Socrates Knows All Things Always (E10) (295 A 10-206 D 4)

Answer

, [Euthydemus] said.

Ask

, and I will answer

Are you, Socrates, he said, a knower of something or not?

I am.

Then do you know with that by which

you are a knower or by something else

?

With that by which I am a knower. For I assume you mean the soul

. Or don't you mean this?

Aren't you ashamed, Socrates? he said. When you are asked a question, do you counter with a question?
     (295 A 10-B 6)

All the components of this magnificent satire, this grand inversion of dialectic, are in place once the first two lines establish the roles of the speakers. Euthydemus will be the questioner , Socrates the responder , and eristic, that technique of argument which can purge the conceit of knowledge from a boastful interlocutor, is about to become the instrument by which Euthydemus will demonstrate that Socrates, despite his persistent failure to respond correctly, not only knows all things but knows them always. What is Socrates to do when the very person who is exercising the eristic art is precisely the one most in need of undergoing the purifying benefits of the elenchus?

Euthydemus' first question reveals the link between (E9) and (E10): neither argument can get off the ground unless Socrates is a knower of something. Then, for the second stage of (El0), the sophist asks: "Do you know with that by which you are a knower or by something else ?" As he did in (E9), Euthydemus has dropped the object of knowledge and retained the knower, but he has also added a crucial new element, the "by which" we know. But what is the nature of this "by which"? Is it the "instrument" by which we know, so that the "by something else" refers to something other than that instrument? To say the least, Euthydemus' question is open to interpretation because he does not specify the character of the "by which"; consequently, the "something else" must remain equally obscure. Even by eristic standards this question is not up to par.^[25] But Socrates does have a partial grasp of his meaning and so opts for the first alternative, the "by which" he knows, and then adds: "For I assume you mean the soul . Or don't you mean this?" Euthydemus' question, then, which has directed Socrates' attention to the instrument by which he knows, has caused him to recollect the soul, but when he asks the sophist whether this is what he means, whether he is in fact inquiring about the soul, Euthydemus immediately quashes the counterquestion by implicating him in the shameful act of asking the questioner a question.^[26] No sooner does the eristic hear that dreaded word "soul" than he accuses Socrates of a procedural miscue, as if his only objection were to the inappropriateness of the question itself and not to the content.

Here a critic unsympathetic to eristic might want to say: "Euthydemus is a fine one to talk about shame." But if we remember to attend to the sophists perspective, we can see the basis of his objection. Euthydemus has just established that he is the questioner and Socrates the answerer, yet after only the second question Socrates has failed miserably to perform his role in the game. In the sophist's view, then, this failure is just another example of ignorance of argument, for which Socrates, if he had any sense of (eristic) shame at all, should blush or fall silent.^[27] But it is worth noting why Euthydemus takes refuge behind a procedural foul at precisely this moment. Our analysis of the second eristic has shown that the brothers fall back upon the "procedures" or "rules" of argument whenever they perceive some real threat to their position as masters of the game.^[28] Therefore, we can conclude that this flight behind rules is just another eristical dodge employed ad hoc in order to avoid that awful word soul , which causes dread and anger in all eristics.^[29] But not ashamed of his counter-question, Socrates even goes on to ask the master eristician for instruction on how he is supposed to behave in argument, an unexpected turn of events that interrupts the second stage of (El0) and ushers in a brief excursus on the proper method of questioning and answering:

Fine, I said, but what should I do? For I'll do as you bid. When I don't know what you are asking, do you bid me to answer anyway and not to question you in return?

Yes I do, he said, for I'm sure you understand

what I'm saying in some sense, don't you?

Yes I do.

Well then, respond to the sense in which you understand it.

But what if you put your question, intending it in one way (

), and I take it in another

and then I respond to this: are you satisfied if I don't respond to the point at issue?

Yes I am, he said, but, I suspect, you're not.

Well then, by god, I'm just not going to respond, until I inquire.

