A short Socratic dialogue arguing, via Homer's Achilles and Odysseus, that the person most capable of lying is also most capable of truth, and reaching a paradox about willing wrongdoing.
Hippias Minor is a brief, tightly argued Socratic dialogue set after Hippias, the celebrated sophist from Elis, has given a public display (epideixis) comparing the heroes of the Trojan War. Prompted by Eudicus, Socrates presses Hippias in private on a claim he made during that display: that Homer portrayed Achilles as the best of the Greeks at Troy, Nestor as the wisest, and Odysseus as the most resourceful (polytropos) — but also, in Hippias's reading, as false and full of guile, in contrast to the simple, truthful Achilles.
Socrates fastens on the word 'resourceful' and asks what it means for someone to be false. Through a chain of questions about arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, he gets Hippias to agree that the person most capable of telling the truth about a subject is also, by that very capability, most capable of lying about it — competence in truth and competence in falsehood turn out to be the same skill. Applied back to Homer's heroes, this collapses Hippias's tidy opposition: if Odysseus is false because he is capable of lying, then Achilles, shown in the Iliad scheming and shifting his words to Odysseus, must be false too, and by the same logic Odysseus, being wise, must also be truthful. The two men Hippias wanted to keep as opposites turn out to be alike.
The dialogue's second half turns to ethics: is it worse to do wrong intentionally or unintentionally? Using analogies from running, wrestling, archery, music, and horsemanship, Socrates leads Hippias to concede that in each skill, the person who fails on purpose is better than the one who fails by accident, because failing on purpose still requires the underlying skill. Pushed to its conclusion, the argument seems to imply that the good man does wrong on purpose and the bad man unintentionally — a conclusion both speakers find intolerable and neither can resolve. The dialogue ends unresolved, with Socrates confessing that he 'wanders' on these questions and hoping Hippias, as the wiser man, will not wander too. It is a compact showcase of Socratic elenchus (cross-examination) used against a confident professional teacher, and an early statement of the puzzle about voluntary wrongdoing that Plato explores at greater length elsewhere.
“I say that Homer made Achilles the best of the men who came to Troy, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the most resourceful.”
— Hippias Minor · read this chapter →
“Then a man incapable of lying, and ignorant, could not be false.”
— Hippias Minor · read this chapter →
“Now do you notice that it's turned out to be the same person who is both false and truthful, so that if Odysseus was false, he also turns out truthful, and if Achilles was truthful, he also turns out false, and the two men aren't different from each other or opposites, but alike?”
— Hippias Minor · read this chapter →
“I'm not ashamed to learn, but I inquire and ask questions and am deeply grateful to whoever answers, and I've never yet deprived anyone of that gratitude.”
— Hippias Minor · read this chapter →
“So the man who errs on purpose and does shameful and unjust things — if there really is such a man, Hippias — could be none other than the good man.”
— Hippias Minor · read this chapter →
It is a short dialogue in which Socrates questions the sophist Hippias about a claim Hippias made publicly: that Homer's Achilles was simple and truthful while Odysseus was clever and false. Socrates argues that truthfulness and the ability to lie are the same skill, so the two heroes cannot be simple opposites. The dialogue then turns to whether it is worse to do wrong on purpose or by accident, ending unresolved.
Socrates, the sophist Hippias of Elis (a real historical rhetorician and polymath), and Eudicus, who hosts the conversation and prompts Socrates to question Hippias after his public display.
No. The argument, built on analogies from athletics and the arts, seems to lead to the paradoxical conclusion that the good man errs on purpose, but both Socrates and Hippias reject this and the dialogue ends with Socrates admitting he 'wanders' on the question.
Its authenticity has been debated since antiquity because of its brevity and unresolved ending, but it is traditionally included in the Platonic corpus and grouped with the shorter, more aporetic dialogues.
He concludes that the sharp contrast Hippias drew is false: since being capable of truth and capable of falsehood are the same skill, Achilles (shown scheming in the Iliad) turns out to be false in the same sense that the resourceful Odysseus turns out to be truthful.
Alcibiades 1 · Alcibiades 2 · Apology · Charmides · Cleitophon · Cratylus · Critias · Crito · Epinomis · Euthydemus · Euthyphro · Gorgias