The Lesser Hippias, considered from one point of view, is a mere trifle. Compared to the other dialogues it is frivolous and inferior. It makes its point through a tedious repetition that perhaps crosses the line into numbing futility. These facts, and Socrates’ apparent approval of injustice, have led a few scholars over the years to doubt the dialogue’s Platonic provenance. And yet…it has a certain spark. Its central puzzle is enticing, as is Socrates’ mode of exposition. Some of the philosopher’s remarks are blatantly outrageous, but he occasionally speaks a quiet word that makes one pause. Pause and ponder. Why did he say that? Why did he choose precisely this formulation? To what previous remark or agreement is he referring? We encourage the reader to pursue these questions. The dialogue is short enough to savor. Take the time to follow the tracks, in whatever direction they may lead. Socrates refers to himself as a wanderer in this dialogue (376c), for he cannot settle his mind on a single answer to the question which he himself has posed. He wanders up and down and cannot stop. Walk with Socrates; the course will be dizzying, but you will not find a better guide.
So we leave you to wander through this tangled and surprising work. In this essay we do not intend to analyze Socrates’ arguments or Hippias’ futile rebuttals. The Lesser
Hippias exhibits a number of features that occur in other aporetic dialogues, features that
illuminate Socrates’ Delphic mission and his contemporaries’ reaction to his activities. We propose to call your attention to some of these.36
In this dialogue Socrates interrogates a famous sophist, Hippias, a man renowned for his wisdom. In this it is similar to the Gorgias, the Protagoras, and to a lesser degree
36 This is the only essay in this volume whose main purpose is to emphasize the transdialogical continuities among the early and middle dialogues. The similarities among these works are at times striking, which of course makes the differences noteworthy as well. In the present essay we have cited only some of these similarities; we encourage the reader to identify others and to remark, also, the differences.
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the Euthydemus and the first book of the Republic. As in the Gorgias the dialogue begins just after an oratorical exhibition, though Socrates was present for Hippias’ display, and may even have interrogated him as he spoke (364b6-8). Hippias’ wisdom is admired by the public, to be sure; but he also boasts of it himself time and again, and in this he resembles Euthyphro and Ion.
Socrates explains in the Apology that in his service to Apollo he seeks out and questions those who have a reputation for wisdom. Sometimes he encounters such men on the street; sometimes, as in the Gorgias, Protagoras, and here in the Lesser Hippias, he attends an event at which he knows a reputedly wise man will be present. Occasionally he is invited to ask questions, as when Eudicus urges him to question Hippias or Callicles invites him to question Gorgias. Socrates addresses these men as if he wants to learn from them. They are the wise men, after all; he himself is ignorant. He would like to become Euthyphro’s pupil, for example (5a-b), in which case Meletus might drop the charges against him. He will learn from Protagoras that virtue can be taught (320b), and from Meno the nature of virtue itself (71c-d). Similarly, he hopes to learn from Hippias about Homer’s portraits of Achilles and Odysseus (364b-d; 369d-e).
None of these men ever declines to teach Socrates. They are confident of their wisdom and of their ability to share it. They are regularly surprised at the extent of Socrates’ (professed) ignorance: surely the nature of piety, of courage, even of virtue itself is obvious; surely Socrates admits that virtue can be taught. And so they begin to explain to this poor man what every schoolboy knows. Socrates listens patiently to their account, eager to benefit from their knowledge. Then, having heard them out, and after complimenting their fine and even wondrous words, Socrates confesses to being confused about something—he still has, as he puts it in the Protagoras, “one little problem”
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(328e4). And with that he delivers himself of a single observation or question that turns everything upside-down. The wise man gets lost, is perplexed, can no longer respond even to his own satisfaction. He grows frustrated or tired and the conversation ends without resolution. It ends, that is, in aporia.