You're not going to respond, he said, to what you understand on each occasion

, because you continually talk drivel

and are more antiquated

than is called for.
     (295 B 7-C 11)

From the beginning, it has been the brothers' strategy to construct an artificial environment of words such that nothing can refer outside or penetrate within the context of their own devising. But just now Socrates has released the soul within that narrow enclosure, and so Euthydemus had to react quickly to contain the damage. But the trick he has used for this purpose, the suppression of the counterquestion, reveals something quite perverse about eristic. It is normal to think of dogmatists as people who have answers to the perplexing questions of existence, and it may be correct to do so. But here Plato is examining another side of dogmatism, caused not by having the answers, but by possessing the questions. Through controlling what can and cannot be asked, our two tyrants of discourse try to determine what answers are possible just as dogmatically as any despot who demands the party line from his followers.

If questioning the questioner is verboten , what is Socrates to do? For he swears that he'll do as he is told. Euthydemus instructs him to answer to what he understands to be the sense of each question. In effect, the sophist actually wants Socrates to respond on the basis of only a partial grasp of his questions; that is, he wants Socrates to be between the poles of ignorance and knowledge, without a full grasp of the real import of what is being asked. Otherwise, Euthydemus couldn't engineer and so exploit that "misunderstanding" between their minds which allows him to manufacture refutations. On the other hand, Socrates views his counterquestion as a way of minimizing the gap between his mind and the other. Assuming that he is supposed to follow in the tracks of the that the questioner is establishing, he wants to be certain of the "way " Euthydemus intends his questioning, so that he can respond on the basis of that understanding. Such clarity, on the procedural level at least, can produce satisfactory answers that are directed to the point at issue. But when Euthydemus frankly acknowledges that he is satisfied with miscommunication, Socrates for the first time in this dialogue digs in his heels and refuses to answer until he is permitted to inquire. But, as is to be expected, our wizard of wrangling has the antidote for recalcitrance: verbal abuse. Poor Socrates! In his folly he keeps on debating how the ceremony of questioning and answering is to be conducted. He just can't seem to grasp that the eristic masters have themselves already established the "way" and, what is more, the eristic clique is present with its rowdy voice to enforce that method. Not the

method but the display of the method is under review, and by his exegetical remarks on procedures Socrates continues to produce, as Euthydemus so delicately puts it, the endless twaddle of an old duffer.^[30]

Momentarily we shall consider why Socrates must knuckle under to this latest demand to answer in accord with what he understands on each occasion. But first we should try to imagine what would happen to philosophy if its practitioners, either deliberately through guile or inadvertently through lack of ability, should repeatedly send other minds down a path that is different from the one they travel. What, in short, would philosophy resemble, if misunderstanding were to become a central feature of the systematic application of its method? The brothers have already given us a vivid picture of such an illogical world, but from this moment on the whole situation is irrevocably altered. For Euthydemus has finally instructed those "other minds" on the eristic rule that governs the answers of the responder; hence, Socrates and Ktesippus can now take full advantage of it for their own purposes. By way of anticipating the results, Plato will allow misunderstanding to increase to such a degree, especially in the answering antics of Ktesippus, that eristic will finally attain its in comic logomachy. In this way Plato reduces eristic quite literally to absurdity by revealing it as a star instance of the ridiculous , a species of the ugly .

I noticed he was angry with me for poking holes in his argumentation, because he wanted to trap me in a net of words and then hunt me down. Then I recollected that Connus too became angry with me every time I refused to yield to him, and thereafter he paid less attention to me on the assumption that I was ignorant. And so, since I had intended to study with him, I thought I should yield, lest he might consider me retarded and so not accept me as a pupil. So I said: Well, if you think I should act in this way, Euthydemus, then I must do so. For there is no doubt, I'm sure, that you know how to discourse better than I do, since my art of conversation is that of the ordinary man.
     (295 D 1-E 3)

