Thoughts on Lesser Hippias

            The Lesser Hippias is a really strange dialogue. Every introduction I have read about it says that it is, by far, one of the most inferior of the authentic Platonic dialogues and I have to agree. That is mainly due to the style, even though the topic of the text also escapes my grasp, but that may have more to do with me than with Plato. Nevertheless, the conclusion reached and how he got there is exceedingly odd and done with far less subtlety than is usually present in Plato’s work. It also seems to be a fairly meaningless paradox, although maybe upon further reflection it might be shown to contain some purpose. It starts with the sophist Hippias declaring his arrogance with a gusto, that, like I mentioned, seems a bit too on the nose and more farcical than Plato is accustomed to using. He says he can answer any question anyone can possibly ask, and he has never found his superior in anything. And by anything, he means everything. He makes his own clothes, his own shoes, he is a regular jack of all trades and anything you can do he can do better. He has no problem shoving this in your face. Socrates mocks him, “I doubt whether any muscular hero would be so fearless and confident in offering his body to the combat at Olympia, as you are in offering your mind” (364a).  As I mentioned, this is all stylistically so different from how Plato usually writes. He is typically more subtle and shows both the good and bad sides of the sophists and how they have some really good points sometimes. Here, the character of Hippias seems like a deranged and arrogant lunatic – more like a character on the Animaniacs than a real human being.

              The argument starts because Socrates and Hippias hold different interpretations of the Homeric poems. Hippias believes the Iliad and its hero, Achilles is superior to the Odyssey and its hero, Odysseus. He says, “Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest of the men who went to Troy, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the wiliest” (364c). By “wiliest” he means the most deceitful and cunning, the one most prone to lying. This leads to a more general and abstract debate. When they discuss what sort of traits liars possess, Socrates summarizes their conclusion: “the false are powerful and prudent and knowing and wise in those things about which they are false… the false are to be ranked in the class of the powerful and wise” (366a). Based on this premise it logically follows that false, bad men must be one with true, good men. This is because someone who has more knowledge has a greater ability to both lie and tell the truth than someone who is ignorant. In Socrates words, “he who is not able will not speak falsely, for he has no knowledge” (368a). This appears to make sense. Let’s take an example. A knowledgeable mechanic will be better able to both help you and screw you over. Since they know so much, they know what to lie to you about, if they so choose and what to tell the truth about, if they so choose. Someone like me, who knows nothing about cars, won’t even know what to lie to you about, so a mechanic would be a much better truthteller and a better liar than me on this one topic. He will be both a good and an evil man at once.

              Socrates ends up citing parts of the Homeric corpus to show that Odysseus isn’t the liar, but really Achilles is. Hippias still thinks Odysseus was a liar but must now admit that Achilles did say things that weren’t true either. However, the difference is that Achilles said things he thought were going to come true, they just ended up not happening the way he thought. That makes him an unintentional liar. Odysseus lied on purpose and so is an intentional liar. Most people would agree with Hippias that people who lie intentionally to hurt others are worse than people who lie without meaning to, as is the case with Achilles. Socrates flips this on its head by referring to their earlier conclusion: “were not the voluntary liars only just now shown to be better than the involuntary” (371e)? Hippias replies that they did agree on that, but that he believes ignorance mitigates culpability and that the law has always reflected this. I must say that I agree with Hippias here, and even Socrates does in other dialogues as I will show presently. At this point Socrates admits that he may be wrong and that he often gets things wrong and disagrees with people wiser than him. Even though he does have this negative trait, like everyone else he has some positive ones, which for him are his enthusiasm for learning and the gratitude he shows his teachers. Even though he disagrees with people considered wiser than him, he must be true to himself and won’t lie and say he believes something he doesn’t (372d). There is something endearing in this little speech that makes up for some of the other poor stylistic choices.

