Tuesday, March 19, 2019

5 The Hippias Major, Plato’s authentic Socrates – with reference to Xenophon’s Memorabilia and Symposium


After the failure of Hippias’ third attempt at defining beauty, Socrates’ critic and questioner – his inner self – suggested that they should consider appropriateness (to prepon), ‘whether it might not be beauty (to kalon)’ (293d-e). When Hippias agrees – it was he after all who suggested that stone might be beautiful, if it is appropriate (290c7) – Socrates asks: ‘Do we define appropriate as that which by its presence causes the things in which it becomes present to appear beautiful, or causes them to be beautiful, or neither?’ – Hippias: ‘In my own opinion, that which causes the things to appear beautiful; for example, a man may be a figure of fun, but when he wears clothes or shoes that fit well he does seem a finer man.’ (293e11-294a5) ‘But if that’s so, it can’t be what we are seeking’, Socrates argues: ‘We ask about beauty, by which all beautiful things are beautiful whether they appear so or not – what can that be?’ (294b4-6) Hippias protests: ‘But, Socrates, the appropriate causes things both to be and to appear beautiful, when it is present.’ – Socrates: ‘Then it is impossible for things that are in fact beautiful not to appear beautiful, since by hypothesis that which makes them appear beautiful is present in them? – Hippias: ‘It is impossible.’ – Socrates: ‘Then it is our conclusion, Hippias, that all established usages and all practices which are in reality beautiful are regarded as beautiful by all men, and always appear so to them? Or do we think the exact opposite, that ignorance of them is prevalent, and that these are the chief of all objects of contention and fighting, both between individuals and between states?’ (294c3-d3)
Having pointed out that ‘the same cause never could make things both appear and be beautiful’, Socrates asks: ‘Is the appropriate that which causes things to appear beautiful, or that which causes them to be so.’ – Hippias: ‘To appear, I think.’ – Socrates: ‘Oh dear! Then the chance of finding out what the beautiful really is has slipped through our fingers and vanished, since the appropriate has proved to be something other than beautiful.’ – Hippias: ‘Upon my word, Socrates, I should never have thought it!’ – Hippias appears to be thinking that their query is over; for wasn’t it the questioner’s suggestion that proved to be faulty? So Socrates quickly disabuses him: ‘But still, my friend, do not let us give up yet; I have still a sort of hope that the nature of beauty will reveal itself.’ – Hippias: ‘Yes indeed, it is not hard to discover. I am sure that if I were to retire into solitude for a little while and reflect by myself, I could define it for you with superlative precision.’ – Socrates: ‘Hippias, Hippias, don’t boast. You know what trouble it has already given us, and I’m afraid it may get angry with us and run away more resolutely than ever. But what nonsense I am talking; for you, I suppose, will easily discover it when once you are alone. Still, I beg you most earnestly to discover it with me here; or if you please, let us look for it together as we are now doing.’(294e2-295b3)
Socrates offers a new definition of beauty: ‘I define it as – pray give me your whole attention and stop me if I talk nonsense – well, let us assume that whatever is useful (chrȇsimon) is beautiful. My ground for the proposition is as follows: we do not say that eyes are beautiful when they appear to be without a faculty of sight; we do when they have that faculty and so are useful for seeing.’ – Hippias: ‘Yes’ – Socrates: ‘Similarly we say that the whole body is beautifully made, sometimes for running, sometimes for wrestling; and we speak in the same way of all animals. A beautiful horse, or cock, or quail, and all utensils, and means of transport both on land and on sea, merchant vessels and ships of war, and all instruments of music and of the arts generally, and, if you like, practices and laws – we apply the word “beautiful” to practically all these in the same manner; in each case we take as our criterion  the natural constitution or the workmanship or the form of enactment, and whatever is useful we call beautiful, and beautiful in that respect in which it is useful and for the purpose for which and at the time at which it is useful; and we call ugly that which is useless in all these respects. Is not this your view also, Hippias?’ – Hippias: ‘Yes, it is.’ (295c1-e4)
Socrates rejoices: ‘Then we are now right in affirming that the useful is pre-eminently beautiful.’ – Hippias: ‘We are.’ – Socrates: ‘And that which has the power (to dunaton) to achieve its specific purpose is useful for the purpose which it has the power to achieve, and that which is without that power is useless?’ – Hippias: ‘Certainly.’ – Socrates: ‘Then power (dunamis) is the beautiful thing, and the lack of it (adunamia) is ugly?’ – Hippias: ‘Very much so. We have evidence of that fact from public life, among other sources; for in political affairs generally, and also within a man’s own city, power is the most beautiful of things, and lack of it the most ugly and shameful.’ (295e5-296a4)
At this last exchange Plato’s audience, which until now could enjoy and laugh at all more or less humorous allusions at the contemporary situation, must have been suddenly overcome by deep unease. Socrates’ ironic praise of the power and the unbounded admiration of political power in the mouth of Hippias was a too direct and ominous allusion to the disastrous power of the Thirty. There is no humour in this brief exchange. The turning point is forthcoming.