Socrates' psychological penetration into Euthydemus' anger and frustration, coupled with his own recollection of Connus, turns this event into a deeply significant scene.^[31] If we now conceive of Socrates' encounter with Euthydemus as a relationship between a teacher and a

would-be student, then we can uncover yet another dimension to this fantastic inversion of dialectic. Socrates is the ignorant student, who has come to learn what he doesn't know from the wise master, who has already acquired knowledge of eristic. In his examination to determine whether this would-be pupil is a fit subject for instruction, Euthydemus has asked a question that Socrates couldn't fully understand. But instead of being overjoyed when his student requests more information on the real meaning of his question, Euthydemus angrily berates him for driveling and being too old to learn. This harsh instruction then causes Socrates to recollect similarly unpleasant treatment from Connus, another stern teacher, who became angry with him for refusing to submit to his musical expertise; as a result, Connus paid less attention to him, on the ground that he was ignorant. Such, it seems, is the timeless plight of those who want to learn; from teacher to teacher the exasperated student gropes.

But the bizarre picture of Connus attempting to instruct someone as notoriously unmusical as Socrates should not divert our attention from the significant way in which music and eristic differ. Teachers of music can usually determine without difficulty who is musical and who is not, even before their pupils reach adolescence, so clear are the criteria for establishing, at the beginning at least, what are the proper moves in the science of music. From this fact we can observe both the wisdom of exposing Kleinias and the other children to a music teacher at the same time they learn their letters (276 A 5), and the sheer folly of an old gaffer like Socrates still trying to learn music at his advanced age (272 C). By contrast, no such exact standards exist in the art of stand-up controversy, although when it suits their purpose, the brothers try to cling to the illusion that the rules are clear even when it is obvious that they are making them up as they go along. Thus, Socrates' recollection is a superb way of establishing the incongruity between the appropriate anger felt by an expert, who teaches a quite concrete science of how to perform a specific task, and the wholly unjustified anger of a philosophaster, who must have his way in argument as if he too possessed an exact science of how to question and how to answer. But even more importantly, there is a significant respect in which both cases are not incongruous. If Socrates fails to keep pace with the way these moderns are doing philosophy, then he may, in fact, face the frightening prospect of being expelled from school. And irony aside, this is a serious threat. For

whether the boys are learning the new music of Connus or the new ars rixandi of these neoterics, Socrates must be present to shield unsuspecting youth from being stalked by these paid hunters of the attractive sons of wealthy Athenian parents.^[32] So, brushing aside Euthydemus' insults and cheerfully yielding to the demand to answer on the basis of his partial understanding, Socrates urges Euthydemus to renew the :

So ask

again from the beginning.

Then answer

again, he said: Do you know by something

what you know or not?

Yes, I said, by the soul

.

Again he has answered more

than is asked. For I'm not asking by what

, but whether you know by something

.

I answered with more than was called for under the influence of my poor education. So please excuse me. For now I'll answer simply that I know by something what I know.
     (295 E 3-296 A 5)

The transition from the excursus back to the second stage of (E10) is effected by the reassignment of roles: Euthydemus will question, Socrates will answer. In his new beginning the sophist tries to overcome the inadequacy of his earlier question by asking one which calls for a simple yes or no answer, or so he thinks. But to his surprise, his muddleheaded student, though this time without asking a question, replies with the substance of his earlier remark: "Yes, by the soul." Again, with only a partial grasp of his teacher's question, and foolishly answering to what he assumes to be the point at issue, Socrates has dared to give the question a content, a meaning, a reality. In fact, he has dared to give it the very same meaning that prompted the excursus in the first place. So we may suspect that Euthydemus should have shown more care in his selection of students, and that he must now qualify his original boast, "to teach anyone who is willing to learn," by excluding dim-witted boobies like Socrates. But most careful not to reveal that he is offended by the hideous word soul , Euthydemus again objects on a procedural level, although this time he censures the miscue of "answering more than is asked"; for, as he goes on to explain: "I'm not asking by what , but if you know by something. " Now it is not enough for Socrates to respond in accord with what he under-

stands on each occasion; he must also guard against answering more than is asked. But what, pray tell, constitutes "more"? In this case, the answer is obvious. The soul, the very entity that allows us to bridge the eristic antinomy between learning and knowing, between ignorance and wisdom, is again forced out of (E10) by this concept albino who cannot permit the "by which" to assume a content. Otherwise, he might have to treat his interlocutor as a living, breathing human being and not as an object that he can capture in a net of words and beat senseless with the . But for his part, Socrates graciously complies with this latest demand of his stern taskmaster.

