Complete Works (159 page)

It seems, he said, to be just as you say.

Then what is the result of our conversation? Isn’t it that, of the other things, no one of them is either good or bad, but of these two, wisdom is good and ignorance bad?

He agreed.

Then let us consider what follows: since we all wish to be happy, and
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since we appear to become so by using things and using them rightly, and since knowledge was the source of rightness and good fortune, it seems to be necessary that every man should prepare himself by every means to become as wise as possible—or isn’t this the case?

Yes, it is, he said.

And for a man who thinks he ought to get this from his father much more than money, and not only from his father but also from his guardians [b] and friends (especially those of his city and elsewhere who claim to be his lovers), and who begs and beseeches them to give him some wisdom, there is nothing shameful, Clinias, nor disgraceful if, for the sake of this, he should become the servant or the slave of a lover or of any man, being willing to perform any honorable service in his desire to become wise. Or don’t you think so? I said.

You seem to me to be absolutely right, said he.

But only if wisdom can be taught, Clinias, I said, and does not come to [c] men of its own accord. This point still remains for us to investigate and is not yet settled between you and me.

As far as I am concerned, Socrates, he said, I think it can be taught.

I was pleased and said, I like the way you talk, my fine fellow, and you have done me a good turn by relieving me of a long investigation of this very point, whether or not wisdom can be taught. Now then, since you believe both that it can be taught and that it is the only existing thing which makes a man happy and fortunate, surely you would agree that it [d] is necessary to love wisdom and you mean to do this yourself.

This is just what I mean to do, Socrates, as well as ever I can.

When I heard this I was delighted and said, There, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, is my example of what I want a hortatory argument to be, though amateurish, perhaps, and expressed at length and with some difficulty. Now let either of you who wishes give us a demonstration of the same thing in a professional manner. Or if you do not wish to do that, [e] then start where I left off and show the boy what follows next: whether he ought to acquire every sort of knowledge, or whether there is one sort that he ought to get in order to be a happy man and a good one, and what it is. As I said in the beginning, it is of great importance to us that this young man should become wise and good.

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This is what I said, Crito, and I paid particular attention to what should come next and watched to see just how they would pick up the argument and where they would start persuading the young man to practice wisdom and virtue. The elder of the two, Dionysodorus, took up the argument first and we all gazed at him in expectation of hearing some wonderful words immediately. And this is just what happened, since the man began [b] an argument which was certainly wonderful, in a way, Crito, and worth your while to hear, since it was an incitement to virtue.

Tell me, Socrates, he said, and all you others who say you want this young man to become wise—are you saying this as a joke or do you want it truly and in earnest?

This gave me the idea that they must have thought we were joking earlier when we asked them to talk to the boy, and that this was why they [c] made a joke of it and failed to take it seriously. When this idea occurred to me, I insisted all the more that we were in dead earnest.

And Dionysodorus said, Well, take care, Socrates, that you don’t find yourself denying these words.

I have given thought to the matter, I said, and I shall never come to deny them.

Well then, he said, you say you want him to become wise?

Very much so.

And at the present moment, he said, is Clinias wise or not?

He says he is not yet, at least—he is a modest person, I said.

[d] But you people wish him to become wise, he said, and not to be ignorant?

We agreed.

Therefore, you wish him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he is now?

When I heard this I was thrown into confusion, and he broke in upon me while I was in this state and said, Then since you wish him no longer to be what he is now, you apparently wish for nothing else but his death. Such friends and lovers must be worth a lot who desire above all things that their beloved should utterly perish!

[e] When Ctesippus heard this he became angry on his favorite’s account and said, Thurian stranger, if it were not a rather rude remark, I would say “perish yourself” for taking it into your head to tell such a lie about me and the rest, which I think is a wicked thing to say—that I could wish this person to die!

Why Ctesippus, said Euthydemus, do you think it possible to tell lies?

Good heavens yes, he said, I should be raving if I didn’t.

When one speaks the thing one is talking about, or when one does not speak it?

When one speaks it, he said.
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So that if he speaks this thing, he speaks no other one of things that are except the very one he speaks?

Of course, said Ctesippus.

And the thing he speaks is one of those that are, distinct from the rest?

Certainly.

Then the person speaking that thing speaks what is, he said.

Yes.

But surely the person who speaks what is and things that are speaks the truth—so that Dionysodorus, if he speaks things that are, speaks the truth and tells no lies about you.

Yes, said Ctesippus, but a person who speaks these things, Euthydemus, [b] does not speak things that are.

And Euthydemus said, But the things that are not surely do not exist, do they?

No, they do not exist.

Then there is nowhere that the things that are not are?

Nowhere.

Then there is no possibility that any person whatsoever could do anything to the things that are not so as to make them be
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when they are nowhere?

It seems unlikely to me, said Ctesippus.

Well then, when the orators speak to the people, do they do nothing?

No, they do something, he said.

Then if they do something, they also make something? [c]

Yes.

Speaking, then, is doing and making?

He agreed.

Then nobody speaks things that are not, since he would then be making something, and you have admitted that no one is capable of making something that is not. So according to your own statement, nobody tells lies; but if Dionysodorus really does speak, he speaks the truth and things that are.

Yes indeed, Euthydemus, said Ctesippus, but he speaks things that are only in a certain way and not as really is the case.

What do you mean, Ctesippus? said Dionysodorus. Are there some [d] persons who speak of things as they are?

There certainly are, he said—gentlemen and those who speak the truth.

Now then, he said, are not good things well and bad things ill?

He agreed.

And you admit that gentlemen speak of things as they are?

Yes, I do.

Then good men speak ill of bad things, Ctesippus, if they do in fact speak of them as they are.

