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Socrates Talks to Himself in Platos Hippias Major1

Halsten Olson

1 Socrates Meets His Match At Last

It is almost a rule that the mature Socrates of Platos puzzle-raising dialogues

never converses with a philosophical equal. But it is not quite a rule: the exception is an

ongoing conversation with himself of which Socrates gives us fragments in the Hippias

Major.2 From the fragments we learn that in talking to himself, Socrates is, while of

course his own equal, also his own superior and his own inferior. He at once refutes his

interlocutor and gets refuted.

The central conversation of the Hippias Major is between Socrates and Hippias on

the question, What is the fine?. But during his questioning of Hippias Socrates alludes

to someone who has asked questions of Socrates. Socrates acts the part of this person,

who is first presented as an annoying questioner, not refined (ou kompsos) and rabble-

rubbish (surphetos, 288d4), a real plague (mermeros, 290e4), who would try to give

Socrates a thrashing if Socrates could not remember what question he was supposed to be

thinking about, then as someone who takes pity on Socrates and occasionally makes a

suggestion to help discussion along, then as the person Socrates would be most ashamed

to make pretensions to, then as the son of Sophroniscus, and finally as a close relative

of mine, who lives in the same house. Before the dialogue ends, readers realize that

Socrates annoying questioner is none other than Socrates himself.

The device of Socrates acting out these second-hand questions for Hippias

somewhat insulates Socrates from seeming discourteous to Hippias. The questions he

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relays from the third party can be more simple and straightforward than the questions

which the self-admiring Hippias would expect Socrates to address to his face. For his

part Hippias can more frankly grumble about the unadorned questioning of the absent

third party than would be polite for Hippias to grumble directly to Socrates.

Socrates acting out the annoying questioners questions in the Hippias Major

may be compared to and contrasted with Socrates acting out speeches of the Laws of

Athens in the Crito. In the conversation with the Laws Socrates imagines himself as

speaking briefly (50c) contrary to fact, as though he proposed to escape from prison; he

then speaks the Laws reasoning opposing escape. It seems that only one side of the

discussion gives Socrates actual views.3 The Hippias Majors conversation is different in

that Socrates is narrator, questioner, and answerer.4 It may reveal Socrates own views

better than Socrates narrations of his conversations with others.5

My deliberately chosen modality may presents a revelatory possibility, not a

certainty; for there is the further possibility that the depicted Socrates is, as we might

say, ironic. What Socrates says on occasion may not be directly revelatory of anything.

But I shall avoid the word ironist. Although it sounds like a straightforward translation

and hence a synomym of the Greek , its relation to its Greek ancestor, which

doesnt have quite the flavor of our word ironist, is complicated and may be misleading.

Since neither ironist nor words related to it occur in the Hippias Major, rather than

speak of irony, I will simply state what everyone would agree to -- that Socrates is not

always depicted as saying flatly and directly what Plato intends us, Platos readers, to

understand.6

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The sort of self-conversation Socrates reports will be familiar to many of us who

talk to ourselves and try out objections on ourselves. For example, the Socrates of the

Theaetetus (189e) says that the souls carrying on a discussion (dialegesthai), questioning

itself and answering itself, is what he calls thinking.7

Socrates report of what the annoying questioner has said to him, if we believe it,

gives us a rich picture of Socrates as a self-questioner. The report tells us what the

questioner has asked Socrates in the past (286d). The report tells us what the questioner is

in the habit of asking (287c). The report predicts what the questioner will say (293d;

303e-304). But in so predicting, Socrates is making use of prediction to reveal a

tendency, not just to point to an isolated future event. So even these future tense claims

give some information about how Socrates has questioned himself.

There is a complexity in the picture the dialogue gives us of Socrates as answerer,

for Socrates sometimes assumes the part of Hippias to give answers in the conversation.

For example, at 289c-d Socrates says, in effect, that if he said that the finest girl is

shamefully ugly compared with the gods (as Hippias has just agreed), and is no more fine

than shamefully ugly, then the annoying questioner would say that Socrates had only

answered the question What is both fine and shamefully ugly?, instead of answering the

question the questioner has asked. In this passage Socrates is not himself asserting the

view which he has taken over from Hippias. He is just considering what the questioner

would discover to follow if Socrates asserted the view of Hippias.

So we need to separate Socrates genuine answers, in his own person, to his

questioner from those answers that Socrates says he would give in the contrary to fact

condition that he were to answer as Hippias does. When we make that separation, we find

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that Socrates gives only a fragmentary picture of how, speaking for himself, he has

answered the questioner. But the fragmentary picture is, if we trust what Socrates says,

of great interest.

I will, in fact, trust Socrates; I will take as a starting point that there is some, but

not much, Socratic dissembling and indirection in Socrates report to Hippias. I will then

ask in the rest of this paper what we learn about Socrates from his description of his

conversation with himself. Others who take as a starting point the thought that there is a

great deal of dissembling in Socrates self-description will not find the Hippias Major as

informative as I do. My starting point that Socrates is reporting quite accurately how he

talks to himself has this interesting consequence: the Hippias Major gives us Platos

picture of how the most philosophically adept answerer responds to the most

philosophically acute questioner.

2 Socrates, Self-Questioner, Asks What is the fine?

We learn from Socrates conversation with himself that Socrates questions

himself in just the way he questions others in the short dialogues of inquiry. Socrates

reports at 286c-d that the questioner has asked Socrates, How do you know (pothen

oistha) what sorts of things (hopoia) are fine and ugly? and Are you able to say

(echois eipein) what the fine is? At 287d, Socrates, who has proposed to question

Hippias in the same way the annoying questioner questions Socrates, asks Hippias what

the fine is. At 289c Socrates rephrases, asking, Whatever is the fine itself? Although

Socrates does not use the word definition here, Ill say that Socrates is asking for a

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definition in this sense: to ask what the fine itself is is to ask what it is for anything to be

fine.

That Socrates moves from the question How do you know what sorts of things

are fine and ugly? to the question, What is the fine itself? shows the point of the latter,

definitional, question. The answer to this definitional question will also give Socrates the

answer to his initial question, How do you know what sorts of things are fine?

The connection between a definitional question, such as the question what the fine

is, and a question about knowledge, such as, How do you know when something is

fine?, is straightforward to see in some cases. If a learner in an ordinary learning

situation asks of an acknowledged expert the question, How do you know that that

figure is an octagon?, the expert might answer, Because the octagon itself -- that is,

what it is to be an octagon -- is a figure with eight sides. And this figure indeed has eight

sides. Here the person who knows that this is an octagon is able to say what an octagon

is, or what it is to be an octagon. To say what it is to be an octagon is to cite the octagon

itself in giving, as reasons for knowing that this is an octagon, what a teacher would say

in teaching someone else what an octagon is.

At the end of the dialogue, at 304d, after the failure of all their attempts to answer,

What is the fine?, Socrates again makes the connection between What is the fine

itself? and How do you know what is fine? There Socrates says that if he tries to

converse (304d,dialegesthai) about fine activities when he is ignorant about what the fine

itself is, his questioner will ask him, How will you know (ps su eis(i)) whose speech

or any other activity is finely presented or not, when you are ignorant of the fine?

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3 Socrates Asks What is the fine? When Hippias Commends Fine Actions to the

Young

We learn from Socrates self-conversation, as well as from Socrates conversation

with Hippias, exactly what moves Socrates to ask about the fine by itself. Although

previous to 286c Socrates has used the word fine or close derivatives several times, and

Hippias has used it once (282d6), these earlier uses have not moved Socrates to ask, in

general, what is the fine. The turning point in the conversation occurs when Hippias uses

fine to make life-guiding recommendations about pursuits for a life, practices

(epitdeumata). At 285e10-286b5 there is this exchange.

