[9] Plato, Menon, pp. 82-85.
Wherein this contrast does not consist.
In the dialogue Euthydêmus, then, one main purpose of Plato is to exhibit in contrast two distinct modes of questioning: one practised by Euthydemus and Dionysodorus; the other, by Sokrates. Of these two, it is the first which is shown up in the most copious and elaborate manner: the second is made subordinate, serving mainly as a standard of comparison with the first. We must take care however to understand in what the contrast between the two consists, and in what it does not consist.
The contrast does not consist in this — that Sokrates so contrives his string of questions as to bring out some established and positive conclusion, while Euthydemus and his brother leave everything in perplexity. Such is not the fact. Sokrates ends without any result, and with a confession of his inability to find any. Professing earnest anxiety to stimulate Kleinias in the path of virtue, he is at the same time unable to define what the capital condition of virtue is.[10] On this point, then, there is no contrast between Sokrates and his competitors: if they land their pupil in embarrassment, so does he. Nor, again, does Sokrates stand distinguished from them by affirming (or rather implying in his questions) nothing but what is true and indisputable.[11]
[10] Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 291 A — 293 A; Plat. Kleitophon, pp. 409-410.
[11] See Plat. Euthydêm. p. 281 C-D, where undoubtedly the positions laid down by Sokrates would not have passed without contradiction by an opponent.
The real contrast between the competitors, consists, first in the pretensions — next in the method. The two Sophists are described as persons of exorbitant arrogance, professing to teach virtue,[12] and claiming a fee as if they did teach it: Sokrates disdains the fee, doubts whether such teaching is possible, and professes only to encourage or help forward on the road a willing pupil. The pupil in this case is a given subject, Kleinias, a modest and intelligent youth: and the whole scene passes in public before an indiscriminate audience. To such a pupil, what is needed is, encouragement and guidance. Both of these are really administered by the questions of Sokrates, which are all suggestive and pertinent to the matter in hand, though failing to reach a satisfactory result: moreover, Sokrates attends only to Kleinias, and is indifferent to the effect on the audience around. The two Sophists, on the contrary, do not say a word pertinent to the object desired. Far from seeking (as they promised) to encourage Kleinias,[13] they confuse and humiliate him from the beginning: all their implements for teaching consist only of logical puzzles; lastly, their main purpose is to elicit applause from the by-standers, by reducing both the modest Kleinias and every other respondent to contradiction and stand-still.
[12] Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 273 D, 275 A, 304 B.
[13] Plat. Euthyd. p. 278 C. ἐφάτην γὰρ ἐπιδείξασθαι τὴν προτρεπτικὴν σοφίαν.