Lesser Hippias
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- Benjamin Jowett
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~6,320 words · 30 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlato. (n.d.). Lesser Hippias (Benjamin Jowett, Trans.). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/lesser-hippias
- MLAPlato. Lesser Hippias. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/lesser-hippias.
- ChicagoPlato. Lesser Hippias. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/lesser-hippias.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Is the man who lies deliberately better than the one who errs unwillingly? Socrates gets there by an argument he himself says he does not quite believe.
Context and history
A short, uncomfortable dialogue: the conclusion is plainly false and Plato lets it stand on purpose. It shows what happens when Socratic moral intellectualism — nobody does wrong knowingly — is pushed to its end. Some ancient editors doubted its authenticity for exactly that reason.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
SOCRATES: And now, Hippias, consider the question at large about all the sciences, and see whether the same principle does not always hold. I know that in most arts you are the wisest of men, as I have heard you boasting in the agora at the tables of the money-changers, when you were setting forth the great and enviable stores of your wisdom; and you said that upon one occasion, when you went to the Olympic games, all that you had on your person was made by yourself. You began with your ring, which was of your own workmanship, and you said that you could engrave rings; and you had another seal which was also of your own workmanship, and a strigil and an oil flask, which you had made yourself; you said also that you had made the shoes which you had on your feet, and the cloak and the short tunic; but what appeared to us all most extraordinary and a proof of singular art, was the girdle of your tunic, which, you said, was as fine as the most costly Persian fabric, and of your own weaving; moreover, you told us that you had brought with you poems, epic, tragic, and dithyrambic, as well as prose writings of the most various kinds; and you said that your skill was also pre-eminent in the arts which I was just now mentioning, and in the true principles of rhythm and harmony and of orthography; and if I remember rightly, there were a great many other accomplishments in which you excelled. I have forgotten to mention your art of memory, which you regard as your special glory, and I dare say that I have forgotten many other things; but, as I was saying, only look to your own arts--and there are plenty of them--and to those of others; and tell me, having regard to the admissions which you and I have made, whether you discover any department of art or any description of wisdom or cunning, whichever name you use, in which the true and false are different and not the same: tell me, if you can, of any. But you cannot.