S: The Spartans enjoy you, predictably, because you know a lot of

things, and they use you the way children use old ladies, to tell stories

for pleasure.8

H: Yes, and by God, Socrates, about fine pursuits. Just now I made a

great impression there speaking about the pursuits which a young man

should take up. I have a speech about that that I put together really finely.

... My setting and the starting point of the speech are something like this:

after Troy was taken, the tale is told that Neoptolemus asked Nestor what

sort of pursuits (epitdeumata) are fine (kala) -- the sort of pursuits that

would make someone most famous if he adopted them while young. After

that, the speaker is Nestor, who teaches him a great many altogether fine

(pagkala) customs.

Hippias speech presents the advice of Nestor, a Greek elder, to the young

Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. The advice hints at an account of one type of fine

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things, namely, fine pursuits, or, apparently equivalently, the sort of activities that

would make someone most famous if he adopted them while young. That Hippias is,

by telling his story, giving advice to the young is what moves Socrates to the general

inquiry at 286c. Socrates recalls that the questioner has questioned Socrates precisely

when Socrates has praised or found fault with speeches. The speeches that Socrates has

in mind are the instruments of political advice, as his reference at the end of the

dialogue to speeches and getting things done in court or some other gathering (304c8-

d1) implies.

Its a fine thing you reminded me. Just now someone got me badly

stuck when I was finding fault with parts of some speeches for being

shameful, and praising other parts as fine. He questioned me ...,

Socrates, how do you know what sorts of things are fine and

shameful? Look, would you be able to say what the fine is? So its

a fine thing you came now. Teach me enough about what the fine is

itself, ... so I wont be a laughingstock. Of course you know it

clearly.(286c4-e3)

At 287b5-8 Socrates emphasizes that what would provoke the questioner to ask the

question about the fine itself is Hippias recommendation of fine pursuits.

If you displayed that speech to him, the one you mentioned about the

fine pursuits, hed listen, and when you stopped speaking, hed ask

not about anything else but about the fine.

When Hippias says that doing what will lead to becoming famous is a fine pursuit,

Hippias is recommending conduct, or even a way of life, to his hearer. If you, the hearer,

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believe that what Hippias says is fine is fine, you have some reason to undertake the

commended activity yourself. But on the important topic of life-absorbing activities in

which you will invest yourself, it seems a bad idea to trust in a recommendation of

examples without having something to say about what explains why the examples of the

fine are fine. For life-guiding recommendations you want, from someone who presents

himself as an expert, a way to understand his examples. You do not want to take his

word for one example after another. That is why Socrates asks Hippias how he knows.

4. Socrates Wants A Certain Kind of Explanatory Answer to What is the fine itself?

We learn from Socrates self-conversation that he wants, from himself as well as

from Hippias, a certain kind of answer to the question what the fine is. At 293d-294

Socrates gives for Hippias an example of an adequate answer to a different definitional

question, What is the large? The large, or that by which something is large, is the

going-beyond. That is, if something goes beyond (some other thing), then it is a

necessity that it is large (that is, larger than that other thing).

What all large things are large by is by the going beyond. For by that,

they are all large. ... If they go beyond... it is a necessity [anagke] for them

to be large. (294b2-4)

Socrates would ask himself, All those things you say are fine, will they be fine if the

fine itself is what ? (288a6-10). He wants to know that by which or in virtue of which

or because of which all fine things are fine. The answer to What is the fine? will tell us

something that necessitates being fine. The answer Socrates expects is what we would

call a necessary truth that is somehow explanatory.

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In giving his example of that by which or because of which things are large,

Socrates does not here say what entitles his example to count as explanatory of why

something is large. Examples that the Socrates of other dialogues has accepted as

adequate definitions suggest that explanatory analyses are fuller, simpler, and more

obvious than what they analyse. Theaetetus 147c tells us helpfully that mud is earth

mixed with moisture. The Laches 192b tells us that quickness is the power of doing

much in a short time. The Hippias Majors account of the large as the going beyond does

not, however, seem especially explanatory or helpful, although it is a necessary truth.

Large (or big) is a part of our vocabulary so basic that we all learn it as toddlers,

before we learn much else. It is then difficult to see what could be simpler and more

obvious than it. (And thus it is understandable that Phaedo 102 analyses in the other

direction, apparently explaining going beyond by being large.)9

So some questions remain about what counts as explanatory. We can nonetheless

see how an analysing answer to the question What is the fine? would be a helpful step

in the direction of answering the question How do you know what is fine?. The answer

to What is the fine? would be helpful because it would give the answer to two further

questions which in turn help with answering How do you know?.

First, it would answer, What is the reason why you believe that such and such is

fine? But second, it would answer What is the reason why it is true that such and such

is fine? Compare our answer to What is an octagon? Our answer gives reasons why

someone might believe that something is an octagon which also explain why it is true that

that something is an octagon.

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Not all answers to What is the reason why you believe that that is fine? answer

What is the reason why it is true that that is fine?. Answers such as Someone I trust

told me or Experts on the fine have recommended it might explain why you believe

that something is fine, but do not explain why it is true that that thing is fine. Socrates

example reveals that Socrates wants reasons to believe which are also reasons why what

is to be believed is true.

5 Socrates Worries about Nothing But the Truth, But Says Some False Things

We learn from Socrates conversation with himself that he is after the truth about

the topic at hand. At 288d5 Socrates says of the questioner, He cares about nothing but

the truth.

But this seems odd. Socrates, as questioner of Hippias, seems actually to say

some false things. Since the Socrates who questions Hippias is also that annoying

questioner who questions Socrates, if the latter cares only for the truth, so should the

former. So how can Socrates consistently say false things to Hippias?

An example of what is arguably a Socratic falsehood about himself is at 286c7-8

where Socrates reports that the questioner asks questions of Socrates quite insultingly

(286c7-8 mala hubristiks). However, Socrates reports of the questioners questions

give us no details which would be evidence that the questions How do you know? and

Are you able to say? were asked in an insulting manner. Socrates does say things to

himself later which are insulting -- at 298d, millstone, with no ears and no brain. The

questioner would hit Socrates with a stick if Socrates gave certain answers (292a-b). So

the questioner is insulting to Socrates. But all Socrates gives us to initiate the central

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discussion with Hippias is the bare questions. And the questions by themselves

obviously are not insulting. Socrates offers the qualification insultingly without more

details because he knows Hippias will accept it. Hippias would think the questions

insulting. To ask Hippias, How do you know that what you said is fine is fine? would

challenge, improperly, as Hippias doubtless thinks, his claims to expertise and authority

(282d, 286 a-c). But Socrates takes these questions to be important and appropriate.

Socrates accepts the questions as proper for himself (291a: Its nothing much for me).

Having been challenged with these questions does not strike him as insolent treatment to

complain about. Instead of taking offense at the questions, Socrates reproaches himself

(286d-e) for his inability to answer them. These are the challenges -- How do you

know? and Say what it is! -- that Socrates expects himself to be able to answer if he is

going to commend and hence recommend life-absorbing activities as fine to others.

So Socrates speaks falsely of himself when he says the questioner asked

insultingly. In addition, Socrates speaks falsely of Hippias; for example, at 286e

Socrates says of Hippias, You know it clearly, and Socrates then implies that Hippias

will teach Socrates how to avoid being refuted. Is Socrates uttering such falsehoods

compatible with Socrates interest in the truth? If Socrates is interested in arriving at the

truth, should he not be saying true things?

