6 The Hippias Major, Plato’s authentic Socrates – with reference to the Phaedrus and the Charmides

When Socrates rejected the useful (to chrȇsimon) and the powerful (to dunaton) as a definition of beauty, Hippias disagreed. In his view they are beautiful ‘if they are powerful for good (ean ge agatha dunȇtai) and are useful for such purposes (kai epi toiauta chrȇsimon ȇi, 296d4-5)’. Socrates accepted the amendment: ‘Do you think that what we really had in mind to say was that beauty is that which is both useful and powerful for some good purpose? … But this is equivalent to ‘beneficial’ (ȏphelimon), is it not? … So we reach the conclusion that beautiful bodies, and beautiful rules of life, and wisdom, and all the things we mentioned are beautiful because they are beneficial?’ – Hippias: ‘Evidently.’ … Socrates: ‘Now the beneficial is that which produces good (Tou agathou ara aition estin to kalon, 296e9-10)? … And that which produces (to poioun) is identical with the cause (to aition)? … Then the beneficial is the cause of the good? … the cause and that of which it is the cause are different … If then beauty (ei ara to kalon) is the cause of the good (estin aition agathou), then the good (to agathon) would be brought into existence by beauty (gignoit’ an hupo tou kalou, 297b2-3) … the cause is not that which it brings into existence, nor vice versa?’ – Hippias: ‘True.’ – Socrates: ‘Then most certainly, my good sir, beauty is not good nor the good beautiful. Do you think that possible after our discussion?’ – Hippias: ‘No, I most certainly do not.’ – Socrates: ‘Then does it please us, and should we be willing to say, that the beautiful is not good, nor the good beautiful? – Hippias:’ Most certainly not; it does not please me at all.’ – Socrates: ‘Most certainly I agree, Hippias; it pleases me least of the theories we have discussed’ (emoi de ge pantȏn hȇkista areskei hȏn eirȇkamewn logȏn, 297c10-d1, translation from the Hippias Major is B. Jowett’s)

The definition of the beautiful as that which is beneficial must be abandoned, but Socrates doesn’t give up: ‘Come now: if we were to say that whatever we enjoy (ho an chairein hȇmas poiȇi) – I do not mean to include all pleasures (mȇ pasas tas hȇdonas), but only what we enjoy through our senses of hearing and sight (all’ ho an dia tȇs akoȇs kai tȇs opseȏs) – if we were to say that this is beautiful (touto einai phaimen kalon), how should we fare in our struggle? Surely beautiful human beings (kaloi anthrȏpoi), and all decorative work, and pictures, and plastic art, delight us when we see them if they are beautiful (ha an kala ȇi); and beautiful sounds, and music as a whole, and discourses, and tales of imagination, have the same effect; so that if we were to reply to that blustering fellow: “My worthy sir, beauty is (to kalon esti) the pleasant which comes through the senses of hearing and sight (to di’ akoȇs te kai di’ opseȏs hȇdu)”, do you not think that we should stop his bluster?’ – Hippias: ‘At last, Socrates, I think we have a good definition of beauty.’ (297e5-298b1)

This is an interesting attempt to define beauty by our feelings, but it is in danger of derailment before it begins to unfold, for Socrates has a query: ‘Well, but are we then to say that those practices which are beautiful, and the laws, are beautiful as giving pleasure through our senses of sight and hearing, or that they are in some other category?’ – Hippias: ‘Perhaps these cases might escape our man.’ – Socrates: ‘No, Hippias, they would certainly not escape the man by whom I should be most ashamed to be caught talking pretentious nonsense.’ – Hippias: ‘Whom do you mean?’ – ‘The son of Sophroniscus [‘i.e. Socrates himself’], who would no more allow me to hazard these assertions while they are unexplored than to assert what I do not know as though I knew it.’ (298b2-c2)

When Socrates thus revealed the identity of the intrepid questioner as that of his own critical self, Hippias agreed with his objection: ‘Well, now you have raised the point, I must say that I too think this question about the laws is on a different footing.’ – Socrates: ‘Gently, Hippias; we may quite well be imagining that we see our way clearly, when we have really fallen into the same difficulty about beauty as that in which we were caught a moment ago.’ – Hippias: ‘What do you mean, Socrates?’ (298c3-8)

Follows a lengthy enquiry, which ends, as Socrates predicted, in the same difficulty about beauty, in which they were caught ‘a moment ago’ (nundȇ, ‘just now’). What was the difficulty? Socrates proposed to define beauty as that which is beneficial, beneficial appeared to be that which produces good, the cause and its effect are different. This would mean that beauty and good are different, which proved to be unacceptable not only to Socrates, but to Hippias as well. The present discussion ends in the same predicament when the pleasures we enjoy through our senses of hearing and sight are shown to be beneficial pleasures.