Socrates: ‘Good! Does it then follow – a momentous consequence – that wisdom is the most beautiful, and ignorance the most shameful of all things?’ – Hippias: ‘What do you think, Socrates?’ (296a4-7)
I must interrupt the flow of Jowett’s translation. For his translation of Socrates’ last sentence is quite wrong. Socrates says Hippia, dia tauta kai hȇ sophia pantȏn kalliston, hȇ de amathia pantȏn aischiston; which means ‘Hippias, and is this the reason why wisdom is the most beautiful, and ignorance the most shameful of all things?’ When Socrates subsequently rejects the identification of beauty with power, he does not thereby cast any doubt on the assertion ‘that wisdom is the most beautiful, and ignorance the most shameful of all things’; he rejects the view that ‘power (dunamis) is the beautiful thing, and the lack of it (adunamia) is ugly’, and that this is why ‘wisdom is the most beautiful, and ignorance the most shameful of all things’
Socrates: ‘A moment’s quiet, my dear friend. I have misgivings about the line we are taking now.’ – Hippias: ‘Why these misgivings again? This time your argument has proceeded magnificently.’ – Socrates: ‘I could wish it were so; but let us consider together this point. Could a man do something which he had neither the knowledge nor the least atom of power to do?’ – Hippias: ‘Of course not; how could he do what he had not the power to do?’ – Socrates: ‘Then those who by reason of some error contrive and work evil involuntarily – surely they would never do such things if they were without the power to do them?’ – Hippias: ‘Obviously not.’ – Socrates: ‘And those who have the power to do a thing do it through power, not of course by being powerless?’ – Hippias: ‘Certainly not.’ – Socrates: ‘Those who do what they do all have the power to do it?’ – Hippias: ‘Yes.’ – Socrates: ‘And evil is done much more abundantly than good by all men from childhood upwards, erring involuntarily?’ – Hippias: ‘That is so.’ – Socrates: ‘Well then, are we to say that this power, and these useful things – I mean any things useful for working some evil – are we to say that these are beautiful, or that they are far from being so?’ – Hippias: ‘Far from it, in my opinion.’ – Socrates: ‘Then the powerful and the useful are not, it appears, the beauty we want.’ (296a4-d3)
The argument concerning usefulness as a criterion of beauty began very promisingly. Socrates rejoiced: ‘Then we are now right in affirming that the useful is pre-eminently beautiful.’ But then he viewed usefulness as the power to do useful things, and suddenly all went sour. Socrates reflected that ‘evil is done much more abundantly than good by all men from childhood upwards’, and that evil can’t be done without the power to do evil. Socrates concludes the argument by realising that usefulness and power can’t be identified with the beauty. The argument in its very structure reflects Plato’s experience with the reign of the Thirty. When it began, he welcomed it enthusiastically, for he thought that they would ‘lead the State out of an unjust way into a just way’, but then he saw ‘how these men within a short time caused men to look back on the former government as a golden age’ (Seventh Letter 324d4-8, tr. R.G. Bury).
At the beginning of Socrates’ attempt to define beauty as to chrȇsimon (‘the useful’, at 295c3), on the margin of the Hippias Major in my Oxford edition of Plato I noted (some thirty-five years ago) D. Tarrant’s remark: ‘Socrates now puts forward the view which was, historically, his own. Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia III.viii.5, IV.vi.9 and Symposium V.4.’ And indeed, in Xenophon’s Memorabilia III.viii.5 Socrates says: ‘It is in relation to the same things that men’s bodies look beautiful and good (kala te k’agatha) and that all other things men use (chrȏntai) are thought beautiful and good, namely, in relation to those things for which they are useful (euchrȇsta).’ (Translation E.C. Marchant) In Mem. IV.vi.9 Socrates maintains that the useful (to chrȇsimon) is beautiful (kalon) for any purpose for which it is useful. Does it then mean that Plato’s attribution of the ultimate rejection of defining beauty as that which is useful to Socrates is ahistorical? Before attributing a-historicity to Plato’s Socrates in the Hippias Major on account of Xenophon, let us look at Chapter V of Xenophon’s Symposium.