              Hippias doesn’t want to continue the conversation because he thinks Socrates is being dishonest, and who could blame him? If I were arguing with someone who was trying to convince me that people who do things wrong on purpose to hurt others aren’t as bad as people who accidentally hurt others, I’d be out of my wits and pretty pissed too. Socrates comes off fairly badly in this dialogue, so I’m not sure if Plato was taking shots at him or what his intention was. Socrates does nothing to dismiss the allegation of being dishonest. In fact, he seems to egg Hippias on – he says that his dishonesty is unintentional and since Hippias believes unintentional dishonesty isn’t that bad, he should forgive him. That sounds like a sarcastic taunt, because according to Socrates line of thought so far, that would make him worse! Socrates also has this habit of making off-the-wall interpretations of poetry (as in Protagoras) and making hairsplitting distinctions (Cratylus). Anyways, Socrates moves forward with examples to try to justify his argument. He brings up the case of running. A good runner who voluntarily runs slowly is better than one who can’t help but run slowly since the good runner can run fast when he wants and the other one can’t. He brings up many other examples like singing, etc. that all show the same thing. He ends up stating it generally—we would all much rather have a capacity and use it poorly than to not have it at all.

              I can see where he is coming from, but it doesn’t seem to ultimately make sense. Yes, it is better to have a power or capacity than to not have one, but elsewhere he shows, more realistically, that it does matter HOW you use it. The most important things in life, like virtue, aren’t just about having good things, but about HOW you use them, and this takes knowledge and wisdom. Socrates directly refutes the conclusion he arrives at here in Euthydemus. “It is more harmful, I should think, if one uses anything wrongly than if one leaves it alone” (280e). We see here that just the mere ability to do something doesn’t make you better. If you have an ability and either don’t use it, or use it poorly, it can be worse than not having it at all.

“If ignorance leads them, they are greater evils than their opposites, inasmuch as they are more able to serve the leader which is evil; but if intelligence leads, and wisdom, they are greater goods, while in themselves neither kind is worth anything at all” (281d).

I’m reminded of a scene in the Tarkovsky film Andrei Rublev where one of the monks says it is a great sin to let a gift from God go to waste. George MacDonald says much the same thing – wasting a God-given talent is one of the sins that cry out to heaven. We also see in Apology 26a that Socrates believes that unintentional mischief should be punished less severely, in fact, it shouldn’t be punished at all, but rather the perpetrator should just be educated.

              What may be going on here, though, is a form of parody, showing what can go wrong when you have even one faulty premise. There is at least one and maybe two illicit premises that show up in this dialogue. The first is the idea that doing false things can be considered as much a capacity as doing good and true things. This isn’t as clear as the other faulty premise I will mention, but I think this may be a reference to the Platonic idea of evil as privation boni or a lack of good. It’s impossible to have a real power to do false things because the false and evil doesn’t really have any substance – it’s just the lack of real substance. The other incorrect premise that has more backing is the idea that Hippias defends-- that it is possible to do wrong voluntarily. In several places Plato defends the idea that it is impossible to do evil willingly. In the dialogue Protagoras Socrates says, “No wise man believes anyone sins willingly or willingly perpetrates any evil or base act. They know very well that all evil or base action is involuntary” (345e). To recap, Hippias thinks Achilles is better than Odysseus because Achilles only lies unwillingly, but Odysseus lies willingly. Since Socrates doesn’t believe it is metaphysically possible to lie willingly, the absurd outcome of the dialogue may just be showing how absurd Plato thought it was to believe that people do evil willingly. I won’t show why he thought that or how he defends it, nor why it makes sense, here. That will come when I talk about the dialogue Protagoras.

              The conclusion reached in the dialogue is that the wiser person will be more just since they have more knowledge. So far, so good. But since earlier they said that doing evil voluntarily was better than involuntarily the wisest person will also be the one who commits the most sin voluntarily. Both Socrates and Hippias are perplexed and find this conclusion really far-fetched. Socrates leaves him with these words, “that I or any ordinary man should wander in perplexity is not surprising, but if you wise men also wander, and we cannot come to you and rest from our wandering, the matter begins to be serious both to us and to you” (376c). Our level of knowledge seems so puny that it makes you think we really are in a sad state of affairs and it really is no wonder our world is so messed up. Like I said, I’m not really sure what exactly to think of this dialogue other than the fact that it is weird, inferior, and has a pretty dreary ending. Thinking of it as an extended parody of sophists who don’t accept Plato’s denial of akrasia makes it seem better, so for now I’ll go with that.