Not necessarily. For one thing, uttering truths would not serve an interest in the

truth in the circumstance of discussion with Hippias. If Socrates said truths about himself

such as, I am asking useful questions, or if Socrates said truths about Hippias such as,

You might make better progress if you were humbler, uttering such truths would not

advance either Socrates or Hippias progress toward the truth. Hippias is depicted as

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having a conceit and self-satisfaction that make him impervious to such accurate

descriptions.10 And Socrates does not need them.

Yet the false descriptions, which encourage Hippias, thus help to keep the

conversation going. So the answer to our question about consistency is that Socrates

making false statements actually serves his interest in truth about the fine itself as it bears

on life conduct, because it keeps the truth-seeking conversation going.

But this answer raises a new question: what is the use of sustaining a conversation

with Hippias at all? How would a conversation with anyone like the depicted Hippias

serve an interest in the truth in the first place?

6 Talking with Hippias Is Training for Socrates

From a consideration of that question we learn something more about Socrates as

self-questioner and self-answerer. At 287a 2-5 Socrates wants to learn by questioning

Hippias so that Hippias will give him the most training (me ekmeletss): Socrates says

he already has experience as an answerer.11 We readers are not familiar with Socrates as

answerer. Other dialogues show us Socrates mostly as questioner. Socrates saying here

that he has experience as answerer then seems an allusion to that practice of being

answerer to himself as questioner of which the Hippias Major gives us a small glimpse.

I take the statement that Socrates wants to get training as a partly accurate

description; it is not a description tailored simply to fit Hippias point of view. Taken as

a sincere statement, it tells us that Socrates expects some benefit from questioning

Hippias. At the end of the dialogue Socrates says that he has been benefited both by

conversation with Hippias and by conversation with his questioner.

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Yet if Hippias, as depicted, is completely self-satisfied and utterly incapable of

considering any new thoughts that challenge his current picture of himself, he is unlikely

to have any insights into how to live to bring into the conversation. For the same reasons,

Socrates cannot be expecting to benefit Hippias by inspiring any thought in Hippias.

Further, Socrates is not trying to benefit any onlookers to the conversation, since the

Hippias Major mentions no onlookers within the drama. So it looks as though there is no

answer to our question in what direction Socrates could be expecting benefits from the

conversation to flow.

The question is a serious one. Someone might propose the answer that Socrates

likes to amuse himself by watching pompous people make fools of themselves. I do not

think so. A person taking care to live his life best would hardly waste time in that way.12

Our own observations of Socrates in conversation may of course benefit us as

readers. But that only explains why Plato might have written a dialogue with Hippias for

readers to observe. It does not explain why Socrates, as depicted,would engage in a

private unobserved conversation with Hippias. It looks as though Socrates could more

profitably just have talked to himself, as he does in the conversation with the annoying

questioner that he reports to us. Why was that not enough?

A possible answer is this. Here again I suggest a possibility, not a certainty. But I

have heard no better offers, and the proposal above is certainly worse. Suppose that

Socrates is interested in finding out the effects of self-satisfaction. Well, either Socrates

is self-satisfied or he is not. If he is not, then conversation with himself will not show

him the bad effects of self-satisfaction, since the effects will not ensue. If he is self-

satisfied, then again, talking to himself will not show him the bad effects of self-

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satisfaction: for a person does not easily see his own self-satisfaction, and in fact self-

satisfaction blinds one to its bad effects. It stands in the way of ones being self-critical.

(Love is blind, and self-love the blindest.) So in either case, for assessing the effects of

self-satisfaction it would not be useful for Socrates to talk to himself. But it might be

useful for Socrates to talk to someone else who is self-satisfied. In another person

Socrates can observe more clearly the bad effects of total self-satisfaction. So we have

learned that Socrates has reason to converse with Hippias.13

7 Socrates Is Always Tempted to Give A Certain Sort of Answer

About Socrates the self- answerer we learn that he is always tempted by a certain

sort of answer to the question What is the fine? At 293e, Socrates reports that his

annoying questioner has suggested candidate definitional answers to Socrates. Apparently

out of pity for Socrates, who has been unable to come up with answers, the questioner has

suggested such answers as that the fine might be the appropriate. Socrates does not say

whether the questioner has offered the exact suggestion that the fine is the appropriate, or

whether the questioners suggestions have been other than that, but similar in some way

to it. Whatever the questioners suggestions have been exactly, Socrates says that he is

in the habit of (eitha) agreeing with such things (ta toiauta) every time (hekastote),

because I dont know what to say. Apparently Socrates always falls for the type of

account the questioner, trying to be helpful, suggests.

A noticeable feature of the suggestion that the fine is the appropriate, the feature

that perhaps such things as Socrates is inclined to agree with all have, is that the

appropriate has more than a very good chance of being necessary and sufficient for the

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fine. Appropriate is a very general adjective of commendation, just as fine is. It is

therefore very plausible that it is, as we might say, a necessary truth that something is

fine if and only if it is appropriate. Perhaps such statements as Socrates has been every

time agreeing with are those that not only give necessary and sufficient conditions but

that are also necessary truths.

But the questioner has then gone on to refute all such helpful suggestions to which

Socrates has agreed.

8 Socrates Has Always Refuted Himself in the Past

About Socrates the self-answerer we learn that he regularly gets refuted by his

questioner. Socrates has gotten badly stuck (286c: eis aporian; 286d: poroumn); he

thinks that is because he was totally worthless (dia tn emn phaulotta). He does not

want to be refuted (286e: exelegtheis) a second time, that is, by a second person. One of

the points of learning what the fine itself is is that no one will ever refute me again

(286e). His critic is that man who has always (aei) been refuting me (304d). The point

is worth dwelling on. Socrates as questioner has refuted himself, and regularly; he has

been at an impasse (aporia); he has driven himself into contradiction.

I think we are given a clue to one sort of argument that has refuted Socrates in the

past. The clue is Socrates own arguments, now given as he takes on the role of

questioner in his own person to Hippias. Here he does not quote the annoying questioner

as he argues against the questioners imagined helpful suggestion that the appropriate is

the fine. Though Socrates does not quote the questioner, it is quite natural to suppose that

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Socrates argumentative moves against the helpful suggestion are ones that he has learned

from the annoying questioner.

Although there are several arguments against candidate definitions that occur

toward the end of the dialogue, after Socrates has referred to the man who is always

refuting me, all of which strike me as subtle and important, I choose to explore here as

part of my inquiry into how Socrates has been talking to himself only two arguments

against the proposal that the fine is the appropriate. The arguments do not strike only

against the proposed definition. Rather, they show that given certain other premises to

which Hippias agrees, the appropriate cannot be the fine.

The first of the two arguments from 293e11-294e9 is a simple two-premise

argument.

First Premise: The appropriate makes things seem fine when they are not

fine.

Second Premise: What makes things seem to be fine even when they are

not fine cannot be the fine.

Conclusion: The fine is not the appropriate. (294a7-8: It wouldnt be

what we are looking for and 294e6, It wouldnt be the appropriate.)

The first premise is given when Socrates says that the appropriate makes things seem

finer than they are and it wont let them be seen as they are.14 Socrates is recording

Hippias assertion at 294a4-5 that the appropriate makes things be seen to be fine; when

someone puts on appropriate clothes and shoes, he looks finer, even if he is ridiculous. I

think this amounts to my shorter formulation that the appropriate makes things that are

not actually fine --they may even be ridiculous -- seem fine. They of course then seem

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finer than they actually are. I take the word makes here to have the same perfectly

ordinary role it has when we say that its eight sides make this an octagon.

Hippias example shows that he has in view a shallow notion of the appropriate.

His notion amounts to something like the fashionable or the superficially attractive. But

given his notion, we can understand the example from which Socrates gets the first

premise.