[Do you know, he said] by this same thing always (

), or are there times when by this

, and other times by something else

?

Always, whenever I know

, by this.

Won't you please, he said, put a halt to your superfluous speech

?

But I'm afraid this word always may cause us to stumble.

Certainly not us, he said, but if anyone, you. So continue to answer. Do you know always by this?

Always, I said, since I'm required to remove

the "whenever."

Very well then, you know always by this (

), and since you always know

, do you know . . .
     (296 A 5-B 4)

The third stage of (E10) is a graphic example of deviousness. With his opening disjunctive question, Euthydemus attempts to create the illusion that he is continuing in his meticulous manner to probe the character of the instrument by which we know. Having forced Socrates to agree to know "by something," he now appears to be asking whether that something is one, self-same instrument, or two or more instruments; that is, whether there is or is not an identity to that instrument on every occasion of our knowing. Since Socrates has already admitted that he knows "by the soul," it would seem that he must select the first alternative. But it has not escaped his attention that Euthydemus has also injected the temporal indicator "always" into the question. And so, after several disruptions the sophist has finally returned to the key item that originally provided the occasion for this dispute (294 E 6-11).

Earlier Socrates had asked the brothers: "Do you know all things only now or always ?" When Dionysodorus affirmed "always," Socrates removed any ambiguity surrounding this term by submitting two occasions that must be covered: the moment of birth, and when they were children. He thus made it perfectly clear that by "always" he intended an unqualified reference to time in direct contrast to that single moment expressed by "now." Consequently, if Euthydemus is going to attain the thesis of (E10), he must prove that Socrates' omniscience holds for this sense of "always," for absolutely all times. But when the sophist injects the term "always" into this combination of words, he slyly alters the sense of the earlier antithesis; he replaces "now," which Socrates used to oppose "always," with , which signifies, not one discrete moment in time, but now one occasion, and now another;^[33] and instead of using "always" to refer to all times, he so constructs the context that here the word must refer to "each and every occasion" of our knowing. Why he has done so will become clear momentarily, but for now we must see that, in the mind of the sophist at least, his question is perfectly set for the simple, unadorned answer, "always by this."

This sample of eristic legerdemain is most instructive for revealing a feature of Euthydemus' method. He is fully aware that he is not going to trick Socrates into admitting baldly, "I always know." So he tries to slide indirectly to this goal by leading his opponent to agree first to "[I know] always by this." To this end, he takes the term , which has at least two lexical meanings, and, without specifying which meaning he intends (for that would prevent him from exploiting the equivocation), he cleverly juxtaposes alongside other terms, which then force it to assume the meaning he wants through its relation to those other terms. But Socrates immediately detects this attempt at beguilement and so comes back with the rib-tickler: "Always, whenever I know, by this." With this response, not only does he quite literally separate the items Euthydemus wants to unite, but he also specifies without ambiguity that "always" covers each and every occasion of his acts of knowing. Thus, denied the simple, unqualified answer "always by this," Euthydemus must again resort to complaining about the sheer inappropriateness of Socrates' superfluous speech.

With the introduction of the word , we confront the kind of difficulty that will continue to challenge anyone who tries to convey the sense of this dialogue into another language. For ex-

ample, a recent translator has rendered the Greek thus: "I must ask you again, he said, not to qualify your answers."^[34] Supported in this rendering by no less of an authority than Liddell-Scott-Jones, he has not translated, but interpreted it. To Socrates, the "whenever I know" is indeed a qualification, but only misunderstanding of this passage could lead anyone to fancy that Euthydemus would grant the exalted status of a "qualification" to his opponent's superfluous speech. To him, Socrates has just introduced a fortuitous and incidental remark that has no bearing on the question at hand. But what to him is just misdirected noise is to Socrates a crucial distinction without which the argument cannot assume force and meaning. Here the two forms of speech, eristic and dialectic, diverge in a most illuminating way. Euthydemus asked a question, intending it in one way, and Socrates took it in another and answered to what he understood to be the point at issue: the result, a misunderstanding that is both a gag on the sophist and a sine qua non of the argument.

