Throughout the ups and downs of Athenian empire and throughout the ups and downs of Alcibiades’ career, Socrates kept on doing what he had been doing before the expedition to Sicily. From about 410 on, Plato and Xenophon were among the company of young men who followed Socrates about, and who best memorialized his work. Plato’s dialogue Euthydemus is set around 407,[1] and shows us Socrates’ interest in the education of the young. Socrates recounts to his rich friend Crito an encounter the previous day in the Lyceum, the gymnasium on the east side of Athens. While he was visiting with Clinias, a young cousin of Alcibiades, two sophists from Chios, Euthydemus and his brother Dionysodorus, with a retinue of followers, approached. They have a reputation for teaching fighting in armor—the martial art discussed in the Laches—and also for teaching oratory. But the skill they offered to display to Socrates and Clinias was “eristic,” the art of refuting an opponent by questioning. This “art” looks at first glance similar to Socrates’ art of elenchus or cross-examination.
Socrates invites the visiting sophists to “persuade this young man [Clinias] to pursue wisdom and care about virtue.”[2] For his family and friends are concerned about his character and want him to become a good man. So Clinias becomes the guinea pig of the demonstration. Dionysodorus whispers to Socrates that whatever answers the boy gives, he will be refuted. Euthydemus asks Clinias whether in being taught it is the wise or the ignorant who learn; he answers, the wise. Euthydemus goes on to point out that those who learn do not yet have knowledge; he forces Clinias to acknowledge that those who learn are not the wise but the ignorant. The followers of the sophists applaud the refutation. Then Dionysodorus takes up the argument and gets Clinias to say that those who learn to copy dictation correctly are wise. Then Euthydemus gets him to say that learners learn what they don’t know. But if he takes dictation, he writes down letters, which he already knows; thus he learns what he knows.
At this point Socrates intervenes. He points out to Clinias that ‘learn’ is ambiguous, and the sophists are playing on the two senses. He generously explains that they are trying to educate Clinias to understand these subtleties. But, he notes, the sophists have not yet done what Socrates asked, to persuade the boy to desire wisdom and virtue. Here Socrates offers an example of what he has in mind.
“Don’t all people wish to do well?” he asks. But that is a stupid question. “What person, after all, wouldn’t wish to do well?” “No one,” answers Clinias.[3] How can we do well? Isn’t it by acquiring lots of good things? Clinias agrees. What kinds of things would these be? Isn’t it obvious that we need wealth? Of course. And health and beauty and other physical advantages? Yes. What about noble birth, power, and recognition? Yes. What about being temperate, just, and brave? Those too are goods. “And wisdom? Where will we locate that? Among the goods, or what do you say?” “Among the goods.”
Consider, Socrates continues, whether we left anything out of our list of goods. Clinias can’t think of anything. “But I thought of something and said, ‘Good heavens, we have almost left out the greatest good of all.’” “What is that?” “Good luck, Clinias! This is what everyone, even the dimmest, says is the greatest of all goods.”[4]
But then Socrates changes his mind. “We have,” he observes, “almost made fools of ourselves in front of these visitors, you and I, son of Axiochus.” “How so?” answers Clinias. “Because although we have already counted good luck in our list, we are now repeating it.” How can that be? “Wisdom, of course, is good luck.” Clinias is surprised at this claim. Don’t pipers, Socrates points out, have the best luck playing their pipes, and reading teachers the best luck in reading and writing, and trained helmsmen the best luck in navigating ships? Wouldn’t you rather go on campaign with an experienced than an inexperienced commander? If you were sick, wouldn’t you rather take your chances being treated by a trained rather than an ignorant doctor?
In summary, “Wisdom in every case makes people lucky. For wisdom would not, I suppose, ever err, but it must act correctly and attain its ends. Otherwise, it would just not be wisdom.”[5] The Greek word for ‘attain its ends,’ tunchanein is a cognate of the word for luck, tuchē and the word for good luck, eutuchia. Socrates draws on his Craft Analogy: the trained craftsman has a reliable method of attaining his ends. His achievement is the result of wisdom and skill, not chance or luck, with the implication of randomness. Socrates has started with a very conventional list of objectives, latched on to a key component, and reinterpreted it in a way that is not at all conventional. Indeed, the missing ingredient in the list is not really good luck, for good luck is a product of another factor that is in fact responsible for good outcomes; and that other factor is within our power, as good luck—taken as an accidental occurrence—is not. The key to doing well is not luck, chance, or fortune, but wisdom, skill or expertise.
[1].Nails 2002: 317-318.
[2].Plato Euthydemus 275a.
[3].Plato Euthydemus 278e.
[4].Plato Euthydemus 279a-c.
[5].Plato Euthydemus 279c-280a.