Scribes:
Jeremy McMillan and Jon Kim
These
minutes were spoken on 2 November; for another version, go to the unspoken
minutes
Wednesday’s
lecture focused on Plato’s Lesser Hippias. It is ‘lesser’ because it
is the shorter of the two Hippias dialogues of Plato. There are some doubts about the authorship of the Greater
Hippias as well as of the Lesser Hippias, but it should be clear
that Plato is the author of the latter dialogue, as well as more than likely
being the author of the former.
Professor
Hutchinson remarked that this dialogue is classic Plato in a number of
ways. For one, it ridicules the
pomposity and pretentiousness of the sophist Hippias. Indeed, in his criticisms Plato is merciless. The professor also noted that when interpreting Plato’s
Socratic dialogues, we should imagine that Socrates is being portrayed with the
virtue that is being discussed.
For example, piety in the Euthyphro, courage in the Laches,
self-control in the Charmides, and wisdom in the Lesser Hippias.
It
was next discussed that if we characterize Socrates as possessing wisdom in
this dialogue, we seem to run into a paradox. For in the dialogue Hippias claims to be wise, whereas
Socrates claims to be ignorant. So
how can Socrates be characterized has possessing wisdom. It is because Socrates’
wisdom lies in knowing what he doesn’t know. Hippias, however, has no idea of what he doesn’t
know.
At the end of the dialogue, Socrates still remains in a self-proclaimed state of ignorance, noting, “I waver back and forth and never believe the same thing” (376c). This wavering is portrayed as a sign of ignorance. Socrates claims that the sophists should be able to end such wavering, but they do not. Therefore, one should not attempt to acquire knowledge from them, since it is clear that they cannot provide it. It is better to instead go to someone who is aware of their own ignorance. Indeed, this advice was taken by Euthedumus and Alcibiades, both of whom chose to associate intellectually with Socrates.
Professor
Hutchinson then noted that the dialogue serves two more purposes in addition to
what has previously been mentioned.
It, one, calls into question the habit of a large number of people to
rely on the authority of others for their opinions. The second purpose of the dialogue is for us to ask how it
is that we are to understand the wisdom that Socrates is seeking. Socrates, Hutchinson noted, was focused
on the pursuit of gaining intellectual power through wisdom.
The
professor next discussed that first purpose: reliance on the authority of
others. It was noted that Hippias
was an expert on Homeric interpretation.
Literary criticism did play a large role in the dialogue and before
Hippias presents his theory, we are told that Eudicus’ father was a
literary critic himself and that he used to say that the Iliad was greater than
the Odyssey because the Iliad’s hero, Achilles, was better than the
Odyssey's hero, Odysseus.
Hutchinson noted that this attempt at literary criticism is both silly
and banal. Indeed, Hippias’
interpretations are much more mature than that. Hippias argues that Achilles is best and bravest; Nestor is
the wisest; and Odysseus is the shrewdest. But this interpretation runs into problems with Socrates,
who claims that all three of these qualities can be reduced to one. The best person is the wisest, and the
wisest is the most shrewd.
Professor
Hutchinson next asserted that in this dialogue, we should note that
Hippias’ interpretation is responsible, whereas Socrates’ is
irresponsible. The professor then
read aloud from a student’s position paper which argued that
Hippias’ interpretation is correct, but also a bit too simple. Because of Socrates’ superior intelligence,
he makes Hippias look like the one whose interpretation is weak. We the reader are then left thinking
that we could have argued differently than Hippias and could have done better
than him.
Indeed,
we see Socrates re-interpreting Homer in a very odd, manipulative way. Socrates misleads Hippias voluntarily
and shows himself to be a superior critic because his misleadings are
deliberate. We the reader are
supposed to recognize this.
Socrates gives a similar display of literary criticism in the
Protagoras, when he deconstructs a poem with great virtuosity in a debate with
Prodicus. In the Lesser Hippias,
Socrates does the same thing but to a smaller degree. That is, he shows he can play the same game as Hippias, only
better.
A
student then asked whether Socrates was paralleling Odysseus by saying the
wrong things while knowing what the right things were. That is, was Socrates exploiting his
knowledge for power. The professor
answered by saying that in order to beat Hippias at his own game, Socrates did
say the wrong things by virtue of his knowing the right things.
It
was then noted that at 365c-d we get Plato’s real opinion. Socrates gets Hippias to agree that
Homer thought the truthful man to be different from the lying man. Then Socrates says that since Hippias
agrees with that, Homer should be dismissed because he is not present to answer
questions. Socrates then states
that Hippias should argue for Homer.
This shows that someone should dismiss the text and instead talk about
actual beliefs and ideas and whether they agree with them or not. This has a parallel in the Protagoras
when Socrates says we should “say good-bye to odes and poetry”
(347c). That is, we ought to get
away from literary criticism and get back to doing philosophy. For when we discuss poetry, we are
often very unrefined and are akin to attendees of a second-rate drinking party. Moreover, we should leave the interpretations behind because
(1) we can’t question the poets, since they are not present, and (2),
there are too many interpretations on what they mean for anyone to be able to
have a fruitful discussion. The
best people, notes Plato, test each other and their ideas directly. This is a manifesto of
Plato’s. We can’t do
philosophy through literary criticism, if for no other reason than that the
text cannot answer questions.
The
professor noted that all this raises some paradoxical questions. First, why, having at 365d dismissed
Homer, does Socrates bring him back into discussion. Plato here appears to be arguing not that we shouldn’t
read authors, but that we should be aware of two problems that can occur when
reading. First, books that are
well styled often persuade us irrationally. And second, books can’t talk with us. The second paradox is that Plato is a
literary artist who criticizes literary artistry because books are static and
fixed. Plato’s text resemble
what is unsatisfactory about the literary method of doing philosophy, namely
that they are static. In answering
a question, Professor Hutchinson agreed with the student’s suggestion
that this is the reason Socrates said the best way of doing philosophy is
through discussion. But, said the
Professor, in these lectures don’t we run into the aforementioned
problems. For aren’t these
lectures simply a focus on static texts.
These questions should be analyzed.
The
professor then seemed to attempt to give possible solutions to these
problems. Books can be used to
generate discussion. Reading them
doesn’t make us second-rate attendees at a drinking party because we can
use them as a spring-board into doing philosophy. And this is how we should be doing our position papers. We should find an idea in the text,
then leave the text behind to wrestle with the idea itself. The professor linked this idea of the
use of books to section 1.4 in Xenophon, where Socrates notes that he likes
friends more than pets because with friends he can open up books and have
discussions.
A
student then asked the following question: Doesn’t reading a text first
require an analysis before making any assumptions. The professor noted that while it is good to have
interpretations for some fields, focusing primarily on interpretation
won’t make one a better philosopher. You can, in philosophy, contemplate ideas regardless of
whether the author intended them to have the meaning you assign them. Moreover, you can get a lot out of
texts by re-reading them. Each new
reading can sometimes yield new ideas.
The professor noted that this has been the case with regards to himself
and the works of Plato. In his
writings, Plato was probably trying to allow us to retain our freedom of
judgment when interpreting texts by not giving us clear arguments that we can
passively assent to.