0072 Hippias Major 2 of 4 - Reputation and Audiences

17 dic 2022 · 14 min.

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Hippias acts as if he is the expert on reputation (eudoxia), on how to appear beneficial despite not being beneficial. Socrates is obliged to frame everything he says in a...

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Hippias acts as if he is the expert on reputation (eudoxia), on how to appear beneficial despite not being beneficial. Socrates is obliged to frame everything he says in a way which allows Hippias to believe that his audience of one is continually impressed by him. To create more dissonance within this stricture, Socrates invents what I call the Questioner, a rude man who criticizes Socrates; Socrates takes advice from Hippias on eristics, but is thoroughly defeated by the Questioner. This should have made Hippias review his own abilities, but he has no trouble simply distancing himself from Socrates after each refutation. The Questioner is a hybrid of two audiences, the dialectic but suitably impressed Socrates and the undialectic mocking Many - the Questioner is dialectic but mocking.

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