The two sophists pick up the conversation again, this time arguing that there is no such thing as speaking falsely.[12] When the conversation is about to get ugly, Socrates intervenes again. He takes up his conversation with Clinias where it left off. They have determined that they should seek wisdom or philosophize, which consists of gaining knowledge. But what kind of knowledge is that? Being able to find gold would not qualify because one needs to know how to use gold for good. One needs an art that involves both making and knowing how to use something correctly. The art of speech-writing doesn’t qualify because one must know how to use the speeches (a point Socrates made against Gorgias, ch. 10*). Nor does military science or hunting qualify. Finally Socrates and Clinias hit on the “royal art,” which they identify as political science.[13]
This art is superior to arts like military science because it takes charge of the people and territories conquered and rules them. It rules over the things in its domain. Medicine, for instance, rules over its domain by producing health. What then does the royal art produce? It must be something good. But they have established that there is nothing really good but a knowledge of some kind. And this kind of knowledge should make them wise and impart knowledge to them. But what knowledge? Surely not a knowledge of things that in themselves are neither good nor evil. The royal art must impart no other knowledge than itself. But now we seem to be in a vicious circle according to which the knowledge needed to be happy is the knowledge of the knowledge of . . . Socrates calls on the sophists to rescue him and Clinias from their confusion.[14]
Euthydemus and Dionysodorus take over again, but they turn to verbal tricks to prove that they know everything. They have no interest in taking up a philosophical discussion or an inspirational discourse. Socrates, on the other hand, remains vitally interested in pursuing the content of the special kind of knowledge that constitutes the royal art or, as he puts it in other dialogues, virtue. The discussion of the Charmides also explored an analysis of moral knowledge, without coming to a satisfactory conclusion (ch. 8*). There the discussion centered on questions of self-knowledge, whereas here the discussion centers on questions of applied knowledge. But it seems we need to provide some sort of content for knowledge independent of the knowledge itself. The Socratic tenet that virtue is knowledge seems to invite a further inquiry into the definition. So far the knowledge needed to make one virtuous remains mysterious and inaccessible.
One possible solution to the conundrum is that there is no such art. It may be the case, indeed, that there is no false speaking, and hence whatever anyone says is true, and consequently everyone knows everything. Yet on that account wisdom is indistinguishable from uninformed opinion and everyone is equally a genius and an idiot. Through his inquiries Socrates maintains a kind of unshakable faith in the rationality of the human quest. There is a right and a wrong. Knowledge unerringly leads us to the right, while ignorance lets us bungle our way to wrong choices. As with the crafts, the proof of the royal art becomes visible in the practical success of agents who have the requisite knowledge. But are there any such practitioners of the royal art? Is virtue teachable?
In the dialogue Euthydemus we have a vignette of Socrates in an awkward position. We see the gifted philosopher playing court to two of the most undistinguished of rivals. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus are a kind of sophistic tag-team that badger hapless interlocutors by refuting them no matter what they say. When Socrates seems to give them an opening to advertise their skills, as he praises the value of knowledge and skill (as he had for Protagoras in another dialogue), they do not even make a pretense of offering to improve Clinias. A specimen of their skills consists of their asking Ctesippus if he has a dog. Yes, he replies. Does the dog have puppies? Yes. So the dog is their father? Yes. Is the dog yours? Yes? Then, since the dog is a father and the dog is yours, the dog is your father![15] The wisdom of the two sophists seems more like a comedy routine than a seminar. And indeed the discussion several times threatens to degenerate into insults and abuse, or even a brawl.[16]
Plato frames his dialogue as Socrates’ recollection of the conversation to his friend and age-mate Crito. Crito warns Socrates that an acquaintance of Crito’s who heard the conversation thought Socrates had embarrassed himself and brought his whole practice into disrepute by flattering such hacks.[17] Crito evidently cringes for Socrates when he hears the criticism. And Plato, we suspect, would wholeheartedly agree. Socrates is never a more comic figure than when he is fawning on sophists and self-proclaimed experts. If virtue never errs, where does that leave Socrates?
[12]. Plato Euthydemus 286c ff. Here Socrates references the followers of Protagoras; Plato’s target may actually be the Socratic Antisthenes: see Eucken 1983: 52-53, Aristotle Metaphysics 1024b32-34.
[13].Plato Euthydemus 288d-291c; compare Protagoras 319a.
[14].Plato Euthydemus 291c-293a.
[15].Plato Euthydemus 298d-e.
[16].Plato Euthydemus 284d-285e; 288b; 299a.
[17].Plato Euthydemus 304d-305b.