How does Socrates achieve this, how does he make the discussion turn in the vicious circle? He begins by showing that ‘the pleasant which comes through the senses of hearing and sight’ cannot be accepted as a definition of beauty. In the course of demonstrating this point he gives Hippias an opportunity to condemn himself through his own claims at scholarly superiority. Socrates points out that pleasures that come through the senses of hearing and sight ‘have something identical (echousin ti to auto) which makes them to be beautiful (ho poiei autas kalas einai), a common quality (to koinon touto) which appertains to both of them in common (ho kai amphoterais autais epesti koinȇi) and to each singly (kai hekaterai idiai, 300a9-b1). Then he asks: ‘If then these pleasures (Ei ara ti hautai hai hȇdonai) are both of them as a pair conditioned in some way (amphoterai peponthasin), but neither singly is so conditioned (hekatera de mȇ), they could not be beautiful by reason of this particular condition (ouk an toutȏi ge tȏi pathȇmati eien kalai, 300b4-5)?’

At this point Hippias ought to have realised that the definition of beauty as ‘the pleasant which comes through the senses of hearing and sight’ does not work, for the pleasures that come through the senses of hearing and sight have something, which makes them beautiful and appertains to both of them taken together, and to each singly, whereas ‘the pleasant which comes through the senses of hearing and sight’ appertains to both of them, but not to each singly. Instead, Hippias asked: ‘And how is it possible, Socrates, that when neither of them singly has been conditioned in some way – any way you like to think of – yet both as a pair should be conditioned in the way in which neither singly has been conditioned?’ – Socrates: ‘You think it impossible?’ – Hippias: ‘I do, not being entirely unacquainted either with the nature of the subject, or with the terminology of our present discussion.’ – Socrates: ‘Very nice, Hippias. But still I fancy perchance I see an example of what you say to be impossible, though really I may see nothing.’ – Hippias: ‘It is not a case of “perchance”; you see wrong, of good set purpose.’ – Socrates: ‘Indeed, many such examples rise up before my mind (pro tȇs psuchȇs ‘before my soul’); but I distrust them because they are visible to me, who have never earned a penny by wisdom, while they do not appear to you who have earned more in that way than anyone else alive (300b5-d2) … It appears to me (emoi gar phainetai) that there are attributes which cannot and do not now, belong to either of us singly (ho mȇt egȏ pepontha einai mȇt’ eimi mȇd’ au su ei), but can belong to both together (touto amphoterous peponthenai hȇmas hoion t’ einai); and, conversely (hetera d’ au), that there are attributes of which both together are capable (ha amphoteroi peponthamen einai), but neither singly (tauta oudeteron einai hȇmȏn, 300e3-6).’ – Hippias: ‘Here indeed, Socrates, are absurdities even more monstrous than those of your answer a little while ago. Only consider; if we are both just man, is not each of us individually just? if each of us is just, are not both so? (300e7-10) … You see, Socrates, the fact is that yourself do not consider things as a whole, nor do those with whom you habitually converse; you test beauty (to kalon) and each general concept (kai hekaston tȏn ontȏn ‘and each of the things that are’) by taking it separately and mentally dissecting it, with the result that you fail to perceive the magnitude and continuity of the substances of which reality is composed. And now this failure has gone so far that you imagine (hȏste oiei) that there is something (einai ti), an attribute (ȇ pathos) or substantive nature (ȇ ousian), which appertains to two of them together but not to each singly, or conversely to each singly but not to the two together; that is the state of mind to which you and your friends are reduced – how unreasoning, and superficial, and stupid, and uncomprehending!’ – Socrates: ‘Such is the lot of us mortals, Hippias – a man does what he can, not what he wishes, according to the oft-quoted proverb; however, your constant admonitions are a great help. Just now, before your admonition of our stupidity in these matters, I had some further thoughts about them which perhaps I might explain to you – or shall I refrain?’ – Hippias: ‘I know what you are going to say, Socrates; I know the mind of every school of dialecticians (oida gar hekastous tȏn peri tous logous). But say your say, if you prefer it.’ – Socrates: ‘Well, I do prefer it. Before you said what you did, my honoured friend, we were so uninstructed as to hold the opinion that each of us two, you and myself, is one, but that, taken together, we cannot be that which each of us is singly – for we are two and not one: such was our folly. Now, however, we have been taught by you that if together we are two, each of us singly must be two, and if each is one, so must we both be; for on the continuous theory of reality according to Hippias it cannot be otherwise – whatever two entities are together, each is singly, and whatever each is, both are. Here I sit, fixed by you in this belief. But first, Hippias, remind me; are you and I both one, or are you two, and I two?’ (301b3-301e8)

