The epilogue or conclusion of the Dialogue has been criticised as
inconsistent with the general scheme. Such a criticism is like similar
criticisms on Shakespeare, and proceeds upon a narrow notion of the
variety which the Dialogue, like the drama, seems to admit. Plato in the
abundance of his dramatic power has chosen to write a play upon a play,
just as he often gives us an argument within an argument. At the same
time he takes the opportunity of assailing another class of persons
who are as alien from the spirit of philosophy as Euthydemus and
Dionysodorus. The Eclectic, the Syncretist, the Doctrinaire, have been
apt to have a bad name both in ancient and modern times. The persons
whom Plato ridicules in the epilogue to the Euthydemus are of this
class. They occupy a border-ground between philosophy and politics; they
keep out of the dangers of politics, and at the same time use philosophy
as a means of serving their own interests. Plato quaintly describes them
as making two good things, philosophy and politics, a little worse by
perverting the objects of both. Men like Antiphon or Lysias would be
types of the class. Out of a regard to the respectabilities of life,
they are disposed to censure the interest which Socrates takes in the
exhibition of the two brothers. They do not understand, any more than
Crito, that he is pursuing his vocation of detecting the follies of
mankind, which he finds 'not unpleasant.' (Compare Apol.)
Education is the common subject of all Plato's earlier Dialogues. The
concluding remark of Crito, that he has a difficulty in educating his
two sons, and the advice of Socrates to him that he should not give
up philosophy because he has no faith in philosophers, seems to be a
preparation for the more peremptory declaration of the Meno that 'Virtue
cannot be taught because there are no teachers.'
The reasons for placing the Euthydemus early in the series are: (1)
the similarity in plan and style to the Protagoras, Charmides, and
Lysis;--the relation of Socrates to the Sophists is still that of
humorous antagonism, not, as in the later Dialogues of Plato, of
embittered hatred; and the places and persons have a considerable family
likeness; (2) the Euthydemus belongs to the Socratic period in which
Socrates is represented as willing to learn, but unable to teach; and
in the spirit of Xenophon's Memorabilia, philosophy is defined as 'the
knowledge which will make us happy;' (3) we seem to have passed the
stage arrived at in the Protagoras, for Socrates is no longer discussing
whether virtue can be taught--from this question he is relieved by the
ingenuous declaration of the youth Cleinias; and (4) not yet to have
reached the point at which he asserts 'that there are no teachers.' Such
grounds are precarious, as arguments from style and plan are apt to
be (Greek). But no arguments equally strong can be urged in favour of
assigning to the Euthydemus any other position in the series.
EUTHYDEMUS