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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