Hippias Minor

Hippias Minor (or On Lying) is one of Plato's early dialogues, written while the author was still young, although the exact date has not been established.

1 Authenticity
2 Characters
3 The Dialogue: a conversation about lies
4 Criticism of the Dialogue
5 Bibliography
- 5.1 Texts
- 5.2 Commentaries

[edit] Authenticity

Despite Hippias Minor's relative mediocrity as a dialogue, its authenticity is the subject of virtually no doubt: Aristotle (in Metaphysics, V, 120), Cicero (in De Oratore, III, 32) and Alexander of Aphrodisias all reference it as genuine.

[edit] Characters

Socrates
Hippias of Elis: a famous sophist, originally from Elis. Known throughout ancient Greece, he was reputed to have mastered mathematics, astronomy and rhetoric; he boasted that he could speak on any subject at Olympia without preparation. He is presented by Plato (perhaps as a caricature) as vain, narrow, and of limited intelligence; much as he is in Hippias Major.
Eudicos: Hippias' host in Athens. He greatly admires Hippias, and his somewhat marginal role in the dialogue consists mainly of occasionally revitalizing the conversation by encouraging the sophist to reply to Socrates' questions. It is difficult to establish the historical existence of this character. It seems more likely that Eudicos was invented by the author: his name means "good justice" (eu-dikos) in ancient Greek, and his role can be described as mostly establishing a symbolic contrast with Hippias.

[edit] The Dialogue: a conversation about lies

In Hippias Minor, Socrates advances the arguable thesis that he who lies or does evil purposely is morally better than he who does so involuntarily.

[edit] Introductory scene

The great sophist Hippias of Elis is traveling through Athens, visiting his host Eudicos. He has just done Eudicos a great honor: at his house, he gave an "ample dissertation" on the works of Homer in front of a large audience, among whom was Socrates.

Once finished, everyone present lavishes compliments on the oration. Eudicos notices that Socrates, however, is strangely silent, and wonders whether Socrates is simply timid, or if his silence should be interpreted as disagreement with Hippias' ideas.

Socrates reassures Eudicos that he listened with great interest to Hippias' commentaries on the Iliad and the Odyssey. If he has refrained from asking any of the numerous questions that came to him, it was because he did not want to seem importune in front of all those present. Now that the three are alone, the philosopher says, certainly Hippias would not refuse to engage in some conversation.

[edit] Is an honest man better than a liar?

Socrates is interested in the following point: Hippias expressed the audacious opinion that, from a qualitative and moral point of view, the Iliad is far superior to the Odyssey. How did he form such an opinion?

[edit] Which, out of the sincere Achilles and the wily Ulysses, is best of the Greeks?

Hippias, far from disavowing his remarks, defends his thesis with vigor. He had made the judgment on the basis of the fact that Achilles, the principal hero of the Iliad, is better than Ulysses, his counterpart in the Odyssey. The former shines throughout the epic as a pillar of sincerity and frankness, the latter supports his various adventures through trickery and deceit. Homer clearly intended to represent "Achilles as the best of those who went to Troy, Ulysses the craftiest, and Nestor as the most wise".

Socrates seems dissatisfied with this classification: the distinction that Hippias makes implies both that the honest man is better than the liar, and that they are, in fact, different.

[edit] Someone knowledgeable is more capable of lying than someone ignorant

Socrates continues: what, in fact, are the character traits that permit one to trick or lie? Far from being impotent, a liar is extremely powerful if he succeeds in his deception. Likewise, one cannot be a successful liar through stupidity; thus a crafty person is, of necessity, extremely intelligent. In the end, a liar must be knowledgeable and well-versed in the subject about which he is lying.

These qualities are all found as much in honest men as in liars. Hippias—being a well-known expert in arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy—must know that he who is best able to tell the truth about a subject is also best able to lie about it. Indeed, a man lying about a subject of which he is ignorant may tell the truth without realizing it—something that will never happen to an expert on the subject.

Taking advantage of his interlocutor's absence of defense, Socrates draws from it the conclusion that, sharing the same qualities, the honest man and the liar are one and the same person. Thus, he states, Achilles and Ulysses both have equal sincerity and craftiness—neither being superior to the other.

[edit] Achilles, too, occasionally shows signs of trickery

To cut short Hippias' exasperated protestations, Socrates cites a passage of the Iliad, meant to show Achilles in the process of flagrantly lying. Is it not true, that after his argument with Agamemnon, the great warrior announced the imminent departure of himself and his men? (The Iliad, IX, 357-363)

It is well known, though, that he never carried that threat out: he was satisfied simply remaining in his encampment on the beaches of Troy, waiting, no doubt, for apologies, but never really abandoned the Greeks to return to Phtia. Moreover, he soon takes up battle again, and with far greater energy, when learning of the death of his beloved Patroclus.