The divergence continues. Socrates defends his qualification by expressing the fear that "this word always may cause us to stumble." But this piece of Socratic nonsense forces Euthydemus to correct him: "Certainly not us, but if anyone, you." Poor Socrates! He is still assuming that they are conducting a joint dialectical inquiry into the truth of a question that concerns both of them equally. So Euthydemus must remind the nincompoop that if he doesn't learn how to perform his role in the elenchus pretty soon, he'll self-destruct again. Then, as he did before, the sophist reshapes the failed question into one that demands a simple "yes" answer: "Do you know always by this?" "Always," responds Socrates, eager to obey, and then he goes on to announce that he is removing the offending word "whenever."^[35] So at last Euthydemus can state the conclusion that he wants in this unadorned way: "You know always by this ."^[36] But in the very process of shifting to the fourth stage of (E10), this slippery snake finally reveals why he has been toying with the word "always." Prefacing his trigger question with a subordinate clause (), from which he has subtracted the instrument of knowing , Euthydemus smoothly links "always" and "knowing" without any intervening qualifications. By shifting from "always by this" to "always knowing," Euthydemus has shrewdly drifted to the unqualified reference to time everlasting that he needs in order to attain the first half of his thesis. The game continues:

Very well then, you know always by this, and since you always know, do you know some things with this by which

you know and some things by something else

, or all things by this

?

All

, at least what I know

, I said, by this

.

Here it comes again, he said, the same superfluous remark

.

Well then, I said, I'll remove

the "at least what I know."

Nay, he said, don't subtract a single thing. I make no request of you. Just answer me: Could you know all

if you didn't know all things

?

That would be monstrous, I said.

Well then, go ahead now and add

what you want, he said, for you admit to know all

.

Apparently, I said, since the "what I know" has no force (

), and I know all things

.
     (296 B 3-C 7)

The fourth stage of (E10) begins by mirroring the trickery of the third. Creating the illusion that he is asking whether there is one or more than one instrument involved in every act of knowing objects, Euthydemus appears to have set a question that demands the answer: "All things by this." But Socrates breaks up this combination by adding the qualification "at least what I know," another hilarious joke on the sophist that illuminates at the same time an essential ingredient of the argument. Exasperated, all Euthydemus can do is complain: "Here it comes again, the same superfluous remark." These three qualifications, "the soul," "whenever I know," and "at least what I know," each recollected by Socrates as a result of Euthydemus' cross-questioning, each a significantly different response to what he assumes to be the point at issue, have introduced the unexpected into the rigid line of eristic questioning, and each, in turn, has been quashed by Euthydemus, and in fact must be quashed by him if he is to advance along the narrow chain of his deductions.^[37] To the sophist, each addition is just the same old addition, the same old superfluous noise that prevents him from proving Socrates' everlasting omniscience.

So to please his interlocutor, Socrates generously offers to withdraw this qualification too, but Euthydemus doesn't require him to co-

operate; the way he deals with contentious babble is to ignore it. Instead, for the third time he reformulates his unsuccessful question into one that demands a simple "yes" answer. This time sequestering both the instrument of knowing and the addition "at least what I know," he asks: "Could you know all if you didn't know all things ?" Here, it is possible that by "all" Euthydemus means "everything together" and by "all things" everything separately, so that in effect he is arguing that Socrates, who has just admitted to knowing the whole , must also know the parts ;^[38] but it is also possible that the sophist is merely making a distinction without a difference. At any rate, what is important to him at this moment is simply to place a question that guarantees an affirmative answer. Since Socrates has already used "all" to cap "all things" without any discernible difference in meaning at 296 B 5, Euthydemus can confidently use both terms to form an (empty) hypothetical question that will achieved the unqualified "yes."^[39] Once Socrates gives him that simple affirmation, Euthydemus has the agreement he wants to the fourth stage of the argument. So he triumphantly badgers his opponent with the taunt, "Go ahead now and add what you want," because Socrates is at the moment powerless to derail the conclusion with his qualifications; for, as Euthydemus adds by way of emphasis, "You admit to know all."^[40] Euthydemus' hypothetical question, then, turns out to be just another device which he has used, on this occasion, to join the act of knowing to its objects without any intervening additions, just as above he used a similar trick to link "always" and "knowing."^[41]