To return to Socrates’ account of his Delphic mission: when his wise interlocutors fail, as inevitably they do, to resolve his “little problems” and teach him all that they profess to know so well, Socrates concludes that they must not be wise after all. And if this is so, then the god must have spoken some subtle truth when he declared him, Socrates, the wisest of men. How does this go over? How do these wise men react to being confounded by this eccentric ignoramus? In the Apology he frankly admits that his dialectical examinations have the regrettable effect of occasionally enraging those who submit to them.
Socrates conducts his interrogations in public; his sessions draw a crowd. The whole atmosphere is potentially explosive, for Socrates questions men whose honor—and in the case of the sophists, whose livelihood—depends on their reputation for wisdom or some other acknowledged excellence. Men in this position simply cannot abide public humiliation. Yet Socrates often embarrasses them—that he does not intend to do so (assuming he does not) is immaterial; the embarrassment itself is the problem. Socrates knew he was making enemies. If he did not realize this to begin with, Aristophanes’ depiction of him in the Clouds would have informed him of his dubious reputation. Now Socrates definitely did not seek this reputation for mischief. He seems genuinely to have taken precautions against antagonizing his interlocutors: although he did occasionally engage in heated debates, as we can see from his encounters with Callicles in the Gorgias and Thrasymachus in the Republic, he more often at least tried to be civil. In fact, he seems to have made a point of warning his interlocutor whenever he noticed something
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amiss in his argument; at times he all but asks the man’s permission to refute him. Thus in the Gorgias he defers his refutation until he receives Gorgias’ word that he will not be upset if proven wrong (457c-458c); in the Symposium he mitigates his contradiction of Agathon’s claims about love by assuring him that he himself once entertained the same false ideas (201e); in the Lesser Hippias he employs a similar strategy when he informs Hippias bluntly that he disagrees with him but attributes this to his own ignorance and begs the man to cure him (372d-373a).
Yet, however cautiously he proceeds, Socrates frequently irritates his interlocutor. His dialectical partners are forever accusing him of working mischief with their words. Euthyphro accuses him of making the arguments run around in circles (11b-d); Meno likens him to an electric ray that benumbs whomever it stings (79e-80a); Callicles complains bitterly that he interprets propositions according to a standard different from that employed by the man who uttered them (482e-483b). Here, in the Lesser Hippias, Hippias complains that Socrates always seizes the most devilish details of the argument and blows them out of proportion (369b-c); he later accuses the philosopher of confounding the argument and almost withdraws from the discussion (373b).
Hippias’ desire to terminate the proceedings is an example of another common feature of Socratic examination. It is only natural for Socrates’ interlocutors, having become angry and suspicious of his motives, to want out of the situation. We have seen how they complain about Socrates’ tactics. If they feel sincerely that they are being mistreated, why continue? Why continue if the inevitable result is public humiliation, whether or not the procedure itself is conducted fairly?
Many of Socrates’ interlocutors, doubtless asking themselves these and other related questions, react as Hippias does. Meletus, for instance, only grudgingly responds to Socrates’ questions during his trial, even though he was legally obliged to do so (27b
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ff); Protagoras is so vexed by Socrates’ line of questioning that Socrates must take care to proceed gently (333e); Callicles becomes so frustrated that he outright refuses to answer (505d ff). Anytus does Callicles one better: he not only stops participating, he apparently threatens Socrates (94e-95a). Euthyphro famously hurries off before the investigation has reached a conclusion (15e).
These complaints and near-terminations interrupt the flow of the discussion. They usually follow some particularly vexing question or unexpected conclusion. The participants discuss the problem, either resolve it or agree to set it aside for the nonce, and return to their main subject. Sometimes, though, they take advantage of the break to discuss procedural matters. This usually involves a dispute about whether they should keep their questions and answers brief or deliver lengthy discourses. Socrates prefers brevity, and his interlocutors, even the orators among them, almost always agree to abide by the regulation. Thus Socrates requests Hippias to keep his answers brief, and the sophist complies (373a); Gorgias does too, for the most part (449b). Protagoras is not so pliable: he rankles when in the wake of his very long speech Socrates appeals for brevity (334c ff). Some of the orators seem utterly incapable of either producing or comprehending succinct expressions. Polus, for example, neither asks nor answers questions very well: Socrates must help him formulate his questions properly (462d), and at one point Socrates even delivers a speech because Polus can make no sense of his concise remarks (464b-465e).
