Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  HIPPIAS: What are you thinking?

  SOCRATES: Keep quiet, my friend. I’m frightened. What on earth are we saying now?

  HIPPIAS: Why should you be frightened now? The discussion has gone [b] really well for you this time.

  SOCRATES: I wish it had! Look this over with me: could anyone do something he doesn’t know how to do, and isn’t at all able to do?

  HIPPIAS: Not at all. How could he do what he isn’t able to do?

  SOCRATES: Then when people make mistakes, do bad work, even when they do it unintentionally—if they aren’t able to do things, they wouldn’t ever do them, would they?

  HIPPIAS: That’s clear.

  SOCRATES: But people who are able are able by ability? I don’t suppose [c] it’s by inability.

  HIPPIAS: Of course not.

  SOCRATES: And everyone who does things is able to do the things he does.

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: And all men do much more bad work than good, starting from childhood—and make mistakes unintentionally.

  HIPPIAS: That’s right.

  SOCRATES: So? We don’t call that ability and that sort of useful thing [d] fine, do we? The sort that’s useful for doing some bad piece of work? Far from it.

  HIPPIAS: Far indeed, Socrates. That’s what I think.

  SOCRATES: Then this able and useful of ours is apparently not the fine, Hippias.

  HIPPIAS: It is, Socrates, if it’s able to do good, if it’s useful for that sort of thing.

  SOCRATES: Then here’s what got away from us: the able-and-useful without qualification is fine. And this is what our mind wanted to say, Hippias: the useful-and-able for making some good—that is the fine. [e]

  HIPPIAS: I think so.

  SOCRATES: But that is beneficial. Isn’t it?

  HIPPIAS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Then that’s the way fine bodies and fine customs and wisdom and everything we mentioned a moment ago are fine—because they’re beneficial.

  HIPPIAS: That’s clear.

  SOCRATES: So the beneficial appears to be the fine we wanted.

  HIPPIAS: Certainly, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: But the beneficial is the maker of good.

  HIPPIAS: It is.

  SOCRATES: And the maker is nothing else but the cause, isn’t it?

  HIPPIAS: That’s so.

  SOCRATES: Then the fine is a cause of the good.

  [297] HIPPIAS: It is.

  SOCRATES: But the cause is different from what it’s a cause of. I don’t suppose the cause would be a cause of a cause. Look at it this way: isn’t the cause seen to be a maker?

  HIPPIAS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Then what is made by the maker is the thing that comes to be; it’s not the maker.

  HIPPIAS: That’s right.

  SOCRATES: Then the thing that comes to be and the maker are different things.

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  [b] SOCRATES: So the cause isn’t a cause of a cause, but of the thing that comes to be because of it.

  HIPPIAS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: So if the fine is a cause of the good, the good should come to be from the fine. And apparently this is why we’re eager to have intelligence and all the other fine things: because their product, their child—the good—is worth being eager about. It would follow that the fine is a kind of father of the good.

  HIPPIAS: Certainly. You’re talking fine, Socrates.

  [c] SOCRATES: Then see if this is fine as well: the father is not a son and the son is not a father.

  HIPPIAS: Fine.

  SOCRATES: The cause is not a thing that comes to be, and the thing that comes to be is not a cause.

  HIPPIAS: That’s true.

  SOCRATES: Good god! Then the fine is not good, nor the good fine. Or do you think they could be, from what we’ve said?

  HIPPIAS: Good god, no. I don’t think so.

  SOCRATES: So are we happy with that? Would you like to say that the fine is not good, nor the good fine?

  HIPPIAS: Good god, no. I’m not at all happy with it.

  [d] SOCRATES: Good god, yes, Hippias. Nothing we’ve said so far makes me less happy.

  HIPPIAS: So it seems.

  SOCRATES: Then it doesn’t turn out to be the finest account, as we thought a moment ago, that the beneficial—the useful and the able for making some good—is fine. It’s not that way at all, but if possible it’s more laughable than the first accounts, when we thought the girl, or each one of those things mentioned earlier, was the fine.

