Chapter 8: Socrates' floundering in Perplexity
Notes to the Chapter
1.Gregory Vlastos, Socrates, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991, p. 278.
2.Homer introduces Odysseus as ‘complex and versatile’ (polutropon) in the first verse of the Odyssey.
3.Plato himself indicates the dramatic sequence of these two dialogues, for in the Hippias Major Hippias invites Socrates to his lecture on education stylized as a discussion of the Homeric hero Nestor with Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles: the lecture will be held at the request of Eudicus the son of Apemantus (286a5-c2). The discussion in the Hippias Minor takes place after Hippias’ lecture hosted by Eudicus the son of Apemantus (363a-d). At the beginning of the Hippias Major we find Hippias full of confidence concerning his intellectual superiority in relation to Socrates, but in the course of this dialogue his confidence is thoroughly undermined. In the Hippias Minor Hippias, surrounded as he is by a knowledgeable audience (363a), attempts to speak to Socrates from the point of superior expert knowledge, but he soon shows that he had had a bitter prior experience with Socrates’ questioning (369b8, 373b4-5).
4.Stallbaum in his note on hotanper adikêi in 376a6-7 writes: ‘si quando iniuste facit’. Diligenter haec animadvertas. Nam Socrates neminem volentem peccare statuebat. Itaque captiosa hac argumentatione utitur nonnisi sophistae ridendi gratia. Eodem referas quae mox dicuntur: ho ara hekôn hamartanôn, eiper tis estin houtos. [‘if ever a man does wrong deliberately’. For Socrates maintained that nobody errs willingly. He therefore uses these fallacious arguments merely for the sake of making the sophist ridiculous. The same applies to the words that follow soon: the one who errs deliberately, if there is such a man.’]
5.See Max Pohlenz, Aus Platos Werdezeit, Berlin 1913, pp. 65-6: Das eiper kann nach dem Zusammenhang nicht anders verstanden werden als z.B. Rep. 381bc, wo Plato die Unveränderlichkeit der Gottheit damit dartut, daß diese sich nur zum Schlechteren verändern könnte, eiper alloioutai. Der ganze zweite Teil des Hippias ist also ein bloßes Spiel. ... Daß oudeis hekôn hamartanei ist schon für Sokrates’ Worte in der Apologie 25e, 26a Voraussetzung. Wir treffen denselben Satz im Gorgias mehrfach wieder (509e, 468, 488a). Noch in den Gesetzen 731c hat Plato ihn verfochten, und im Protagoras, der unmittelbar auf den Hippias folgt und mehrfach die Lösung der dortigen Trugschlüsse andeutet, wird ausdrücklich erklärt oudeis tôn sophôn andrôn hêgeitai oudena anthrôpôn hekonta examartanein oude aischra te kai kaka hekonta ergazesthai (345e, vgl. 358e.) ... Darüber, daß der Hippias ein paignion ist, in dem Plato bewußt Fehlschlüsse anwendet, um zu einem absurden Ergebnis zu gelangen, kann also kein Zweifel sein. [‘Within the given context the eiper cannot be understood otherwise than e.g. in Rep. 381bc where Plato proves the unchangeability of God by arguing that God could change only for the worse, eiper alloioutai (“if he changes”). So the second part of the Hippias as a whole is a mere play ... That oudeis hekôn hamartanei (“nobody errs willingly”) is a prerequisite already for Socrates’ words in Apology 25e, 26a. We encounter the same maxim repeatedly in the Gorgias (509e, 468, 488a). Plato argues for it still in Laws 731c, and in Protagoras ... it is categorically proclaimed that oudeis tôn sophôn andrôn hêgeitai oudena anthrôpôn hekonta examartanein oude aischra te kai kaka hekonta ergazesthai (“no intelligent man believes that anyone does wrong freely or acts shamefully and badly of his own free will” tr. C.C.W. Taylor) (345e, vgl. 358e) ... There can therefore be no doubt that the Hippias is a paignion (“a plaything”), in which Plato intentionally uses fallacious arguments to reach an absurd result.’]
6.Of this we are reliably informed by Diogenes Laertius for his source concerning it was Plato’s disciple Hermodorus (ii.106, iii.6). And as for Euclides, he was a friend and disciple of Socrates; Plato names him as one of those who were with Socrates in his last hours (Phaedo 59c2).
7.See U.v.Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Platon, vol I., 2. ed. Berlin 1920, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, p. 138: Die Sokratiker wußten freilich, daß Sokrates auf dem Standpunkte stand, niemand ist mit Absicht schlecht, sondern er tut immer, was er für das Gute, d.h. für ihn subjektiv Beste hält; solchern lesern war die Einschränkung, die Sokrates in dem letzten Satze macht, ein Wink für das Ganze, “wer freiwillig sündigt, wenn es einen solchen gibt”. Aber ein unvorbereiteter Leser mußte sagen, Sokrates vertritt im Gegensatze zu Hippias die Unsittlichkeit, und so viel sollte jeder einsehen, daß kein Sokratiker nach dem Urteil des Gerichts denjenigen so etwas sagen lassen konnte, der als Verführer der Jugend verurteilt war. [‘The Socratics knew, of course, that Socrates’ firm position was that nobody is willingly bad, that everybody does always what he holds to be good, ie for him subjectively good; for such readers the qualification “who errs willingly, if there is such a man”, which Socrates makes in his last statement, indicates how to understand the whole of the dialogue. But an unprepared reader was bound to say that Socrates, contrary to Hippias, propounded immorality, and everybody ought to see that no Socratik could put such a thing into the mouth of Socrates after the decision of the court by which he was condemned as a corruptor of the youth.’
8.Wilamowitz, loc. cit.: Was aber konnte Platon wollen? [‘But what could have been Plato’s purpose?’]
9.Wilamowitz, loc. cit.: Das steht ganz ausdrüklich in den abschließenden Worten “Ich habe keine feste Meinung; daß ich und wir Leien überhaupt schwanken, ist kein Wunder, aber daß ihr weisen Leute es tut, ist schlimm; denn dann könnt ihr uns von den Schwanken nicht befreien”. Also das kommt heraus, daß die sophistische Allweisheit täuschender Schein ist. [‘This is stated expressly in the closing words: “I have no firm opinion; that I and all we lay people are vacillating, is not surprising, but that you wise men are doing so, this is bad; for then you cannot free us from our vacillating.’]
10.Wilamowitz, loc. cit.: Es kommt mehr heraus, wenigstens für Platon und jeden, der den Sokrates kennt. Was der hier tut, ist ja ein bewußtes, absichtliches Unwahrheitsagen, und eben dadurch beweist er, daß er der tüchtigere Mann ist. Das ist der Humor der kleinen, feinen Schrift; für diesen Humor muß man nur die Stimmung mitbringen, und dazu gehört, daß wir von dem Moralischen ganz absehen. [‘There is more to it than that, at least for Plato and everyone who knows Socrates. For what he does here is conscious, intentional lying, and by the means of it he proves that he is a better man. This is the humor of this small, lovely piece; for this humor one must have a proper frame of mind, which requires that we completely set aside a moral standpoint.’]
11.In rendering of Socrates’ words I take recourse to David Gallop’s translation in the Clarendon Plato Series edition of the Phaedo, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975, repr. 1988.
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