The second premise comes from 294b6-8, where Socrates again uses the

comparative finer as Hippias did in his contribution. The appropriate cannot be the fine,

what fine things are fine by, because the appropriate makes things to be finer than they

are ... and it wont let things be seen to be as they are. Again I think that the point may

be put more simply, without the comparative. This argument decisively defeats the

proposal that the fine is the appropriate when that proposal is combined with Hippias

thought that the appropriate can make things seem finer than they are.

This first argument would, of course, defeat any candidate definition of the fine

whose candidate definiens might also be cited as the explanation of why something, like

the ridiculous figure in becoming clothes, seemed fine when it was not fine. That is, it

would defeat any candidate definiens which picked out a feature not actually coextensive

with the fine but which someone might mistake for a fine-making feature.

It is useful to consider why argument of the pattern above would not work against

a good definition. For example, the argument would not work against the analysis of an

octagon as a figure having eight sides. That something has eight sides, though

presumably it is often an important part of the explanation why that thing seems to be an

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octagon, could not be an explanation why that thing seems to be an octagon when it is not

in fact a octagon.

So, so far, the first argument Socrates gives here against the proposal that the fine

is the appropriate seems a long-winded way of saying that the appropriate -- conceived

of, as Hippias inadequately conceives of it here, as the fashionable -- is not coextensive

with the fine.15

Hippias now changes his mind and proposes that the appropriate makes things

both be and be seen to be fine when it is present. Hippias, thus retracting his example

about the ridiculous (and hence not actually fine) figure who looks finer in appropriate

clothes and footwear, reveals another assumption of his which he cannot hold in

conjunction with the proposal that the fine is to be defined as the appropriate. Socrates

second argument, against this new configuration of Hippias premises, is another short

one.

First Premise. The appropriate makes things both be fine and be seen to be

fine, when its present. (Hippias proposal at 294c3-4)

Second Premise. The fine by itself (or perhaps the fine, itself) could not

make things both be and be seen to be fine (294e2-4)

Conclusion. The appropriate has been seen to be something other than

fine. (294e8-9)16

Socrates argues for the second premise. He gets Hippias assent that there is disagreement

about fine things, e.g. fine customs and pursuits (294c8-9), even when they really are

fine. Hippias concurs that the presence of the fine in the case of fine things does not

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always make them seem fine. Fine things often go unrecognized: They are unknown.

(294d4)

Guthrie comments on this second argument. (Guthries translation uses beautiful

instead of fine.)

[The suggestion that the fine is the appropriate] is finally dismissed by

an argument using the distinction between reality and appearance. This is

a very curious argument, for it would apply not only to appropriateness

but to whatever else might be alleged to be a definition or description of

beauty. Does the appropriate make things to be beautiful or only to appear

so? It cannot do both, for otherwise everything that possesses that

attribute (i.e. if appropriateness =beauty, everything that is beautiful)

would both be and appear beautiful, and there could be no difference of

opinion about what is beautiful.17

Guthrie says further of Plato, Presumably ... he was aware that it disqualified not only

the appropriate but anything else one could think of, from consideration as a definition

of beauty.18

What Guthrie says is instructive, though wrong: contrary to what Guthrie says,

the argument does not disqualify every possible definition. Rather, the argument

disqualifies the conjunction of any proposed definition with an assumption like Hippias

new first premise. That new first premise asserts the wrong sort of connection between on

the one hand possessing the attribute that falls under the analysans and on the other hand

seeming, or being seen, to fall under the analysandum. Hippias has asserted that

possessing the analysans-attribute always makes for seeming to possess the analysandum

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-attribute. Hippias proposal requires, unacceptably, that the presence of what the

analysans of the fine describes should make it unmistakeably obvious that whatever falls

under the analysans falls under the analysandum .

Consider again the octagon. Though having eight sides is what makes a plane

figure an octagon, having eight sides does not always make such a figure seem, or be

seen, to be an octagon. Some octagons are entirely unobserved. And some observers are

inattentive. Someone who fails to notice the presence of eight sides as he observes a

plane figure will not take even the first step toward recognizing it as an octagon, even if

he has firmly in mind the analysis that an eight-sided figure is an octagon. Even

possession of an analysis cannot protect us against errors of inattention. That is the

simplest case which vividly shows that Socrates has a decisive argument against the

current candidate definition plus Hippias extra assumption. This simplest case reminds

us that between the presence of the analysans -attribute and the being seen to fall under

the analysandum -attribute there intervenes a person to whom seeming occurs or fails to

occur.19

Moreover, there are some less simple cases in which the presence, even the

recognized presence, of an analysans -attribute will not guarantee recognition of the

presence of the analysandum-attribute. Imagine a geometer-in-training who antecedently

believes that eight-sided figures are definitely not octagons. Turning his attention to what

he sees to be an eight-sided figure, he will think that it is not an octagon. Granted, his

confusion is maximal. But such confusion is one possible source for a disconnection

between the recognition of an analysans -attribute and the recognition of an analysandum

21

-attribute. Our error can stand in the way of our matching up an analysans -attribute with

what it analyses.

Here is another way in which even recognizing the presence of an analysans-

attribute can fail to trigger recognition of its analysandum -attribute. Imagine a person

searching for a definition of justice who believes strongly in advance that nothing just

could greatly inconvenience him or that nothing just could disrupt traditional familiar

social arrangements. Suppose he is even contemplating the correct, but at present

unrecognized by him to be correct, analysans of justice, whatever that may be. Suppose

he notices that if that were what just is, it would follow that freeing his slaves would be

just. He is already convinced that freeing his slaves cannot be just, since it would be

obviously inconvenient. So he will conclude that the (analysans-) attribute he is dwelling

on cannot be justice.

Socrates argument against Hippias way of connecting the proposed analysans

of the fine with what makes things seem to be fine is a stimulus to reflection on the ways

in which we can fail to make the connection between analysans and analysandum. We

can fail because related convictions impede us. The finest analysis will not strike the

otherwise unreceptive.

9 Socrates Omits to Mention a Possibility

If this argument against the proposal that the fine is the appropriate has its source,

as I am supposing, in Socrates self- questioning, consideration of that argument teaches

us a further detail about Socrates the self-questioner: he thinks it important to explore

22

ones assumptions about being seen to be -- which includes seeming -- as one tests a

definition, but he omits to consider a certain possibility.

It is Socrates who introduces the topic of seeming into the discussion in the first

place when he offers Hippias some alternatives: does the appropriate make things be

seen to be fine, or be fine, or neither (293e11-294a2)?

It is not strange that Socrates and Hippias do not go on to consider the alternative

neither, since they agreed earlier that the fine itself is what makes things be fine

(287c8-d3), and they will agree so again: (294b4-6) The fine is what all things are fine

by, whether or not they are seen to be fine (similarly 294b8-c1)). It is strange, however,

that they test only two alternatives: first, that the appropriate makes things seem (and

merely seem) fine and second, that the appropriate always makes things be seen to be, as

well as be, fine. It is strange also that as the conclusion of this phase of their discussion,

Socrates again offers Hippias the meager choice ( 294e4-5), between saying that the

appropriate is what makes things be seen to be fine, or saying that the appropriate is what

makes things be fine. Hippias chooses the former, and the topic of the appropriate is then

abandoned.

But why did Socrates not give Hippias another choice? Why did Socrates not ask

Hippias to consider some more complex connections between being made to be, and

being made to seem, fine? There is at least a third possible connection between the

analysans -attribute and the recognition of the analysandum -attribute that Socrates is

omitting. The appropriate, properly understood (although this might have been beyond

the depicted Hippias) as the genuinely appropriate instead of the merely superficially

appropriate, might always and only make things be fine and yet might merely sometimes,

23

but not always, make things seem fine to us. (Our receptivity to recognition will of course

also enter in.) Would Socrates also have an argument against that more complex

suggestion?