  HIPPIAS: Apparently.

  SOCRATES: And I don’t know where to turn, Hippias. I’m stuck. Do you have anything to say?

  HIPPIAS: Not at present; but as I said a little while ago, I’m sure I’ll find [e] it when I’ve looked.

  SOCRATES: But I don’t think I can wait for you to do that, I have such a desire to know. And besides I think I just got clear. Look. If whatever makes us be glad, not with all the pleasures, but just through hearing and sight—if we call that fine, how do you suppose we’d do in the contest?

  Men, when they’re fine anyway—and everything decorative, pictures [298] and sculptures—these all delight us when we see them, if they’re fine. Fine sounds and music altogether, and speeches and storytelling have the same effect. So if we answered that tough man, “Your honor, the fine is what is pleasant through hearing and sight,” don’t you think we’d curb his toughness?

  HIPPIAS: This time, Socrates, I think what the fine is has been well said.

  SOCRATES: What? shall we say that fine activities and laws are fine by [b] being pleasant through hearing and sight? Or that they have some other form?

  HIPPIAS: Those things might slip right past the man.

  SOCRATES: By Dog, Hippias, not past the person I’d be most ashamed to babble at, or pretend to say something when I’m not saying anything.

  HIPPIAS: Who’s that?

  SOCRATES: Sophroniscus’ son.13 He wouldn’t easily let me say those things [c] without testing them, any more than he’d let me talk as if I knew what I didn’t know.

  HIPPIAS: Well for my part, since you say so, I think that’s something else in the case of the laws.

  SOCRATES: Keep quiet, Hippias. We could well be thinking we’re in the clear again, when we’ve gotten stuck on the same point about the fine as we did a moment ago.

  HIPPIAS: What do you mean, Socrates?

  SOCRATES: I’ll show you what’s become obvious to me, if I’m saying anything. In the case of laws and activities, those could easily be seen not [d] to be outside the perception we have through hearing and sight. But let’s stay with this account, that what is pleasing through them is fine, and not bring that about the laws into the center. But if someone should ask—whether he’s the one I mentioned or anyone else—“What, Hippias and Socrates? Are you marking off the sort of pleasant you call fine from the pleasant, and not calling what is pleasant to the other senses fine—food [e] and drink, what goes with making love, and all the rest of that sort of thing? Aren’t they pleasant? Do you say there’s altogether no pleasure in such things? Not in anything but seeing and hearing?”

  What shall we say, Hippias?

  HIPPIAS: Of course we’ll say there are very great pleasures in those others, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: “What?” he’ll say. “Though they’re no less pleasures than [299] these, would you strip them of this word, and deprive them of being fine?”

  “Yes,” we’ll say, “because anyone in the world would laugh at us if we called it not pleasant to eat but fine, or if we called a pleasant smell not pleasant but fine. And as for making love, everybody would fight us; they’d say it is most pleasant, but that one should do it, if he does it at all, where no one will see, because it is the foulest thing to be seen.” When we’ve said that, Hippias, he’d probably reply, “I understand that too. You’re [b] ashamed, you’ve been ashamed a long time, to call those pleasures fine, because men don’t think they are. But I didn’t ask for that—what ordinary people think
is fine—but for what is fine.”

  I think we’ll repeat our hypothesis: “This is what we say is fine, the part of the pleasant that comes by sight and hearing.” What else would you do with the argument? What should we say, Hippias?

  HIPPIAS: We must say that and nothing else, in view of what’s been said.

  [c] SOCRATES: “That’s fine,” he’ll say. “Then if the pleasant through sight and hearing is fine, whatever is not pleasant in that way clearly would not be fine.”

  Shall we agree?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: “Then is the pleasant through sight pleasant through sight and hearing? Or is the pleasant through hearing pleasant through hearing and through sight?”

  “By no means,” we’ll say. “In that case what comes through one would be what comes through both—I think that’s what you mean—but we said that each of these pleasant things taken itself by itself is fine, and both are fine as well.”

  Isn’t that our answer?