Callias’, who is giving the symposium in celebration of the victory of his beloved Autolycus in Panathenaic games (in the year 421 B.C., at the time of the Peace of Nicias), addresses Critobulus: ‘Are you going to refuse to enter the lists in the beauty contest (peri tou kallous) with Socrates?’– Socrates: ‘Undoubtedly! For probably he notices that the procurer (mastrȏpos; Socrates declared at IV. 10 that he prides himself on ‘the trade of the procurer’ epi mastropeiai) stands high in the favour of the judges.’ (V.1)
Some explanations are needed. Critobulus declares at III. 7 that he prides himself on his beauty (epi kallei), and at IV. 10 to 18 he explains why. He ends his explanation with the words: ‘If it is pleasurable (hȇdu) to attain one’s desires with the goodwill of the giver, I know very well that at this very moment, without uttering a word, I could persuade this boy or this girl’ – employed by Callias to entertain the symposiasts – ‘to give me a kiss sooner than you could, Socrates, no matter how long and profoundly you might argue.’ To this Socrates retorted: ‘How now? You boast as though you actually thought yourself a handsomer man than me.(IV.18-19)
In response to Socrates, Critobulus retorted: ‘But yet in spite of that, I do not shun the contest. So make your plea, if you can produce any profound reason, and prove that you are more handsome (kalliȏn) than I. Only,’ he added, ’let someone bring the light close to him.’ – Socrates: ‘The first step, then, in my suit, is to summon you to the preliminary hearing; be so kind as to answer my questions.’ – Critobulus: ‘And you proceed to put them.’ – Socrates: ‘Do you hold, then, that beauty (to kalon) is to be found only in man, or is it also in other objects?’ – Critobulus: ‘My opinion is that beauty is to be found quite as well in a horse or an ox or in any number of inanimate things. I know, at any rate, that a shield may be beautiful, or a sword, or a spear.’ – Socrates: ‘How can it be that all these things are beautiful (kala) when they are entirely dissimilar?’ – Critobulus: ‘Why, they are beautiful and fine (kala) if they are well made for the respective functions for which we obtain them, or if they are naturally well constituted to serve our needs.’ – Socrates: ‘Do you know the reason why we need eyes?’ – Critobulus: ‘Obviously to see with.’ – Socrates: ‘In that case it would appear without further ado that my eyes are finer (kalliones) than yours.’ – Critobulus: ‘How so?’ – Socrates: ‘Because, while your eyes see only straight ahead, mine, by bulging out as they do, see also to the sides.’ – Critobulus: ‘Do you mean to say that a crab is better equipped visually than any other creature?’ – Socrates: ‘Absolutely; for its eyes are also better to ensure strength.’ – Critobulus: ‘Well, let that pass; but whose nose is finer (kalliȏn), yours or mine.’ – Socrates: ‘Mine, I consider, granting that Providence (hoi theoi, ‘the gods’) made us noses to smell with. For your nostrils look down toward the ground, but mine are wide open and turned outward so that I can catch scents from all about.’ – Critobulus: ‘But how do you make a snub nose handsomer (kallion) than a straight one?’ – Socrates: ‘For the reason that it does not put a barricade between the eyes but allows them unobstructed vision of whatever they desire to see; whereas a high nose, as if in despite, has walled the eyes off one from the other.’ – Critobulus: ‘As for the mouth, I concede that point. For if it is created for the purpose of biting off food, you could bite off a far larger mouthful than I could. And don’t you think that your kiss that your kiss is also more tender because you have thick lips?’ – Socrates: ‘According to your argument, it would seem that I have a mouth more ugly even than an ass’s. But do you not reckon it a proof of my superior beauty that the River Nymphs, goddesses as they are, bear as their offspring the Seileni, who resemble me more closely than they do you?’ – Critobulus:’I cannot argue with you; let them distribute the ballots, so that I may know without suspense what fine or punishment I must undergo. Only let ballot be secret, for I am afraid that the “wealth” (ploutos) you and Antisthenes possess will overmaster me.’ (V. 2-8)
Xenophon then closes the chapter as follows: ‘So the maiden and the lad turned in the ballots secretly. While this was going on, Socrates saw to it that the light should be brought in front of Critobulus, so that the judges might not be misled, and stipulated that the prize given by the judges to crown the victor should be kisses and not ribbons. When the ballots were turned out of the urn and proved to be a unanimous verdict in favour of Critobulus, “Faugh!” exclaimed Socrates; “your money, Critobulus, does not appear to resemble Callias’s. For his makes people more honest, while yours is about the most potent to corrupt men, whether members of a jury or judges of a contest.’ (V. 9-10, translation O.J. Todd)
The term to chrȇsimon (‘the useful’ or ‘usefulness’) does not occur in all this discussion, yet D. Tarrant was right to point to it in connection with Socrates’ definition of beauty as to chrȇsimon in Plato’s Hippias Major, for the concept dominates the discussion. And through all the badinage one thing is clear: Socrates was well aware that when he viewed beauty as to chrȇsimon he was not doing justice to its aesthetic aspect. Let me end this post with a forward-looking glance: In the Hipias Major, in his last attempt, Socrates will attempt to define beauty (to kalon) as ‘the pleasant (to hȇdu) which comes through the senses of hearing and sight’ (298a6-7).

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