Note 53 — Chapter XIII · HIPPIAS MAJOR — HIPPIAS MINOR.

Plato, Hipp. Minor, 369 D, 373 B.

Ast rejects both the dialogues called by the name of Hippias, as not composed by Plato. Schleiermacher doubts about both, and rejects the Hippias Minor (which he considers as perhaps worked up by a Platonic scholar from a genuine sketch by Plato himself) but will not pass the same sentence upon the Hippias Major (Schleierm. Einleit. vol. ii. pp. 293-296; vol. v. 399-403. Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften, pp. 457-464).

Stallbaum defends both the dialogues as genuine works of Plato, and in my judgment with good reason (Prolegg. ad Hipp. Maj. vol. iv. pp. 145-150; ad Hipp. Minor, pp. 227-235). Steinhart (Einleit. p. 99) and Socher (Ueber Platon, p. 144 seq., 215 seq.) maintain the same opinion on these dialogues as Stallbaum. It is to be remarked that Schleiermacher states the reasons both for and against the genuineness of the dialogues; and I think that even in his own statement the reasons for preponderate. The reasons which both Schleiermacher and Ast produce as proving the spuriousness, are in my view quite insufficient to sustain their conclusion. There is bad taste, sophistry, an overdose of banter and derision (they say very truly), in the part assigned to Sokrates: there are also differences of view, as compared with Sokrates in other dialogues; various other affirmations (they tell us) are not Platonic. I admit much of this, but I still do not accept their conclusion. These critics cannot bear to admit any Platonic work as genuine unless it affords to them ground for superlative admiration and glorification of the author. This postulate I altogether contest; and I think that differences of view, as between Sokrates in one dialogue and Sokrates in another, are both naturally to be expected and actually manifested (witness the Protagoras and Gorgias). Moreover Ast designates (p. 404) a doctrine as “durchaus unsokratisch” which Stallbaum justly remarks (p. 233) to have been actually affirmed by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia. Stallbaum thinks that both the two dialogues (Socher, that the Hippias Minor only) were composed by Plato among his earlier works, and this may probably be true. The citation and refutation of the Hippias Minor by Aristotle (Metaphys. Δ. 1025, a. 6) counts with me as a strong corroborative proof that the dialogue is Plato’s work. Schleiermacher and Ast set this evidence aside because Aristotle does not name Plato as the author. But if the dialogue had been composed by any one less celebrated than Plato, Aristotle would have named the author. Mention by Aristotle, though without Plato’s name, is of greater value to support the genuineness than the purely internal grounds stated by Ast and Schleiermacher against it.