  [d] HIPPIAS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: “Then,” he’ll say, “does one pleasant thing differ from another in this: in being pleasant? I’m not asking whether one pleasure can be greater or lesser than another, or more or less, but whether one can differ in this very way—in being a pleasure—and one of the pleasures not be a pleasure.”

  We don’t think so, do we?

  HIPPIAS: We don’t think so.

  SOCRATES: “So,” he’ll say. “You selected those pleasures from the other [e] pleasures because of something different from their being pleasures. You saw some quality in the pair of them, something that differentiates them from the others, and you say they are fine by looking at that. I don’t suppose pleasure through sight is fine because of that—that it is through sight. Because if that were the cause of its being fine, the other—the one through hearing—wouldn’t ever be fine. It’s not a pleasure through sight.”

  That’s true. Shall we say that’s true?

  HIPPIAS: We’ll say it.

  SOCRATES: “And again, pleasure through hearing turns out not to be fine [300] because of that—that it is through hearing. Otherwise, pleasure through sight would never be fine, because it is not a pleasure through hearing.”

  Shall we say that the man who says this is saying the truth, Hippias?

  HIPPIAS: It’s true.

  SOCRATES: “But both are fine, as you say.” We do say that.

  HIPPIAS: We do.

  SOCRATES: “Then they have some thing that itself makes them be fine, that common thing that belongs to both of them in common and to each [b] privately. Because I don’t suppose there’s any other way they would both and each be fine.”

  Answer me as you would him.

  HIPPIAS: I think it’s as he says, and that’s my answer.

  SOCRATES: Then if something is attributed to both pleasures but not to each one, they would not be fine by that attribute.

  HIPPIAS: And how could that be, Socrates? That when neither has an attribute, whatever it may be, this attribute—which belongs to neither—could belong to both?

  SOCRATES: Don’t you think it could happen? [c]

  HIPPIAS: If it did I’d be in the grip of a lot of inexperience about the nature of these things and the terms of the present terminology.

  SOCRATES: Pleasantly put, Hippias. But maybe I’m turning out to think I can see something that’s the way you say it can’t be, or I’m not seeing anything.

  HIPPIAS: It turns out that you’re not, Socrates. You’re quite readily mis-seeing.

  SOCRATES: And yet a lot of things like that are seen plainly in my mind; but I don’t believe them if they’re not imagined in yours, since you’re a [d] man who’s made the most money by wisdom of anyone alive, and I’m one who never made anything. And I wonder, my friend, if you’re not playing with me and deliberately fooling me, so many and so clear are the examples I see.

  HIPPIAS: Socrates, no one will know finer than you whether I’m playing or not, if you try to say what these things are that are seen by you plainly. You’ll be seen to be saying nothing. Because never shall you find what is attributed to neither me nor you, but is attributed to both of us.

  SOCRATES: What do you mean, Hippias? Maybe you’re saying something [e] I don’t understand. But listen more clearly to what I want to say. Because I see what is not attributed to me to be, and what neither I am nor you are, and this can be attributed to both of us. And there are others besides, which are attributed to both of us to be, things neither of us is.

  HIPPIAS: Your answers seem weird again, Socrates, more so than the ones you gave a little earlier. Look. If both of us were just, wouldn’t each [301] of us be too? Or if each of us were unjust, wouldn’t both of us? Or if we were healthy, wouldn’t each be? Or if each of us had some sickness or were wounded or stricken or had any other tribulation, again, wouldn’t both of us have that attribute? Similarly, if we happened to be gold or silver or ivory, or, if you like, noble or wise or honored or even old or young or anything you like that goes with human beings, isn’t it really necessary that each of us be that as well?

  [b] SOCRATES: Of course.

  HIPPIAS: But Socrates, you don’t look at the entireties of things, nor do the people you’re used to talking with. You people knock away at the fine and the other beings by taking each separately and cutting it up with words. Because of that you don’t realize how great they are—naturally continuous bodies of being. And now you’re so far from realizing it that [c] you think there’s some attribute or being that is true of these both but not of each, or of each but not of both. That’s how unreasonably and unobservantly and foolishly and uncomprehendingly you operate.