What may be the purpose of this debunking of Hippias? It will be through the mouth of Hippias, thus portrayed, that we shall listen to a great praise of rhetoric. In the Phaedrus Plato attempted to reform rhetoric by founding it on dialectic. But since the revolution filled Plato with the hope that the aristocrats would ‘administer the State by leading it out of an unjust way of life into a just way’ (Seventh Letter 324d4-5, tr. R.G. Bury), he realised that in a society governed by political wisdom (by sȏphrosunȇ) there was no place for rhetoric. In the Charmides, written in the early stage of the rule of the Thirty, Plato gave an expression to his hopes by outlining such a society: ‘We’d neither try ourselves to do what we didn’t know, but would find those who did and hand the matter over to them, nor trust those whom we governed to do anything except what they were likely to do properly – and that would be what they possessed knowledge of.’ (171d8-e5, tr. D. Watt) In the Hippias Major he turns his back on rhetoric by giving the praise of it into the mouth of Hippias in his last entry. But let me first show how Socrates got him there.

When Hippias at last realizes that ‘the pleasant which comes through the senses of hearing and sight’ appertains to both these pleasures taken together, but not to each singly, while these pleasures are beautiful both when they are experienced together and when they are experienced singly, Socrates says: ‘Then it is impossible for the pleasant which comes through sight and hearing to be beautiful’ – [i.e. it cannot be the answer to the question ‘what the beauty itself is’] – ‘since when we equate it with beauty an impossible result is produced.’ – Hippias: ‘Quite so.’ – Socrates: ‘My questioner will say: “Now start again from the beginning since you have missed the mark this time. What according to you is this ‘beautiful’ which appertains to both these pleasures, and by reason of which you honoured them above others and called them beautiful?” I think, Hippias, we are bound to reply that these are the most harmless of pleasures and the best, both taken together and taken singly. Can you suggest any other reason why they are superior to the others?’ – Hippias: ‘None; they really are the best.’ – Socrates: ‘”This then,” he will say, “is your definition of beauty; beneficial pleasure.” “Apparently,” I shall reply; and you?’ – Hippias: ‘I too.’ – Socrates: ‘He will go on: ”Well then, is not the beneficial that which produces the good, and that which produces and that which is produced were shown a little while ago to be different, and so our discussion has ended up in the old discussion, has it not? For the good cannot be beautiful, nor beauty good, if the two are not identical with one another (eiper allo autȏn hekateron esti, ‘if each of them is different from the other’).” “Nothing is more certain,” we shall reply, if we are honest (an sȏphronȏmen); there can be no justification for demurring from the truth (ou gar pou themis tȏi orthȏs legonti mȇ sunchȏrein.’ (303d7-304a3)

In response, Hippias made his exit speech: ‘But I must ask you, Socrates, what do you suppose is the upshot of all this? As I said a little while ago, it is the scrapings and shavings of argument, cut up into little bits; what is both beautiful and most precious is the ability to produce an eloquent and beautiful speech to a law-court or a council-meeting or any other official body whom you are addressing, to convince your audience, and to depart with the greatest of all prizes, your own salvation and that of your friends and property. These then are the things to which a man should hold fast, abandoning these pettifogging arguments of yours, unless he wishes to be accounted a complete fool because he occupies himself with trumpery nonsense.’ (304a4-b6)

Hippias’ closing eulogy on rhetoric reflects Plato’s aversion to it.