Socrates humbly accepts the likelihood of his omniscience and then goes on to explain how the sophist has pulled off this hoax. Through his control over the questioning, Euthydemus can determine which answers have force and which do not. Here, by ignoring the qualification "what I know," while attributing full force and meaning to the mere words "I know all things," the sophist has "apparently" attained the second half of the thesis he wants to establish.^[42]

Before continuing, we must note another feature of (E10) that demonstrates the precision with which Plato has depicted this inversion of his own method. Socrates regularly allows his interlocutors to add to or subtract from their positions before he begins the cross-examination of the , and he even permits them to shift positions in midstream, provided they do so openly. Here, in (E10), Euthydemus has grossly perverted this dialectical courtesy by suppressing

qualifications until he attains the conclusion he needs, and then, after it no longer matters, he rudely invites Socrates to add whatever he wants; and this too, while it is patently clear to us that he himself has surreptitiously subtracted the "by which" we know from stages three and four of the argument.^[43] This champion of the art of controversy has perfected the ability to wipe out distinctions that need to be made, and to unite kinds that should be kept apart.^[44]

In the fifth and final stage of (E10), Euthydemus has two objectives: First (296 C8-10) he must confirm the "truth" of what Socrates is imagined to have stated in stages three and four, namely that he "always knows" and "knows all things";^[45] and then (296 C 10-D 4) he must combine these two admissions in order to "prove" that, out of his own mouth, Socrates has agreed to the astonishing thesis that "he knows all things always." That the sophist is able to do so is probably not as interesting at this point as the quasi-religious ecstasy that he experiences in the act of pronouncing this triumph.^[46] Returning to the two examples that Socrates introduced, childhood and birth (294 E 9), Euthydemus adds to this list both the moment of Socrates' conception and the generation of heaven and earth as instances that are covered by his everlasting omniscience. Presto, the incredulity of Euthydemus' opponents is dissipated, the paradox dissolved. But there is a catch. Socrates will remain omniscient only so long as this tyrannical father of the permits it: .^[47]

It would be hasty to assume that if Socrates and therefore the rest of humanity know all things always, they would no longer require Euthydemus as their teacher, and he, in turn, would be without anything to teach. For that judgment would severely underestimate the power of this sham-science. In fact, it would be to repeat something like the kind of mistake that Crito made when interpreting Kleinias' progress under Socrates' questioning. Profundity such as Euthydemus has just demonstrated is constantly in danger of being forgotten, and so we will always need an eristician to exercise his science of questioning and answering so as to prompt our recollection of this fairest argument. In spite of recent research and the analysis here presented, there will still be those who persist in reading the Euthydemus as earlier than the Meno .^[48] For them, Plato's teaching on reminiscence cannot provide the deeper background for (E9) and (E10). Without it, however, we may only wonder what account they may offer for these pages of Plato's text. At any rate, inasmuch as there is no conclusive proof that the

Euthydemus antedates the Meno in such a way that nothing in the latter can be presupposed in the former, we have felt justified in scrupulously avoiding the attempt to control the meaning of this portion of the dialogue by clinging to a hypothesis that precludes, at the outset, the possibility of discovering what in fact we have found to be there. In this way the philosophical burlesque has been elucidated, and Plato's purpose made evident. Using the theory of recollection as the serious model from which this eristic travesty could deviate, Plato has shown how his very own teaching, which is designed to make us dogged workers and committed seekers after truth,^[49] can be warped by a philosophical mutant into an eristic that can, in turn, obliterate all the benefits made possible by anamnesis .