  SOCRATES: That’s the way things are for us, Hippias. “They’re not the way a person wants”—so runs the proverb people often quote—“but the way he can get them.” But your frequent admonitions are a help to us. This time, for example, before these admonitions from you about the stupid way we operate… . Shall I make a still greater display, and tell you what [d] we had in mind about them? Or not tell?

  HIPPIAS: You’re telling someone who already knows, Socrates. I know how everybody who’s involved in speeches operates. All the same, if it’s more pleasant for you, speak on.

  SOCRATES: It really is more pleasant. We were so foolish, my friend, before you said what you did, that we had an opinion about me and you that each of us is one, but that we wouldn’t both be one (which is what each [e] of us would be) because we’re not one but two—we were so stupid-like. But now, we have been instructed by you that if two is what we both are, two is what each of us must be as well; and if each is one, then both must be one as well. The continuous theory of being, according to Hippias, does not allow it to be otherwise; but whatever both are, that each is as well; and whatever each is, both are. Right now I sit here persuaded by you. First, however, remind me, Hippias. Are you and I one? Or are you two and I two?

  HIPPIAS: What do you mean, Socrates?

  [302] SOCRATES: Just what I say. I’m afraid of you, afraid to speak clearly, because you get angry at me whenever you think you’ve said anything. All the same, tell me more. Isn’t each of us one, and that—being one—is attributed to him?

  HIPPIAS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Then if each of us is one, wouldn’t he also be odd-numbered?

  Or don’t you consider one to be odd?

  HIPPIAS: I do.

  SOCRATES: Then will both of us be odd-numbered, being two?

  HIPPIAS: It couldn’t be, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: But both are even-numbered. Yes?

  HIPPIAS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Then because both are even-numbered, on account of that, each of us is even-numbered as well. Right?

  HIPPIAS: Of course not. [b]

  SOCRATES: Then it’s not entirely necessary, as you said it was a moment ago, that whatever is true of both is also true of each, and that whatever is true of each is also true of both.

  HIPPIAS: Not that sort of thing, but the
sort I said earlier.

  SOCRATES: They’re enough, Hippias. We have to accept them too, because we see that some are this way, and others are not this way. I said (if you remember how this discussion got started) that pleasure through sight and hearing was not fine by this—that each of them turned out to have [c] an attribute but not both, or that both had it but not each—but by that by which both and each are fine, because you agreed that they are both and each fine. That’s why I thought it was by the being that adheres to both, if both are fine—it was by that they had to be fine, and not by what falls off one or the other. And I still think so now. But let’s make a fresh start. Tell me, if the pleasure through sight and the one through hearing are [d] both and each fine, doesn’t what makes them fine adhere in both and in each of them?

  HIPPIAS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Then is it because each and both are pleasure—would they be fine because of that? Or would that make all other pleasures no less fine than these? Remember, we saw that they were no less pleasures.

  HIPPIAS: I remember.

  SOCRATES: But is it because they are through sight and hearing—are they [e] called fine because of that?

  HIPPIAS: That’s the way it was put.

  SOCRATES: See if this is true. It was said, I’m remembering, that the pleasant was fine this way: not all the pleasant, but whatever is through sight and hearing.

  HIPPIAS: True.

  SOCRATES: Doesn’t that attribute adhere in both, but not in each? I don’t suppose each of them is through both (as we said earlier), but both through both, not each. Is that right?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Then that’s not what makes each of them fine; it doesn’t adhere in each (because “both” doesn’t adhere in each). So the hypothesis lets us call both of them fine, but it doesn’t let us call each of them fine.

  What else should we say? Isn’t it necessarily so? [303]

  HIPPIAS: So we see.

  SOCRATES: Then should we call both fine, but not call each fine?

  HIPPIAS: What’s to stop us?

  SOCRATES: This stops us, friend, in my opinion. We had things that come to belong to particular things in this way: if they come to belong to both, they do to each also; and if to each, to both—all the examples you gave. Right?