The more complex suggestion seems initially more promising. For very general

evaluative predicates such as fine, good, or valuable it seems a strongly important

truth about what is good, fine, or valuable that someone somewhere appreciates

something good or otherwise valuable. Whatever is the correct analysis of the good or the

fine, that analysis, which says what makes things good or fine, should bring out that

strongly important truth. The correct analysis, whatever it might be, should bring out

somehow the appeal of the good, that is, to its seeming good or fine to us. Whatever

makes things good should make good things somewhere, sometime, seem good -- appeal

-- to us. Being good or otherwise valuable is then rather different from being a rock or a

galaxy or an octagon; there might be rocks, galaxies, and octagons without their ever

getting noticed in the history of the universe. But if no sentient being could ever

appreciate anything, there would be no fine things. (Any particular fine thing, though not

all of them, might nevertheless escape the notice of all of us for all time.) Hippias

inclination to connect his attempted analysis of the fine with what makes things seem fine

is, to give even the depicted Hippias some credit, natural.20

I think that Socrates omission of any more complex proposal for the relation

between the appropriate and what seems fine must mean something. It may simply mean

that it is too much to expect Hippias to understand a more complex proposal. Or the

omission may mean that Socrates in his self-questioning has not so far defeated that sort

of proposal. Or the omission may mean that Socrates, or even Plato, is not yet ready to

24

talk about such a proposal. Perhaps the lesson is that the connection is a hard one even

for an acute philosopher to articulate clearly.21

10 A Major Lesson of Socrates Self-Questioning

From Socrates depiction of his ongoing self-conversation, we learn what strikes

me as an especially important thing about him. Socrates presents his conversation with

himself as a conversation between people who are utterly focussed on the topic, who are

utterly serious and plain speaking, who are utterly open to the severest criticism, but who

yet arrive at no grand positive concluding statements.

It is of course Plato who depicts Socrates as so depicting himself. I have put it

previously that in Socrates self-conversation we are given Platos picture of the most

philosophically acute questioner examining the philosophically most adept answerer. I

would like to emphasize as strongly as possible the sort of picture Plato has drawn, and

the importance I think he must have attached to it. I am tempted to try to make

comparisons to other legendary contests; I think of matches that stand out in the history

of boxing or of chess. Casting about for comparisons to convey the magnitude that I

believe Plato saw in Socrates conversation with himself, I think also of mythic

combatants locked in struggle. I imagine perhaps Fafner vs. Godzilla. But though that

fantasy would approach a suitable magnitude, it is in other ways not appropriate. One

reason is that Socrates self-conversation is not a battle. It is part of his customary search

for the truth about how to live. So, after all, the barest statement is best. The conversation

gives us Socrates facing Socrates. That says enough about the importance that Plato saw

in this ongoing conversation of which he gives us fragments. It says, in fact, that we are

25

here given Platos picture of what we might call the Platonic ideal of a philosophical

examination.22

So we learn something also about Plato from Socrates conversation. We learn

that as Plato imagines an examining-conversation between the best possible philosophical

equals, he imagines a conversation in which the participants do not put knowledge on

display.23 The conversation, so far as we are told, may be only humbling.24

11 A Condition That Repels Socrates

Finally, and most importantly, we learn from Socrates self-conversation just how

very seriously he takes discussion of the fine. He thinks it shameful to discuss the fine

under certain conditions.

Socrates tells us at at 304 d how, as self-questioner, he reproaches himself.

When I go home (epeidan oun eiselth oikade) to my own place (eis

emautou) and he hears me saying those things, he asks if Im not ashamed

that I dare discuss (dialegesthai) fine activities when Ive been so plainly

refuted about the fine, and its clear I dont even know at all what that is

itself! Look, hell say, How will you know whose speech -- or any other

action -- is finely presented or not, when you are ignorant of the fine?

The final question which Socrates reports from the questioner is (304e1-2),

Whenever you are in a state like that (hopote hout diakeisai) do you

think it is any better (kreitton) for you to live (zn) than to die (tethnanai)?

It is a rhetorical question. I take it that Socrates would answer, No, I think it

is not any better for me to live than to die when I am in a state like that. In

26

contrast to other dialogues in which Socrates as questioner gives no clues to his

own beliefs, here we may confidently ascribe the answer to the depicted Socrates,

who is answerer as well as questioner.25

The putative answer bears some scrutiny. I take it that the answer would not

be merely a report on Socrates state of mind. It would convey something about

the value of a certain way of life: when Socrates is in a state like that, it is no

better for him to live than to die. We may then treat as a direct assertion from

Socrates the statement,

Whenever I am in such a condition, it is no better for me to be alive than

dead.

The statement is riveting, despairing, and puzzling. There are rare circumstances in

which someone might seriously say of a person that life is no better than death for that

person. But such circumstances -- for example, extreme permanent suffering or

permanent criminality-- do not seem to be present here.26

Gregory Vlastos says of the statement, the gravity of the denouement ... has

never been properly appreciated in the scholarly literature.27 He then comments and

paraphrases thus:

At the last moment the comedy turns tragic. Socrates sees the failure of

the definitional search as his personal disaster: if he has no viable answer

to the question, What is the fine?--and the long preceding discussion has

shown that he hasnt--his life has lost its value, he might as well be

dead.(p.71)

27

Socrates sees catastrophe. He says that if this is to be his condition -- that

of not knowing what is the fine and, therefore, not knowing if any

particular action whatsoever is fine -- he might as well be dead: his life is

worthless. We know what would make life worthless for Socrates:

forfeiture of virtue. Thus Socrates is implying that since he cannot know

if any particular action is fine so long as he has no definition of the fine,

he will be unable to tell if any action whatever, be it the noblest deed or

the foulest crime, is fine or foul: all his practical moral judgements will be

at sea; so he will be unable to make correct moral choices in his daily life

and thus to act virtuously. He is morally bankrupt. (p. 72)

Vlastos says that Socrates critic tells him that not knowing if any particular action is

fine would spell moral disaster. (p. 73)

I think, however, that that is not what Socrates critic tells him. Although

Socrates statement has as much gravity as Vlastos claims, its gravity is different in kind

from what Vlastos finds.

To explain its gravity I will ask here: what, exactly, are the conditions under

which Socrates might as well die as live? I look again at the passage in which the

questioner asks if Socrates is not ashamed:

When Im convinced by you and say what you say, that its much the most

excellent thing (polu kratiston) to be able to present a speech well and

finely (kals) and get things done in court or any other gathering, I hear

every insult from that man. ... When ... he hears me saying those things, he

asks if Im not ashamed that I dare discuss (dialegesthai) fine pursuits

28

(kaln epitdeumatn) when Ive been so plainly refuted about the fine,

and its clear I dont even know what that is itself! Look, hell say,

How will you know whose speech -- or any other action -- is finely

presented or not, when you are ignorant of the fine? And when youre in a

state like that, do you think it is any better for you to live than die?

(304c-e)

I take it that here for Socrates to say that a certain speech was presented finely amounts to

his saying that the action of presenting the speech was a fine thing to do. Ordinarily,

saying Thats a fine speech is distinct from saying Your giving that speech is a fine

action. But I gather that Socrates does not want to make that distinction here, since he

reproaches himself also in the passage for having discussed fine pursuits (or, in

Woodruffs translation, fine activities). That is, the annoying questioner locates as the

source of shame that Socrates dares to say that activities such as getting things done in

court are fine although Socrates cannot answer How will you know what is fine?;

Socrates has no answer to What is the fine?, to give to someone else.

I am uncertain whether Socrates is conveying that he actually at some time did

say that presenting a speech or getting things done in court was a fine thing to do.

