‘Learning’ and Learning at Euthydemus 275d–278d

ABSTRACT

Early in Plato’s Euthydemus, sophistical arguments threaten the intelligibility of the process of learning. According to M. M. McCabe, Socrates resists the sophists’ arguments by resisting their problematic replacement model of change. The replacement model proposes that one item (e.g., an unlearned one) is simply replaced with a nonidentical item (e.g., a learned one). Socrates is said to endorse a rival metaphysics of temporally extended, teleologically structured activities. The rival model allows an enduring subject to survive ‘aspect changes’ by occupying distinct stages in a continuous, unified process. McCabe may be right that Socrates presupposes or favors a metaphysics of continuous, end-oriented activities. If so, there are independent reasons to strive to understand the teleological structure of the activity of learning. Nevertheless, I am not convinced that Socrates relies on such a metaphysics to resist the learning arguments at 275d—278d. I argue that Socrates appeals, instead, to the complexity of the learning process to recognize two distinct, yet related, uses of the term ‘learning.’ In order to resist the sophists’ arguments, Socrates recommends attending to ‘the correctness of names’. Socrates’s disambiguating response is sufficient to dissolve the sophistical arguments while remaining compatible with a variety of metaphysics of individuals and activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Plato
• Euthydemus
• learning
• language
• aspect
• teleology

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 See Jones and Sharma [2021], who deny that the sophists operate with substantive metaphysical or logical commitments.

2 McCabe’s [ibid.: 139] translation, with minor revisions.

3 McCabe [ibid.: 135] understands the sophistical arguments in the Euthydemus more broadly to trade on a conception of language and things said (logoi) according to which each logos is fully determined by the one and only one object (pragma) to which it exclusively belongs, where a pragma might be an individual, activity, or state of affairs. In addition, ‘the logos, like its pragma is taken to resist disaggregation; the correspondence is one-to-one as a whole, or not at all’ [ibid.: 135]. Socrates resists the sophists’ arguments, according to McCabe, by recognizing that non-equivocal complexity at the level of logos can correspond to a single, yet complex pragma at the level of metaphysics.

4 See Denyer [2021] for the view that grammatical aspect difference is a type of ambiguity. Although McCabe defends the view that grammatical aspect sensitivity is not equivocal and that different aspects coordinate around a single pragma, she also takes the sophistic arguments to show that aspect differences behave as ambiguities, so that ‘in some sense Socrates’ response to the sophists disambiguates’ [McCabe 2021: 140].

5 Socrates is most of all encouraging his audience to come to realize that wisdom is (the only) good in itself and is necessary for happiness (280–2).

6 And pace Kürbis [2021].

7 There is, of course, a lot more to be said and to worry over here. An atomistic, replacement model of change faces serious questions all by itself and in the context of the sophists’ efforts. Under what conditions, if any, are many distinct stages or episodes sufficiently associated to constitute a well-individuated process? Can Cleinias be regarded as a complex whole with nonidentical parts, some of which know and some of which do not? If there is an expectation of coherence and consistency in the sophists’ various commitments across the dialogue’s various episodes, there could be trouble. In the third sophistic episode, the sophists appear to deny even a replacement model of learning. There Socrates’ knowing only some things or knowing only at some times is deemed incompatible with his not knowing other things or not knowing at other times (293b–296d).

8 It should be acknowledged that McCabe sometimes draws on the dialectic of the dialogue as a whole, and not simply on Socrates’ response to the learning arguments, to defend her proposal about his metaphysics of learning. In addition, McCabe cites parallels in the activities of learning and saying to motivate her conclusions about both. A fuller treatment of her views of Socratic learning would, then, take on these broader considerations. But perhaps this paper’s limited treatment is sufficient to suggest a more restricted view of the parallels between Socrates’ treatment of learning and his treatment of saying.

9 Aristotle’s teleology of activities and processes is more explicitly developed than Plato’s, even if it leads to controversies in interpretation. But Plato has quite a bit to suggest about such matters across his corpus. Even restricting discussion to Plato’s Euthydemus leaves a host of rich examples of craft activities, including claims about their proper ends and success conditions. We learn, for example, that expertise in making a lyre and using a lyre are distinct, and that some activities aim at capture (e.g., hunting and fishing) or discovery (e.g., geometry and astronomy), while others aim at correctly using what is captured (e.g., cooking) or discovered (e.g., dialectic) (289c–290c). The Euthydemus also contains provocative proposals about the role of knowledge in such activities (e.g., knowledge would never err (280a7), knowledge brings good fortune and well-doing in possession and action (281a–b), knowledge of production and knowledge of how to use a product can be combined to produce happiness (289a–c)).