Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Talks With Athenian Youths: Translations From the Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Euthydemus, and Theaetetus of Plato
The application of this apparently simple rule was fraught with peculiar difficulties in a period of transition such as that in which the mission of Socrates was begun. Old schools of philosophy had lost their power and vitality, while the new conceptions destined to lay the foundations of modern phi losophy were as yet in process of evolution. Meanwhile the field temporarily left vacant was occupied by eristics, or masters in the art of word-fighting.2 Then indeed with truth might men be called slaves of their words.8 It needed only that a proposition should be boldly enunciated by some teacher of wisdom, for it to become straightway an axiom and the more unintelligible was its meaning, appar ently the more readily was it adopted. For logic, as yet an unknown study, had not taught men to see through verbal fallacies and consider each proposition in its exact meaning, not tricked out with empty words. 4 Failing to distinguish between forms of thought and forms of expression, they regarded the two as identical and interchangeable, while their unfamiliarity with abstract ideas constantly led them to confuse the abstract with the concrete.
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