Hippias, however, cannot accept this point of view: Achilles lied, then, only out of simplicity. In other words, as he spoke, he truly believed his own words. Only later did he change his mind. Ulysses, by contrast, was always aware that he was lying.

Socrates' response to this outrages Hippias: He affirms that this is precisely why Ulysses was superior to Achilles.

[edit] He who does Evil voluntarily is better than he who does Evil involuntarily

Hippias is now indignant at the direction of the conversation: How can Socrates affirm the moral superiority of the voluntary liar over he who lies involuntarily? Does not the law distinguish the two exactly inversely, punishing the first far more harshly than the second?

[edit] He who accomplishes a task badly is better than he who does it by mistake

Socrates circumvents the question, suggesting instead a different method of approach: Without fear of being wrong, can one not say that a runner running slowly, but intentionally, is superior than one running in spite of himself? Indeed, the first, if he so wished, could no doubt run faster. The second, on the other hand, is already giving it his all, and cannot accelerate further.

Likewise, in wrestling, it is of course preferable to fall voluntarily rather than involuntarily. But we need not be solely concerned with the exercises of the body: a voice that voluntarily produces an unpleasant sound is better than one that does so by nature. It is not only confined to medicine, where it is better to cause pain on purpose rather than the contrary.

Hippias agrees with all of this, however he still cannot bring himself to agree with Socrates that the voluntary liar is better than the involuntary one.

[edit] Is not the soul most-capable of voluntarily doing bad, the most just one?

Socrates now launches one final argument to convince Hippias, and perhaps also himself: If one had to give a summarized definition of justice, one could say that it is a force, a science, or even both at once.

It follows that the man who is the most just is he who combines the greatest force with the greatest science. This man, so powerful and so wise, being the most just of all men, is therefore also he who is most capable of committing a voluntary injustice, since having a perfect knowledge of what justice is, he would perforce know exactly what he is doing when he performs such an injustice.

The dialogue, however, stops here. Hippias, growing more and more incredulous at the conversation, cannot grant this last point to Socrates, who in turn admits to not being very convinced himself. The two men depart, but not without the philosopher teasing the sophist about the uncertainty that they have reached.

[edit] Criticism of the Dialogue

The philosophical depth of the dialogue is undoubtedly one of the more mediocre of Plato's works, with the Second Alcibiades (although in that case, Plato's authorship is normally denied). It suffers mainly from the immorality engendered by the two central ideas of the text:

One who is able to lie about any subject must know the subject in depth, thus is able to tell the truth.
One who lies knowingly is morally superior to one who lies unwittingly, and without meaning to.

The weakness of Socrates' thesis is mainly due to a rather gross confusion between the notions of being able to do evil, and wanting to do it, which are wrongly treated in the text as being equivalent. In usual Platonic logic, the more knowledgeable and just (in short, wise) one becomes, the less likely he is to be unjust, however much knowledge and justice would actually enable him to cause injustice.

The dialogues' immorality, and thus the contradiction it shows with other of Plato's works, has caused some scholars to doubt its authenticity (notably Victor Cousin and Eduard Zeller). Hippias Minor is actually a slightly awkward reworking by a very young Plato of some of Socrates' ideas, notably: ignorance alone makes it possible to do wrong, since through doing wrong, one hurts one's own good, and a wise man cannot voluntarily do that which is harmful to himself.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Texts

Translation by John Cooper in Complete Works, Hackett, 1997
Hippias mineur translation and comments by Jean-François Pradeau, GF-Flammarion, 2005, ISBN 2-08-070870-8
Premiers dialogues, GF-Flammarion n°129, 1993, ISBN 2-08-070129-0
Platon : Œuvres complètes, Tome 1, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1940, ISBN 2-07-010450-8

[edit] Commentaries

"Alain", Platon, Champs-Flammarion, 2005, ISBN 2-08-080134-1
François Châtelet, Platon, Folio, Gallimard, 1989, ISBN 2-07-032506-7
Jean-François Pradeau, Les mythes de Platon, GF-Flammarion, 2004, ISBN 2-08-071185-7
Jean-François Pradeau, Le vocabulaire de Platon, Ellipses Marketing, 1998, ISBN 2-7298-5809-1
Kraut, Richard, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Vlastos, Gregory, Studies in Greek Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1995.

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Category: Dialogues of Plato