Greater Hippias

By Plato

"Greater Hippias" is one of the dialogues of Plato in which Socrates and Hippias set out to find a definition for "beauty" but are likely to fail due to their incapacity to acquire an answer which encompasses the entire concept.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Apr 10, 2021
• ISBN: 4064066466770

Plato

Plato (aprox. 424-327 BC), a student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, is commonly regarded as the centermost figure of Western philosophy. During the Classical period of Ancient Greece he was based in Athens where he founded his Academy and created the Platonist school of thought. His works are among the most influential in Western history, commanding interest and challenging readers of every era and background since they were composed.

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Plato

Greater Hippias

Published by Good Press, 2022

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EAN 4064066466770

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PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:

SOCRATES HIPPIAS.

Socrates: Hippias, beautiful and wise, what a long time it is since you have put in at the port of Athens!

Hippias: I am too busy, Socrates. For whenever Elis needs to have any business transacted with any of the states, she always comes to me first of her citizens and chooses me as envoy, thinking that I am the ablest judge and messenger of the words that are spoken by the several states. So I have often gone as envoy to other states, but most often and concerning the most numerous and important matters to Lacedaemon. For that reason, then, since you ask me, I do not often come to this neighborhood.

Socrates: That’s what it is, Hippias, to be a truly wise and perfect man! For you are both in your private capacity able to earn much money from the young and to confer upon them still greater benefits than you receive, and in public affairs you are able to benefit your own state, as a man must who is to be not despised but held in high repute among the many. And yet, Hippias, what in the world is the reason why those men of old whose names are called great in respect to wisdom — Pittacus, and Bias, and the Milesian Thales with his followers and also the later ones, down to Anaxagoras, are all, or most of them, found to refrain from affairs of state?

Hippias: What else do you suppose, Socrates, than that they were not able to compass by their wisdom both public and private matters?

Socrates: Then for Heaven’s sake, just as the other arts have progressed, and the ancients are of no account in comparison with the artisans of today, shall we say that your art also has progressed and those of the ancients who were concerned with wisdom are of no account in comparison with you?

Hippias: Yes, you are quite right.

Socrates: Then, Hippias, if Bias were to come to life again now, he would be a laughing-stock in comparison with you, just as the sculptors say that Daedalus, if he were to be born now and were to create such works as those from which he got his reputation, would be ridiculous.

Hippias: That, Socrates, is exactly as you say. I, however, am in the habit of praising the ancients and our predecessors rather than the men of the present day, and more greatly, as a precaution against the envy of the living and through fear of the wrath of those who are dead.

Socrates: Yours, Hippias, is a most excellent way, at any rate, of speaking about them and of thinking, it seems to me and I can bear you witness that you speak the truth, and that your art really has progressed in the direction of ability to carry on public together with private affairs. For this man Gorgias, the sophist from Leontini, came here from home in the public capacity of envoy, as being best able of all the citizens of Leontini to attend to the interests of the community, and it was the general opinion that he spoke excellently in the public assembly, and in his private capacity, by giving exhibitions and associating with the young, he