They certainly do, he said—at any rate they speak ill of bad men. If you [e] take my advice you will take care not to be one of them in case the good speak ill of
you
. For rest assured that the good speak ill of the bad.

And do they speak greatly of the great and hotly of the hot? asked Euthydemus.

Very much so, said Ctesippus, and what is more, they speak coldly of persons who argue in a frigid fashion.

You, Ctesippus, said Dionysodorus, are being abusive, very abusive indeed.

I am certainly doing no such thing, Dionysodorus, he said, since I like you, I am merely giving you a piece of friendly advice and endeavouring
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to persuade you never to say, so rudely and to my face, that I want my most cherished friends to die.

Since they seemed to be getting pretty rough with each other, I started to joke with Ctesippus and said, Ctesippus, I think we ought to accept what the strangers tell us, if they are willing to be generous, and not to quarrel over a word. If they really know how to destroy men so as to make good and sensible people out of bad and stupid ones, and the two [b] of them have either found out for themselves or learned from someone else a kind of ruin or destruction by which they do away with a bad man and render him good, if, as I say, they know how to do this—well, they clearly do, since they specifically claimed that the art they had recently discovered was that of making good men out of bad ones—then let us concede them the point and permit them to destroy the boy for us and make him wise—and do the same to the rest of us as well. And if you [c] young men are afraid, let them “try it on the Carian,”
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as they say, and I will be the victim. Being elderly, I am ready to run the risk, and I surrender myself to Dionysodorus here just as I might to Medea of Colchis.
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Let him destroy me, or if he likes, boil me, or do whatever else he wants, but he must make me good.

And Ctesippus said, I too, Socrates, am ready to hand myself over to the visitors; and I give them permission to skin me even more thoroughly than they are doing now so long as my hide will in the end become not [d] a wineskin (which is what happened to Marsyas),
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but a piece of virtue. And yet Dionysodorus here thinks I am cross with him. It’s not that I’m cross—I’m simply contradicting the things he said which I find objectionable. So, my fine Dionysodorus, don’t call contradiction abuse—abuse is something quite different.

And Dionysodorus answered, Are you making your speech on the assumption that there exists such a thing as contradiction, Ctesippus?

I certainly am, he said, decidedly so. And do you think there is none, Dionysodorus? [e]

Well you, at any rate, could not prove that you have ever heard one person contradicting another.

Do you really mean that? he answered. Well then, just listen to Ctesippus contradicting Dionysodorus, if you want to hear my proof.
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And do you undertake to back that up?

I certainly do, he said.

Well then, he went on, are there words to describe each thing that exists?

Certainly.

And do they describe it as it is or as it is not?

As it is.

Now if you remember, Ctesippus, he said, we showed a moment ago
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that no one speaks of things as they are not, since it appeared that no one speaks what does not exist.

Well, what about it? said Ctesippus. Are you and I contradicting each other any the less?

Now would we be contradicting, he said, if we were both to speak the
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description of the same thing? I suppose we would be saying the same things in that case.

He agreed.

But when neither of us speaks the description of the thing, would we [b] be contradicting then? Or wouldn’t it be the case that neither of us had the thing in mind at all?

He agreed to this too.

But when I speak the description of the thing whereas you speak another description of another thing, do we contradict then? Or is it the case that I speak it but that you speak nothing at all? And how would a person who does not speak contradict one who does?

Ctesippus fell silent at this, but I was astonished at the argument and said, How do you mean, Dionysodorus? The fact is that I have heard this [c] particular argument from many persons and at many times, and it never ceases to amaze me. The followers of Protagoras made considerable use of it, and so did some still earlier. It always seems to me to have a wonderful way of upsetting not just other arguments, but itself as well. But I think I shall learn the truth about it better from you than from anyone else. The argument amounts to claiming that there is no such thing as false speaking, doesn’t it? And the person speaking must either speak the truth or else not speak?

He agreed.

[d] Now would you say it was impossible to speak what is false, but possible to think it?

No, thinking it is not possible either, he said.

Then there is absolutely no such thing as false opinion, I said.

There is not, he said.

Then is there no ignorance, nor are there any ignorant men? Or isn’t this just what ignorance would be, if there should be any—to speak falsely about things?

It certainly would, he said.

And yet there is no such thing, I said.

He said there was not.

Are you making this statement just for the sake of argument, Dionysodorus—to say something startling—or do you honestly believe that there is no such thing as an ignorant man?

[e] Your business is to refute me, he said.

Well, but is there such a thing as refutation if one accepts your thesis that nobody speaks falsely?

No, there is not, said Euthydemus.

Then it can’t be that Dionysodorus ordered me to refute him just now, can it? I said.

How would anyone order a thing which doesn’t exist? Are you in the habit of giving such orders?

The reason I’ve raised the point, Euthydemus, is that I’m rather thickwitted and don’t understand these fine clever things. And perhaps I’m about to ask a rather stupid question, but bear with me. Look at it this way: if
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it is impossible to speak falsely, or to think falsely, or to be ignorant, then there is no possibility of making a mistake when a man does anything? I mean that it is impossible for a man to be mistaken in his actions—or isn’t this what you are saying?

Certainly it is, he said.

This is just where my stupid question comes in, I said. If no one of us makes mistakes either in action or in speech or in thought—if this really is the case—what in heaven’s name do you two come here to teach? Or [b] didn’t you say just now that if anyone wanted to learn virtue, you would impart it best?

Really, Socrates, said Dionysodorus, interrupting, are you such an old Cronus
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as to bring up now what we said in the beginning? I suppose if I said something last year, you will bring that up now and still be helpless in dealing with the present argument.