The Plato Paradigm
What Plato Dramatized
Episodes
September 20, 2021 • 14 mins
How did Plato really intend his dialogues to be read? If everything in a dialogue is taken into account, we don't need to guess. In this series, I'll demonstrate with a close reading of a few short dialogues what Platonic dialogues are actually about. No previous experience is required, and indeed may actually be an advantage.
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September 23, 2021 • 14 mins
Why is Socrates silent? Who is Eudicus? These and other non-philosophical questions meet us immediately at the beginning of Plato's Hippias Minor
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September 25, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates begins spinning his web. Using Eudicus' father, Socrates restricts Hippias, who hasn't even entered this conversation yet, to discussing just Achilles and Odysseus, and to supporting Achilles as the better hero, which everyone knows to be true anyway: he is aristos (best) in the Iliad.
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September 30, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates, Hippias, and Eudicus cooperate to create a competition between Socrates and Hippias.
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October 1, 2021 • 14 mins
The changing faces of Socrates' first question about Achilles and Odysseus. What is the connection between Hippias and the three Homeric heroes, Achilles, Nestor, and Odysseus?
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October 6, 2021 • 14 mins
Apparently Hippias has a prepared speech for his exhibitions in which he claims that Homer made Achilles the best, Nestor the most expert, and Odysseus the most polytropos. Socrates is puzzled (only) by the last example, despite this epithet appearing in the first line of the Odyssey.
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October 7, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates is confused about the most obvious thing in Homer's Odyssey, applying Odysseus' epithet to Achilles. Hippias then has to explain that Achilles is better than Odysseus precisely because Achilles is not polytropos while Odysseus is. Socrates' trap is sprung.
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October 12, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates uses the eristic debate to predict what Hippias will say. Because Socrates attributes polytropos to Achilles, Hippias is required by eristics to give the term a negative connotation and reattribute it to Odysseus. LSJ, the Greek-English Lexicon, says that Plato gives the term this negative connotation, and makes Hippias' temporary wordplay an acceptable usage.
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October 16, 2021 • 14 mins
Homer is finally dropped from the conversation. Hippias will say what he and Homer think... Socrates asks about the false person, and Hippias in response, because of eristic choices (Black or White, no Grey) offered by Socrates, attributes to the false person: ability, prudence, and expertise.
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October 22, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates seems to have no idea how to win.an eristic debate. Instead of making the audience laugh at Hippias, he allows the sophist to agree that he, Hippias, is the most able, most expert, and best, at arithmetic.
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October 29, 2021 • 14 mins
So what was Hippias' prepared speech on Achilles, Nestor, and Odysseus about? And for what purpose? Being most able and most polytropos is distinguished.
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November 2, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates eristically refutes Hippias' claim that Achilles is better than Odysseus by arguing that the true and the false are actually the same, but Hippias just as eristically escapes the refutation. Socrates until now had incidentally shown that Hippias is most able at calculation, but now Hippias in his escape allows Socrates to show that Hippias is most polytropos, as we'll see next time.
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November 6, 2021 • 14 mins
Hippias is happy for Socrates to publicize Hippias' ability in calculation, geometry, and astronomy, although Hippias' ability to lie and tell the truth in all these fields would seem to aid Socrates' general argument that the false and the true man are one and the same. Hippias is supposed to be defending the position that the true man is better than the false man, who is someone else (just as Achilles is supposed to be better tha...
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November 9, 2021 • 14 mins
Hippias polytropos. Socrates never calls Hippias explicitly "polytropos", but he does point out how many technai (skills) Hippias is an expert in. He also goes out of his way to indicate that Hippias is always advertising his expertise in many technai. Hippias, then, is a deigma for the polytropos, but a rather useless polytropos since the products of his various types of expertise are used simply in order to show that he is the po...
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November 12, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates allows Hippias to escape being refuted, and Hippias proposes a straight rhetorical debate with speech and counter-speech, to prove that the true Achilles and the false Odysseus are two different people. The audience (Eudicus and friends) would decide.
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November 16, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates derails Hippias' attempt to turn the eristic competition into a rhetorical competition. Socrates praises Hippias while incidentally touching upon the art of learning and the art of judging character.
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November 19, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates demonstrates how Homeric characters should be analysed - by comparing what they say with what they do. Could Plato be hinting at the way Platonic characters should be analysed? Socrates provocatively calls Achilles a liar for declaring his intention to go home, while never actually making any preparations.
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November 27, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates at the beginning of the eristic debate had made Hippias interpret "polytropos" negatively as "unsimple" and "lying", making Odysseus very bad in contrast to Achilles the truthful and simple. Under pressure, Hippias has had to add "willingly", so that the evil Odysseus lies willingly. Socrates now springs an eristic surprise on Hippias, a double trap emphasizing the ability both of Hippias and Achilles to lie willingly.
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December 11, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates springs the double trap. Hippias escapes by moving the goalposts, from simple lying (the able person can lie or tell the truth at will and is therefore better) to injustice (no able person doing injustice willingly is considered better than one doing injustice unwillingly). This is not opening up the discussion, but an attempt by Hippias to end the discussion with the crowd still on his side.
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December 18, 2021 • 14 mins
Socrates does not allow Hippias to escape, but begins buttering up Hippias in an effort to return him to the conversation. This does not work, and Hippias remains uncooperative. Socrates will move on to stronger tactics next time. All of this marks the transition between the first and second major arguments of the dialogue.
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