However, it seems to me unlikely that Socrates is here confessing to an inclination to

make such an observation. It seems to me more likely that Socrates is conveying to

Hippias the conditional thought that if Socrates were to say such a thing, the annoying

questioner would tell Socrates that that was shameful.28

29

Our question is: what is the gravity here? why would it be shameful enough to

render life no better than death to dare discuss fine activities or pursuits without an

answer to the question, What is the fine?

It is helpful here to look back at what prompted Socrates to ask What is the

fine? in the first place. What prompted him was Hippias mentioning his speech about

fine pursuits. Hippias was in effect recommending a way of life to young men. Socrates

challenge to Hippias suggests that Socrates has this objection: it would be shameful if

Socrates were to recommend to others, as fine, certain life pursuits without being able to

answer What is the fine? Such recommendations about a fine way to live, without a

supporting definition, would not help the hearer to arrive at his own reasons to believe --

which are also reasons that explain why it is true -- that the recommended way of life is

fine. Since a way of life is the most important thing that the hearer can endorse as fine,

such a recommendation may in fact be damaging to a hearer if it inspires him to follow a

pursuit but does not help him to explore his own reasons for it.

In contrast, Socrates shows that he is not troubled that he recommends pots or

soup ladles as fine without having a very general account of the fine. He can still give

perfectly good reasons, specific to pots, why something is a fine pot, as he does at 288e:

If the pot should have been turned by a good potter, smooth and round and

finely fired, like some of those fine two-handled pots that hold six choes,

very fine ones -- if hes asking about a pot like that, we have to agree its

fine. How could we say that what is fine is not a fine thing?

It does not occur to Socrates to ask here what, in general, the fine is as a preliminary to

talking about fine pots. They are not as important or as far reaching a topic as fine

30

pursuits for a life. (And there are pot experts, such as the good potter Socrates alludes to.

This potter no doubt has no general definition of the fine, but Socrates is untroubled in

getting his fine pots, and his fine pot standards, from the good potter.)

My understanding of the condition under which Socrates would be ashamed is

confirmed by 298b7-c1. Hippias had suggested that some answers Socrates finds flawed

might slip right past (paralathoi) the questioner, that is, that they might not get tested.

But Socrates says, emphasizing that it would be bad for him to put up a faade of

knowing when he did not know,

not past the person Id be most ashamed to babble at or pretend

(prospoioumenos) to say something when Im not saying anything. ... He

wouldnt easily let me say those things without testing them, any more

than hed let me talk as if I knew what I didnt know.29

The question might now be raised if Socrates is not, in talking to Hippias, doing

just what Socrates says is shameful. Is Socrates not making recommendations to Hippias

by calling pursuits fine and shameful (the opposite of fine) in the absence of a definition

of the fine? I think the answer is that Socrates is not. He is definitely not urging Hippias

to avoid doing the thing that Socrates would be most ashamed to do. In fact Socrates, in

his last response to Hippias in the dialogue, congratulates Hippias, of course archly, that

Hippias knows the things a man ought to practise (epitdeuein: 304b8). But, Socrates

says, when he himself repeats what Hippias says, and hence makes recommendations to

others, Socrates self-questioner asks Socrates if Socrates is not ashamed. Socrates

reproaches seem to be confined to himself.

31

There is one surprising thing about Socrates self-reproach which I note. The

questioner asks Socrates if Socrates is not ashamed to converse -- dialegesthai-- about

fine pursuits when he has been so plainly refuted about the fine 304d5-8). The verb

dialegesthai can refer, very broadly, to conversing of all kinds. It can also refer, more

narrowly, to the exchanges of short questions and short answers, the examining

discussions, in which Socrates customarily engages. It would seem odd for Socrates to

object to himself for engaging in these questioning discussions in the absence of a

definition, since it is the absence of a definition that gets the conversations going in the

first place; the point of the conversations is often to search for a definition. Socrates could

hardly object to himself for looking for a definition when he does not have a definition.

So perhaps converse in its wider sense is the appropriate translation for dialegesthai

here. Or perhaps we are to gather that Socrates is indeed, and not surprisingly, at least

raising the reflexive and self-critical question whether he should be having examining

conversations at all if they in fact presuppose some ability to classify things as fine and

shameful. The question of what Socrates thinks he should be ashamed of is worth more

thought.

I conclude, however, that Socrates does not represent mere ignorance of

definitions as moral disaster. He might even be thinking that such ignorance is the

normal moral condition. His concluding response of the dialogue is not that simply

because of not knowing what the fine is, it would be as well for him to die as to live.

Rather, Socrates actual concern is somewhat less self-centered than a concern about his

own acting in ignorance of definitions. He is looking outward at the effect of ignorant

recommendations on ignorant others when, revealing the most serious insight of his self-

32

conversation, he paints the conditions under which he might as well die as live. The

condition that repels Socrates is not ignorance. It is ignorance plus pretension, that is,

fraud.30

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Minneapolis, MN 55455

33

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benson, Hugh 1990. Meno, the Slave Boy, and the Elenchus. Phronesis 35: 128-158.

Benson, Hugh 1996. The Aims of the Socratic Elenchus 21-33 in Lehrer.

Burnet, John 1903. Platonis Opera vol III. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Smith, Nicholas 1994. Platos Socrates. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Freeman, Kathleen 1959. Companion to the Presocratic Philosophers. Oxford: Basil

Blackwell.

Frede, Michael 1992. Platos Arguments and the Dialogue Form. Oxford Studies in

Ancient Philosophy Supplementary volume IX: 201-219.

Guthrie, W.K.C. 1986. A History of Greek Philosophy vol IV. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Hyland, Drew 1995. Finitude and Transcendence in the Platonic Dialogues. Albany:

SUNY Press.

Inglessis-Margellos, Ccile 1994. Socrate et Son Double. Revue des tudes Grecques

105: 85-106.

Lehrer, K. et al., eds. 1996. Knowledge, Teaching, and Wisdom. Philosophical Studies

Series vol 67. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

McGinn, Colin 1983. The Subjective View. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Miller, Mitchell 1996. The Arguments I Seem to Hear: Argument and Irony in the

Crito. Phronesis 41: 121-137.

Moreau, Joseph 1941. Le Platonisme de LHippias Majeur Revue des tudes Grecques

54: 19-42.

34

Palmer, John A. 1999. Platos Reception of Parmenides . Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Prior, William J. 1997. Why Did Plato Write Socratic Dialogues? Apeiron 30: 109-

123.

Saunders, Trevor J. 1987. Platos Early Dialogues. New York: Penguin.

Sedley, David 1998. Platonic Causes Phronesis 43: 114-132.

Smith, Angela M. 1998. Knowledge and Expertise in the Early Platonic Dialogues.

Archiv fr Geschichte der Philosophie. 80: 129-161.

Szlezk, Thomas Alexander 1985. Platon und die Schriftlichkeit der Philosophie. Berlin:

Walter de Gruyter.

Tarrant, Dorothy 1976. The Hippias Major Attributed to Plato. New York: Arno Press,

reprint of 1928 edition of Cambridge University Press.

Tarrant, R.S. 1994. The Hippias Major and Socratic Theories of Pleasure in Vander

Waert 1994: 107-126.

Teloh, Henry 1986. Socratic Education in Platos Early Dialogues. Notre Dame:

University of Notre Dame Press.

Tigerstedt, E.N. 1977. Interpreting Plato: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis 17.

Uppsala: Amquist and Wicksell.

Vander Waert, Paul A. 1994. The Socratic Movement. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Vlastos, Gregory 1991. Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Ithaca: Cornell

University Press.