Other procedural/methodological considerations include Socrates’ frequent insistence that he is concerned to persuade only the specific man in front of him (e.g.,
Lesser Hippias 365c; Crito 46b ff; Gorgias 487e; Protagoras 331c37); his characterization of the ideal dialectical partner as one endowed with knowledge, good
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will, and frankness (Gorgias 487a2-3); and his commitment to the so-called “dialectical requirement,” according to which interlocutors should employ only those concepts that are known to and understood by each party (Meno 75d).
During the main break in the conversation in the Lesser Hippias, when Hippias seems about to quit, the audience intervenes. Eudicus appeals to Hippias to continue “for our sake” (373c1-3). Plato frequently calls attention to the spectators in this way. In the
Gorgias, for example, the audience urges Gorgias to continue (458c-d)—Callicles is
especially enthusiastic (which is ironic considering his own petulant behavior later in the work). The same thing happens in the Protagoras when Socrates and the sophist disagree about the rules that should govern their exchange (335d ff).38 A variation on this theme occurs in Book I of the Republic when members of the audience discuss Socrates’ refutation of Thrasymachus’ claim that justice is the advantage of the rulers (340a ff). These episodes remind the reader of one of the many things at stake in Socrates’ conversations: the education of Athens’ youth. This is explicit in the Laches from the beginning; it is explicit, also, at the end of the Charmides; it is implicit throughout the
Euthydemus, at the end of which Crito directly frets over the education of his own sons.
He fears they may be led astray by experts in eristics such as Euthydemus and his brother Dionysodorus, men who care nothing for the truth but only for victory in debate.
Crito’s worries raise a related issue. Many of the young men who witness Socrates’ examinations are students or potential students of the sophists. These same young men, and the others in attendance as well, are potential “followers” or “associates” of Socrates. When Socrates renders an orator or sophist speechless, the young men in attendance take note—public speaking, after all, is one of the skills they most want to acquire. This is why his refutation of Thrasymachus is so provocative; the young allies of
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each man have a stake in their mentor’s performance, for it is he whom they admire and hope to learn from. The presence of the audience is significant, then, because Socrates’ dialectical disputations are at least in part contests for the souls of these young men.39
When the interlocutors and the members of the audience have had their say— when their various grievances, ground-rules, requests, and admonitions have been aired to everyone’s satisfaction—the conversation may resume. Yet this is not to say that it will be any more successful than it had been prior to the interruption. It rarely is; often, in fact, after the break the dialogue rushes inexorably toward its conclusion. And as the
Lesser Hippias ends with Socrates despairing over his indecision and ignorance, so end
many of the other dialogues. This is aporia (a0pori/a), which literally means “without passage” or “without resource,” but which in Plato commonly designates a state of confusion, puzzlement, an almost helpless feeling of bewilderment. Thus one may refer to the Lesser Hippias, as indeed we referred to it above, as an “aporetic dialogue,” which is to say one of the many dialogues that end without answering their main question or resolving their central problem. Of the dialogues covered on this site the Protagoras,
Charmides, Laches, Lysis, Euthyphro and Book I of the Republic may be counted along
with the Lesser Hippias as definitely aporetic; Meno and Ion are at least partially aporetic.
So we reiterate what we said at the beginning of this essay: read and enjoy the
Lesser Hippias. It is not completely lacking in substance and charm. And as we have
tried to show, it adheres to a pattern that recurs in a number of other dialogues. One can learn from the work, therefore, simply by measuring it against similar dialogues in an effort to chart the many different avenues along which Socrates wanders to arrive at one of his favorite destinations: aporia.
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PHAEDRUS
Subject: Love and metaphysics; the value of speech-writing. Mode: Dramatic.
Setting: 418-416, on the banks of the Ilisus, just beyond the walls of Athens. Diologi personae:
Socrates. Phaedrus.
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PHAEDRUS