“Last of all,” Socrates continues, “I turned to the skilled craftsmen. I knew quite well that I had practically no technical qualifications myself, and I was sure that I should find them full of impressive knowledge. In this I was not disappointed. They understood things that I did not, and to that extent they were wiser than I was. But, gentlemen, these professional experts seemed to share the same failing which I had noticed in the poets. I mean that on the strength of their technical proficiency they claimed a perfect understanding of every other subject, however important, and I felt that this error more than outweighed their positive wisdom.”[9]
We meet an expert of the sort Socrates describes in the sophist Hippias. He brags to Socrates that he was willing to exhibit all his skills to the crowds assembled for the Olympic games held in his home city of Elis. “Since I first began to compete at Olympia,” he explains, “I have never met a man who could equal me in anything.”[10]
Socrates knows Hippias’s abilities and recounts them: “I know that in many arts you are the most skillful of men, as I once heard you boasting in the marketplace at the money tables, when you were expounding your great and admirable expertise. And you said that upon one occasion, when you went to the Olympic games, everything you had on your person was fashioned by yourself. First your ring — that’s where you started — which was your own workmanship, proof that you knew how to engrave rings, then a seal which was your own work, and a strigil and an oil flask, which you made yourself. Next the shoes you wore you said you yourself had made, and you had woven your own cloak and tunic. But the object that seemed most remarkable to everyone, a triumph of haute couture, appeared when you revealed that the belt you wore with the tunic, like a deluxe Persian model, you had plaited yourself. In addition, you told how you had brought poems: epics, tragedies, and dithyrambs, as well as prose speeches, and compositions of every genre. And concerning the arts which I mentioned just now, you had arrived with an understanding superior to that of all others, concerning rhythms, harmonies, spelling, and many other subjects, as I recall — which reminds me of that special art in which, as it seems, you claim to be most outstanding: mnemonics, the art of memorizing.”[11]
Hippias is the consummate technician, a kind of super-craftsman who can excel at any kind of handicraft or artistic composition. He provides a kind of test case for craft knowledge.
Socrates focuses on a literary question which has implications for the arts and crafts: how does Homer present his two great protagonists, Achilles and Odysseus? Hippias claims that the poet presents Achilles as the bravest of men and Odysseus as the wiliest. Socrates asks him to clarify his statement, and Hippias points out an example in which Achilles favors plain speaking over deceitfulness. Achilles says to Odysseus, “As hateful to me as the gates of Hades is he/ who conceals one thing in his heart but speaks something else.”[12]
Do false speakers have no power to do things? Socrates asks. Hippias replies that they have great power to deceive. Socrates asks if they deceive by their own folly, or by means of a certain kind of craftiness and cleverness? Hippias chooses the latter alternative. “Then they are clever, it seems,” Socrates concludes, and Hippias agrees. Then they know what they are doing? Yes. And they are wise rather than ignorant? Yes.
“Hold on,” says Socrates, “Let’s review what you are saying. You say the liars are capable, prudent, knowledgeable, and wise in those things they lie about?” “I do,” replies Hippias.[13] And the true and the false are opposite to each other? And the false are powerful in what they know? Socrates points out that anyone has power in things he has knowledge of. For instance, a literate person can write someone’s name whenever he wishes. Hippias knows the art of numbers and is good at calculation. You are most able to tell the truth about numbers then?, Socrates asks, and Hippias agrees. Then you are also best able to lie about numbers as well. Hippias agrees. A false person will lie about numbers as well as other things, will he not? Hippias assents.
Socrates goes through a similar chain of reasoning about geometry and astronomy, other areas in which Hippias claims to be an expert. In general in any art or science, it appears, the expert is most able to deceive as well as to tell the truth. So then if Odysseus is the most wily and deceitful individual, he is the most knowledgeable and skillful. Socrates goes on to point out that in the Iliad Achilles declares he will sail away from Troy the next day as a result of his disagreement with Agamemnon. But he doesn’t do so; thus he is more deceitful than Odysseus. Hippias defends Achilles as not being intentionally misleading.[14]
Socrates invites Hippias to consider a runner in a race. Is the runner who runs slowly on purpose better or worse than the runner who runs slowly unintentionally? Hippias answers he is better. Similarly the wrestler who falls intentionally is better than the one who falls unintentionally. He rehearses a series of similar cases, and draws attention to the mind of the expert. “So a soul that errs involuntarily is worse than one that errs voluntarily?” In these cases, yes. “Will our souls be better if they do wrong and go astray voluntarily, or involuntarily?”
“Ah, Socrates,” protests Hippias, “it would be outrageous if those who do wrong willingly turn out to be better than those who do wrong unwillingly!”[15]
“Justice — isn’t it a capacity, or a science, or both? Mustn’t justice be one of these things?” Hippias assents. “So if justice is a capacity of soul, the more capable the soul is, the more just it will be? For we judged the more powerful to be better, my friend, didn’t we? . . . And suppose justice is knowledge. Then won’t it turn out that the wiser the soul, the more just it is, and the more ignorant the soul, the more unjust?” Again Hippias assents.
“And if it is both? Won’t the soul that has both, knowledge and capability, be more just, while the one that is more ignorant will be more unjust? Mustn’t that be the case?”
“Apparently.”
“Then didn’t this more capable and wiser soul prove to be better and more able to accomplish both good and evil ends, in every field?”
“Indeed.”[16]
Socrates draws the conclusion that the better soul will do wrong voluntarily and the worse involuntarily. And if the good man has the better soul, he will do wrong voluntarily rather than involuntarily. Hippias refuses to go along with Socrates in his conclusion. “Nor can I agree with my own conclusion, Hippias,” replies Socrates. “But for the moment that appears to be the necessary result of our discussion.”[17] Socrates observes that in his confusion he himself is always changing his opinion. But it is a sad thing when supposedly wise men wander in their opinions about such things.
Here as always there is a strong element of the craft analogy in Socrates’ assumptions: an expert knows what he is doing and can control his actions so as to run slowly or quickly as needed, or produce one result or its opposite. Insofar as he is ignorant, he cannot control his own opinions. Or can he? He, after all, has made no claim to expertise, whereas Hippias claims to be an expert in almost every field of endeavor, whether theoretical or practical. Hippias was unable to make the argument come out as he wished. Did Socrates intentionally mislead him? And if so, did he wrong Hippias? The conversation comes to an end here. At least we see that Hippias, the master craftsman in so many areas, has no answers for Socrates’ probing questions. Whatever justice is, Hippias cannot explain it or describe its powers. The expert craftsman is ignorant about the nature of craft knowledge and of virtue in general.
Here, Socrates finds that the expert craftsman lacks wisdom concerning his own expertise. Again, Socrates is unable to refute the oracle that says that no one is wiser than himself.
[9].Plato Apology 22c-e.
[10].Plato Lesser Hippias 364a.
[11].Plato Lesser Hippias 368b-d.
[12].Homer Iliad 9.312-13, Plato Lesser Hippias 365b.
[13].Plato Lesser Hippias 365e-366a.
[14]. Plato Lesser Hippias 369e-371e.
[15].Plato Lesser Hippias 375b-d.
[16].Plato Lesser Hippias 375d-376a.
[17].Plato Lesser Hippias 376b-c.