Vlastos, Gregory 1994. Socratic Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Waterfield, Robin 1987. Translation of Hippias Major in Saunders 1987.

35

Whitaker, Albert Keith 1998. Platos Parmenides. Newburyport, MA: Focus

Publishing.

Woodruff, Paul 1982. Plato: Hippias Major: Translated with Commentary and Essay.

Indianapolis: Hackett.

1 I use the translation of Woodruff 1982, and I have benefited from the commentary and essays. I have

occasionally made a change in the translation, using the edition of Burnet 1903. At 294e3 I would keep

Burnets reading.

2 Hyland 1995, p. 5 proposes an even more sweeping rule: It is instructive, as others have observed, that

Plato never presents a dialogue between two mature philosophers, much less between two wise people.

Whitaker 1998 p. 2 says, The Parmenides is the only example we possess of a conversation between

Socrates, albeit a very young Socrates, and another philosopher. Socrates conversation with himself in the

Hippias Major is an exception, though a very brief one.

Noticing the same thing as Hyland and Whitaker do, but describing it more accurately, even given

the Hippias Majors self-conversation, Prior 1997 p. 116 says, Philosophy, for Socrates in these [early and

middle] dialogues, is a way of life. In the dialogues written before the Parmenides, Socrates is the only

representative of that way of life.

3 There seems still to be some reasonable controversy here about what Socrates believes. A study of the

speeches of the Laws in the Crito by Miller 1996 raises the question whether Socrates enactment of the

Laws speech tells us Socrates own views, or whether these remain unspoken. For more complexities of

the Crito, see Inglessis-Margellos 1994.

36

4 The conversation in the Hippias Major then is also a counter-example, but a special and not quite

threatening one, to the thesis on p. 146 of Smith 1998: Socrates interlocutors all claimed to be experts.

Socrates of course famously claims not to be an expert. This essay will explain why he interrogates himself

anyway.

5 Tarrant 1994 suggests that neither of the two representations of Socrates is quite the real Socrates. Tarrant

describes Socrates (p. 113) in the Hippias Major with the surface Socrates having neither the urgent

desire for truth nor the guts to ask tricky questions for himself, and the alter ego being all too hostile in his

interrogations. That I object to Tarrants description will become clear later.

6 There is a thought-provoking discussion of irony in Vlastos 1991. Vlastos says that when we speak today

of a comment as ironic, we have in mind that its falsity will be obvious to its audience. But, he claims, the

ancient Greek eirn, ironist, as explained in e.g. Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics, conveys deliberate lying

and the aim of deceiving the audience. I do not entirely agree with Vlastos that we today think that irony

must be obviously false to its audience, since I dont think he takes into account that there may be more

than one audience for the same irony, and some audiences may be obtuse, and be known to be. But the

matter is complicated, and I will anyway avoid the word irony.

Tigerstedt 1977 p. 95 says, We can seldom be absolutely sure that Plato is not speaking

ironically. (Presumably by Plato, he means certain characters in Platos dialogues.) I appreciate the

difficulty of discerning when a statement in a dialogue is or is not ironic. But it seems appropriate, and

even necessary, to ask ourselves what follows if certain statements -- such as the questions and comments

of Socrates in his self-conversation in the Hippias Major-- are taken seriously.

7 The Editor reminds me that Socrates talked to himself after he was told what the Delphic Oracle had said

about him.

8 Woodruff points out that athetizers of the dialogue have said that Hippias is mercilessly ridiculed in a

way that is uncharacteristic of Platos Socrates (p.97). Woodruff replies that the Socrates of the Hippias

Major, sharp, ironic, and not without a streak of cruelty is consistent with the goading and irritating

Socrates elsewhere portrayed by Plato (p. 97). But Woodruffs example of the streak of cruelty is solely

what he calls the naked insult at 286a (p. 119). There Socrates says to Hippias that the Spartans use

37

Hippias the way children use old ladies, to tell stories for pleasure. Woodruffs note 42 compares the

remark to a Thrasymachean insult in the Republic . But it seems to me that at 286a Socrates is giving a

mild barb: the Spartans have located Hippias in the wrong performance genre. I would need more

evidence that Socrates or Hippias has the degree of total contempt for old ladies and childrens stories that

would render Socrates description a positive cruelty.

9 Woodruff, p. 65 note 119 comments on the relation to the Phaedo passage. In contrast, Sedley 1998 p.

128 sees the Phaedo passage as defining large via going beyond (or exceeding), that is, as giving the same

analysis as the Hippias Major, and notes that the same account is given at Parmenides 150c-d.

10 The character of Hippias as portrayed in this dialogue as self-satisfied is, so far as I know, universally

acknowledged. Tarrant 1976 comments, His first words breathe self-importance and he continues to boast

without shame, and she speaks of his arrogant self-confidence (p. xxix). Guthrie 1986 p. 176 says that

the dialogue is a burlesque of Hippias as an insensitive and stupid man with an impenetrable complacency

and an insatiable appetite for flattery. I dont think that Hippias is stupid, although he is often wrong; but

I wont discuss that point here. Teloh 1986 p. 179 says, Hippias ignorance is matched only by his

confidence and insolence. See also Freeman 1959 p. 389 390. Hippias character is unchanged two days

later in the conversation depicted in the Hippias Minor. Some readers of this paper have expressed

sympathy for the actual Hippias, but I obviously do not take a stand on what he was like.

11 Here with a personal object ekmeletss means train. Woodruff translates practice, which is the

translation Liddell-Scott gives for the verb with a non-personal object (to practice something, to study it),

as at 286d6, which Woodruff translates study.

12 Prior p. 117, makes a similar point about why Plato wrote descriptions of conversations with such people

as Hippias. The interlocutors dont fail because they are stupid, though commentators often allege this.

Plato was not interested in writing works that simply made fun of foolish views and the people who held

them.

13 Compare Aristotles saying that we can contemplate our neighbors better than ourselves and their actions

better than our own. (Nicomachean Ethics Bk IX ch 9 1169b33-34). Compare also Socrates observation in

38

Alcibiades Major (133a) that an eye looking into another eye will see itself, which precedes his suggestion

that if a soul is to see itself, it should look at a soul (133b).

14 The verb I am rendering seem [phainesthai] has an important ambiguity between is plainly and is

apparently, as Woodruff points out note 80, p. 54. Woodruff renders it to be seen to be in order to

preserve the ambiguity. I have mostly used seem here to emphasize that that is the force that is important

in this argument. The argument points out that appropriateness can give the mere appearance of being fine.

15 On this point I am indebted to Gale Justin for comments on a shorter version of this paper that I presented

at the Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association in April 1999. She made it

clear to me that the genuinely appropriate -- the appropriate in that sense of appropriate in which it is a

perfectly general word of commendation - is different from Hippias understanding of the word. The

argument that Socrates gives here works only against Hippias rather shallow conception of the appropriate.

Teloh p. 178, puts it: Hippias operates only at the level of superficial appearances and public opinion.

Hippias example of shoes and clothes as appropriate suggests that for him the appropriate is the

fashionable.

16 One might also state the conclusion, The appropriate is plainly something other than fine. Translating

the verb ephan, from phainesthai, by is plainly, is warranted by the following participle, on.

17 Guthrie p. 185.

18 Guthrie, p. 185.

19 Woodruff, p. 64, also thinks, in contrast to Guthrie, that Socrates argument is a good one, but he

identifies the flaw that the argument reveals in Hippias proposal differently. Woodruff says, The

argument would discredit any definition of the fine that was intended to suffice for some other definiendum

as well. Two different things cannot have the same logical cause . . . unless the two always occur together.

... So the argument is not a trick; it serves to show that Hippias himself conceptually separates the

appropriate from the fine. Woodruffs principle about logical cause seems unobjectionable, but I think it is

especially of interest to notice that the argument is calling attention to the connection between being and

seeming.

