Socrates and the Sophists: Plato's Protagoras, Euthydemus, Hippias Major and Cratylus

“Neglected for ages by Plato scholars, the Euthydemus has in recent years attracted renewed attention. The dialogue, in which Socrates converses with two sophists whose techniques of verbal manipulation utterly disengage language from any grounding in stable meaning or reality, is in many ways a dialogue for our times. Contemporary questions of language and power permeate the speech and action of the dialogue. The two sophists - Euthydemus and his brother Dionysodorus - explicitly question whether speech has any connection to truth and specifically whether anything can be said about justice and nobility that cannot also be said about their opposites.”--Introduction.