Hippias Minor (On the Lie) with Dr. Grabowski and Friends
Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Dcn. Garlick, Dr. Larson, Dr. Grabowski, and Mr. Thomas Lackey discuss the short, strange, and forgotten dialogue of HIppias Minor or “On the Lie.”
8 Questions on Hippias Minor Study Guide
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Plato’s Hippias Minor is a short, strange dialogue with a traditional subtitle that cuts straight to the point: “On the Lie.” After the boastful sophist Hippias finishes a public speech ranking Achilles the best and Odysseus the most polytropos—the man of twists and turns—Socrates is drawn into a conversation that begins with Homer and ends in one of the deepest aporias of the early dialogues.
What starts as a dispute over who is the better man, the straightforward Achilles or the wily Odysseus, quickly becomes a rigorous examination of voluntary versus involuntary wrongdoing, the nature of knowledge and power, and the unsettling claim that the man who does injustice on purpose is better than the one who does it by accident.
Deacon and the guests work through the dialogue’s sharp arguments and its surprising relevance. The conversation exposes the limits of treating virtue as mere knowledge plus power, raises the question of whether a just person might ever speak falsely for a good end, and serves as a genuine appetizer for the noble lie in the Republic.
Come listen—and discover why even Socrates, at the end, cannot agree with himself.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Hippias Minor and its Context
04:55 Setting the Scene: Hippias’ Speech and Socrates’ Role
09:22 Hippias’ Boasts and Socrates’ Irony
17:55 The Homeric Heroes: Achilles and Odysseus
25:04 Knowledge, Power, and the Art of Lying
36:15 The Distinction Between Capacity and Action
44:53 The Nature of Truth and Falsehood in Socratic Dialogue
46:43 Conclusion: What Socrates Reveals About Knowledge and Lies
02:39 Socrates’ questioning of Hippias and the nature of virtue
04:55 The analogy of athletic competitions and the concept of justice
07:57 Socrates’ discussion on voluntary and involuntary actions
12:05 The role of knowledge and capacity in moral actions
15:34 Hippias’ understanding of justice and its relation to power
19:50 The concept of noble lies and pedagogical deception
25:04 The absence of forms and gods in the dialogue
30:14 The deeper meaning of Socratic ignorance and self-awareness
34:54 The significance of the question: Is justice knowledge or power?
39:51 Conclusion: What we learn about virtue, knowledge, and truth
Keywords
Plato’s Hippias Minor, Lesser Hippias, On the Lie, Hippias of Elis, Achilles and Odysseus, polytropos, voluntary and involuntary wrongdoing, voluntary liar, Socratic dialogue, aporetic dialogue, forgotten Platonic dialogues, noble lie, Republic, virtue is knowledge, knowledge and power, sophist, polymath, Eudicus, Embassy scene Iliad, teleology, Forms, Socratic irony, beneficial falsehood, Dr. Frank Grabowski, Dr. Brett Larson, Thomas Lackey, Ascend the Great Books Podcast, political philosophy, Allan Bloom, Roots of Political Philosophy.
Next week we discuss Plato’s Ion!
