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Hippias Major Platon
Hippias Major Platon
or Greater Hippias, to distinguish it from the Hippias Minor, which has the same chief character) is one of the dialogues of Plato. It belongs to the Early Dialogues, written while the author was still young. Its precise date is uncertain, although a date of c. 390 BCE has been suggested; its authenticity has been doubted. In the Hippias Major, Socrates and Hippias set out to find a definition for "beauty", but are destined to fail due to their inability to formulate an answer which encompasses the entire concept. The actual Greek term that is used in the dialogue is , which as an adjective often means fine or noble as well as beautiful. For this reason, translators such as Paul Woodruff typically translate the term ( the abstract noun of the adjective) as "the Fine" (things) instead of "Beauty." As in Charmides, Lysis and Euthyphro, Hippias Major has an "anatreptic" or self-defeating virtue, that is the purpose of the author is to defeat commonly held opinions, without necessarily offering a resolution. The concept of something good in and of itself (if only obliquely) makes its first appearance in this work. The dialogue can be read as much as a serious philosophical work as a light satirical comedy with two actors. The astuteness of Socrates in taking refuge under the authority of a supposed third protagonist in order to direct biting criticism at Hippias, endows the dialogue with humour.
Personalities Socrates. Hippias of Elis: Hippias was a well known 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 somewhat caricatured, as vain, narrow, and of limited intellect; much as he is in Hippias Minor.
Dialogue summary
Hippias meets Socrates
Hippias, whose business had kept him away from Athens for a long time, arrives in the city to give a [1] lecture at Pheidostratus's school in the next few days. He meets Socrates, and the latter asks him why such a precious and wise man as Hippias has deprived the Athenians of his presence for so long. It is, explains the great Sophist, because his native Elis was so in need of his services, and entrusted him with several important diplomatic missions to different cities; notably in Sparta. He made use of his travels throughout the Greek world to educate a large number of youth and earn large sums of money. But one example was the small town of Inycus, in Sicily, where the modest inhabitants sacrificed a good part of [2] their savings to see their children educated .
is not the inherited usage of the Lacedaemonians to change their laws or to educate their children differently from what is customary." However, Socrates emphasized, the law is precisely made for use and happiness of the citizens, two things to which Hippias would have been greatly able to contribute. By being too attached to the law and refusing the services of Hippias, the Spartans contradict the aim of their own laws and this therefore could be considered as being unlawful. Hippias agrees. Socrates then asks him then how he nevertheless had so much success in this severe city of Laconia. It is not, Hippias answers, for his knowledge of arithmetic or astronomy, but rather "They are very fond of hearing about the genealogies of heroes and men, Socrates, and the foundations of cities in ancient times and, in short, about antiquity in [2] general...[these being] beautiful pursuits".
of the beating with a stick he would receive from his harasser if he had given that answer. What then of Achilles or Heracles? Was it beautiful for these two heroes, sons of the immortals, to be buried before their parents, before the gods? Was there no beauty in their lives because they were not buried by their offspring? Beauty in this sense then applies to ordinary men, but it would be ugliness for heroes. The definition is thus incorrect.
Fourth definition: beauty is the pleasure that comes from seeing and hearing
To conclude, Socrates brings out a final definition; at first glance quite amazing: "[what] if we were to say that that is beautiful which makes us feel joy ; I do not mean all pleasures, but that which makes us feel joy through hearing and sight?" This hypothesis, while appealing, contains according to Socrates himself a fundamental flaw; that it ignores the beauty of the more noble pleasures, drawn from the studious occupations or the study of laws. On the other hand, it seems striking that only the senses of sight and hearing are taken into account. Is this a way to submit to common opinion, which is that touch, taste and smell are somehow more shameful and base than the other senses? Finally, it is not simply because pleasure comes from seeing or hearing that it is beautiful. Socrates throws himself into a series of considerations: taking into account pairs of objects, in the Majority of cases the term which they apply to both objects (A and B are beautiful, A and B are just) can apply also to an object taken separately (A is beautiful and B is beautiful). But in some rare
cases it can happen that it this is not the case, notably when the sum of A and B forms an even number and A and B, taken in isolation, are two odd numbers. In the case of beauty, it is the first category that is appropriate, because if a pair of two objects is beautiful, it stands to reason that each of them is. But a new paradox appears, since the beautiful, in discreet definition, must belong to both pleasures of sight and hearing, taken jointly, and cannot belong to only one of them. The definition as a result proves to be flawed. Exhausted by the many questions they have considered, Hippias berates Socrates and urges him instead of "with mere talk and nonsense" to seek beauty in "the ability to produce a discourse well and beautifully in a court of law or a council-house [2] or before any other public body before which the discourse may be delivered." Socrates, taking his leave, pretends to feel bad about the situation, cornered between the attacks of Hippias and those of his mysterious opponent. His only certainty, he concludes with a sense of humour, is that from now on he better understands the Greek proverb "beautiful things are difficult"
Authenticity
The authorship of Hippias Major has been in dispute. Although some works previously attributed to Plato have been determined to be inauthentic, this is one where authorship has still not been firmly established, though academic consensus tends toward its authenticity. The argument is summarized in (Sider 1977): "Dorothy Tarrant is the foremost advocate for the cause of spuriousness: cf. her edition of The Hippias Major Attributed to Plato (Cambridge, 1928). Opposing her in a series of articles is G.M.A. Grube, who wrote in 1926 and 1927. W. K. C. Guthrie, in A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge 1975) also [3] argues for its genuineness." Sider, writing in 1992 states that G.R.Ledger, in Re-counting Plato (Oxford 1989) carried out a computer text analysis and though not conclusive "On balance the evidence for genuineness is fairly convincing". He goes on to state that amongst other recent works, P. Woodruff, Plato: Hippias Major (Oxford 1982) also argues for authenticity and dates the document to "around 390" BCE. C.H. Kahn, OSAP 3 (1985) is the lone modern figure maintaining spuriousness. The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy states "Of those [of Plato's works] we listed as authentic, above (in the early group), only the Hippias Major continues occasionally to be listed as inauthentic. The strongest evidence against the authenticity of the Hippias Majoris the fact that it is never mentioned in any of the ancient [5] sources. In summary then, although early 20th century scholarship argued that it was spurious, latest research indicates that on the balance it is more likely authentic than not.
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