Yes, I have
seen many (Egȏge, kai polla ge).’ – Dionysodorus: ‘Were they other than the
beautiful (Ara hetera onta tou kalou),
or the same as the beautiful (ȇ t’auta
tȏi kalȏi)?’ – Socrates: ‘Now I was in a great quandary at having to answer
this question (K’agȏ en panti egenomȇn
hupo aporias), and I thought that I was rightly served for having opened my
mouth at all (kai hȇgoumȇn dikaia
peponthenai hoti egruxa); I said however, “They are not the same as
absolute beauty (homȏs de hetera ephȇn
autou ge tou kalou), but they have beauty present with each of them (parestin mentoi hekastȏi autȏn kallos ti)”.’
– Dionysodorus: ‘And are you an ox because an ox is present with you (Ean oun paragenȇtai soi bous, bous ei),
or are you Dionysodorus, because Dionysodorus is present with you (kai hoti nun egȏ soi pareimi, Dionusodȏros
ei)?’ – Socrates: ‘God forbid (Euphȇmei
touto ge).’ – Dionysodorus: ‘But how (Alla
tina tropon) by reason of one thing being present with another (heterou heterȏi paragenomenou), will one
thing be another (to heteron heteron an eiȇi)?’
– Socrates: ‘Is that your difficulty (Ara
touto aporeis)? I said (ephȇn egȏ).’
– Dionysodorus: ‘Of course (Pȏs gar ouk
aporȏ), I and all the world are in a difficulty about the non-existent (kai egȏ kai hoi alloi hapantes anthrȏpoi ho
mȇ esti).’ (300e3-301b4, tr. Jowett)
At the time
when Plato wrote the Euthydemus – and
I believe it can be dated as written in the late 390s B.C., prior to Plato’s
first journey to Sicily – his Socrates was contemplating the participation of
many beautiful things in Beauty itself, i.e. of sensible things in the Forms,
which Dionysodorus ‘with all the world’ dismissed as non-existent.
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