39

20 Robin Waterfield, p. 249 in Trevor J. Saunders, ed., Plato: Early Dialogues (Penguin: New York 1987)

comments on the argument by which Socrates disqualifies Hippias second proposal in a way that makes,

but I think somewhat too simply, the important connection between seeming and being fine. The argument

is neat, but flawed, from our point of view, because we want to say that fineness is an aesthetic quality; it

lies in the eye of the beholder. There seems to be little sense in the notion that something is fine, if in fact

no one recognizes it as such -- but what has universal recognition got to do with it? However many people

see X as fine, X is fine for them; if no one sees X as fine, X is not fine for them. Because Socrates is

especially concerned about fine activities, I think it is clear that he is not interested in what is fine for some

particular individual. Socrates, unlike Waterfield, could say that a particular fine thing might go

universally unrecognized.

21 For some complicated ways of stating the connection that are ultimately discarded, see McGinn 1983 pp.

145-155.

22 Palmer 1999 p. 63 suggests the possibility that Socrates the questioner and Socrates the answerer make

crucially different assumptions about the definitional project. It will be clear that, in taking the

conversation of which Socrates reports fragments to be a serious conversation of Socrates with himself, I

disagree with that.

23 On this point I disagree strongly with Szlezk 1985 ch. 7, Hippias maior: Sokrates und sein

Doppelgnger. According to Szlezk, when Socrates splits into two, one of the results of the split, the

questioner, is someone whose speech betrays knowledge of the ideas; the other result is the unknowing

answerer.

But in the Hippias Major the knowledge of the fine itself that is sought is first of all an analysis of

the fine. I see no evidence that Socrates the questioner has that analysis. Talking about the fine itself shows

an interest in a definitional question. It does not show a grasp of the answer. Moreover, if Socrates the

answerer were to answer the questioner by mentioning the ideas in the sense of a realm of transcendent

beings graspable only by a few people who had special access to them, my impression of Socrates the

questioner is that he would get out his cudgel in earnest. Socrates objects to Hippias advice to make

yourself famous by making speeches not because Hippias cannot reinforce his advice by speaking of the

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theory of ideas in this latter sense. Rather, Socrates is objecting that Hippias gives no straightforward

reasons to believe that the advice is good advice. Plato hints that Hippias advice is not good by making

that advice originate with Nestor, who has some character flaws that may indicate his untrustworthiness.

(The Oxford Classical Dictionary credits Nestor with platitudes.)

On the point that the questioner is somehow alluding to the theory of ideas, I disagree also with

the helpful though athetizing article of Moreau 1941. Moreau finds that the questioning Socrates (pp. 41-

42) asks questions in a way that only initiates of Platonism will see the point of. If initiates of

Platonism need to do more than to understand what it is to ask for an analysis, I disagree.

There is room for dispute whether or not Plato moved -- and if so, how much -- from this picture

of the ideal conversation about philosophy in other works. I do not take up that question here.

24 The conversation in the Hippias Major provides a corrective worth dwelling on to a statement of Prior p.

117. Prior says, The dialogues are unhappy encounters between the philosopher and non-philosophers,

and the point of the encounters is to show the incompatibility between the life of philosophy and that lived

by non-philosophers. Socrates self-conversation in the Hippias Major is an encounter also somewhat

unhappy -- in that no positive answer to the main question is arrived at. But it is an encounter between a

philosopher and a philosopher. The Hippias Major might then have another point: to show that a life of

philosophy involves pretty constant self-questioning and pretty constant failure to define the most

important things. Waterfield 1987 p. 226 raises the question why, if the dialogue is scarcely informative

on the nature of fineness, ... did Plato write it? Waterfield pp. 226-228 gives some reasons to find the

dialogue useful. Priors idea gives another answer to the question: the encounter between Socrates and

Hippias shows the incompatibility of their two ways of life. Adding to Priors idea the thought that the

dialogue displays the encounter between Socrates and himself gives another answer to Waterfields

question.

25 In most dialogues the dialogue form prevents us, as, for example, Frede 1992 points out, from finding

direct evidence for any views to ascribe to Socrates the questioner, let alone to Plato. We only have what

the answerer believes in a question and answer discussion. In Alcibiades Major Alcibiades states this.

Socrates asks, (112e- 113a) Do you see again, Alcibiades, how you arent saying that well... that I am

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saying these things? ...Concerning these things, surely, its not that I, the one questioning, am evidently

saying [them]; rather, [is it] you, the one answering? Alcibiades responds, The one answering, it seems

to me, Socrates. But here in the Hippias Major, if Socrates would answer No to the question, we have the

view of Socrates the answerer, who happens also to be the questioner.

26 Other passages in which what Socrates says seems to have the implication that under certain conditions it

would be better to die than to live are discussed in Brickhouse and Smith 1994, pp. 201-212.

An anonymous referee has made the thought-provoking and correct comment that there is some

room for dispute about what Socrates response would be. Suppose, as is possible, that Socrates response

would be, No, I do not think that it is any better for me to live than to die when I am in a state like that.

That response is logically different from, and milder than, the response, I think that it is not . The

response, I do not think would be a report simply about the content of Socrates thoughts. It would not

be a comment on the value of a certain way of living. It would be a further report of Socratic ignorance.

Socrates putative response would not then be as riveting as I find it to be later on in this essay. I dont see

a way to settle this dispute definitively. At the moment I am more inclined to believe that Socrates answer

is intended as a comment on the value of a way of life, not just as a comment about the contents of his

thought.

27 Vlastos 1994, p. 72.

28 It would also be relevant to look at passages in other dialogues in which Socrates says (and not

ironically) that someone has said something fine. For example, at 19e in the Apology Socrates says that he

thinks it is a fine thing if someone is able to teach people, as Gorgias, Prodicus, and Hippias profess to do.

Is this statement the sort of recommendation that the Socrates of the Hippias Major would be ashamed to

make in the absence of an account of the fine? I think that the answer is No, but I will not pursue that

question here.

Gale Justin has suggested that since Socrates mentions court or any other gathering, Socrates has

in mind the sort of recommendations he would put himself in the position of making if he were to go into

politics.

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29 Benson 1990 p. 152 also objects to Vlastos account of 304d5-e3, but differently from the way I have

objected. To read the Hippias Major passage ... as ... a message of the futility of the quest for knowledge

is, I think, to seriously misread it. [It] is of a piece with those passages in which Socrates testifies to the

value of eliminating ones conceit. It is just another passage in which Socrates exhorts others toward

philosophy. Once one recognizes ones ignorance, one must recognize that a life in such a state is not

worth living. Benson relates the Hippias Major passage to the Apologys claim that the unexamined life is

not worth living for a man. I think Bensons account is compatible with my account. The Hippias Major

passage, as Ive explained it, says only that the pretentious or fraudulent life is not worth living. The

connection with the unexamined life is perhaps that an unexamined life leads to self-satisfaction; self-

satisfaction may lead to pretension and fraud. Self-examination may help Socrates ward off self-

satisfaction. But the connection is worth more exploration.

30 I thank two anonymous referees and the Editor for very thought provoking comments. I thank my

colleague, Elizabeth Belfiore, for informing me about Nestor and for convincing me that Socrates is

genuinely insulting to himself. I thank my colleague Norman Dahl for reminding me that making

objections to oneself about ones current philosophical projects is a very ordinary thing to do. I thank

Constance Meinwald and Marie Pannier for helpful reactions and comments, and I especially thank Hugh

Benson and Gale Justin for some objections. I thank John Wallace and my sons John and Peter for their

encouraging attention to a very early draft of this.