The Weak Man and the Strong
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Socrates — ἀσθενὴς ἀνδρικὸς ἰσχυρὸν δειλὸν… δικαστήριον… τἀληθὲς μηδέτερον λέγειν.
Socrates produces Tisias's showpiece, the case that made the argument from probability famous. The scenario is deliberately paradoxical: a man who is 'weak but brave,' asthenēs kai andrikos, has beaten and robbed a man who is 'strong but cowardly,' ischyron kai deilon — the assailant physically the lesser, the victim physically the greater. The whole trick turns on this mismatch between strength and courage. Tisias's rule is that in court 'neither should state the truth,' talēthes mēdeteron legein. The cowardly victim must not admit that he, big as he is, was thrashed by one weaker man alone, for that admission of cowardice would shame and weaken him. And the brave assailant, brought to trial, should first establish that the two of them were alone (so there are no witnesses to contradict him) and then play the probability card: 'how could I, being the sort of man I am' — small, weak — 'have attacked a man like that' — big, strong? The court, reasoning from what is likely, will find it improbable that the weaker man was the aggressor, and acquit him. Plausibility, skillfully deployed, defeats the truth.
Socrates lays out Tisias's famous illustration of the probable at work. Suppose a weak but brave man, having beaten up a strong but cowardly one and stolen his cloak, is hauled into court. Tisias's clever rule: neither should tell the truth. The coward should not admit he was thrashed by the brave man alone; and the brave man should point out that the two of them were alone together, and then deploy the winning stroke — 'how could I, a man like this, have attacked a man like that?'
This little courtroom drama is the concrete heart of the whole debate about probability, and its cleverness is exactly what makes it self-destruct — which is Plato's point. Watch how the argument works and then how it comes apart. The assailant's plea rests on a general probability: weak men do not usually attack strong men, so it is unlikely this weak man did. Persuasive enough. But now notice what the prosecutor could say in reply, and what Tisias's own art must therefore also teach: the strong man could argue the reverse probability — 'precisely because I am the stronger, I would be the obvious suspect, so it would be stupid of me to attack, and therefore it is unlikely I did; whereas he, knowing that his weakness makes him seem the unlikely aggressor, was emboldened to attack for exactly that reason.' The probability can be flipped. Each side can construct an eikos-argument, and they cancel. This is the fatal flaw in making 'the probable' the master of rhetoric: probability, taken by itself, is reversible, and so determines nothing. For every 'it is unlikely that X' there is a matching 'it is unlikely that not-X' available to a clever enough speaker, and the bare appeal to likelihood cannot decide between them. So what does decide? Only knowledge of the actual case — of what really happened, of the real characters and circumstances of these particular men — could tell you which probability-story is true and which is a manufactured fit. And this is exactly the trap Socrates has been setting since the discussion of deception: to wield probability reliably, to know which likeness-to-truth will hold up and which will collapse under a skilled opponent's counter-probability, you must know the truth from which all these probabilities take their shape. Tisias's art, which claims to free the orator from truth, turns out to be helpless without it: it can generate probability-arguments, but it cannot tell you which one will win, and that requires the very knowledge it claims to make unnecessary. The showpiece meant to prove that plausibility conquers truth proves instead that plausibility, cut loose from truth, floats free and reversible, and that only the knower of truth can steer it. Plato has let the wolf make his most impressive move, and the move refutes itself.
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