So what was Plato getting at with Hippias Minor? Socrates seems

>>8443587
Maybe read some analytical philosophy instead of this cuckoldry

>>8443587
Just recapped Hip. Min. yesterday, and this is the relevant passage from a companion to Plato I downloaded and have been glancing at after the last few dialogues I knocked out:

>The starting point is the hypothesis that all deception comes from knowledge and a capacity (or power: dunamis), for the deceiver must be capable (dunatos) of deceiving, and can be so only on the condition of having knowledge in the field in which he is to carry out his decep- tion (sophos kai dunatos, 366a; Weiss 1981). It is this affirmation that collides head on with the ethical theory Plato makes Socrates
profess in the dialogues, a doctrine accord- ing to which excellence or virtue (aretê) is a form of knowledge or reflection (Jantzen 1989). On the other hand, if one maintains that knowledge is morally ‘neutral’, insofar as its application may vary according to the subject practicing it, it can no longer be iden- tified with moral excellence. We then witness the ruin of another major thesis of Platonic ethics, according to which the freedom of an individual finds its limit, according to Plato, in the demand for a self-realization that affirms that no one can wish for his own destruction and his own death, his own ‘evil’, but that every individual desires to be happy, by conquering his happiness or his well-be- ing (cf. for instance Gorgias 509e, Meno 78a, Protagoras 345d).
The most radical consequence of these premises, which Hippias and Socrates are obliged to accept on several occasions (par- ticularly at 366b–c, 367a, 367e, 368b–9a, etc.), is the following: if having knowledge and being capable of something means that one is ‘good’ (agathos) at it, or that one is ‘the best’ (aristos) at it, then the man who is ‘good’ or ‘the best’ will necessarily be the onewhodeceives,thatis,theonewho‘does wrong’ (366c–7a). At first glance, the Hp. Mi. thus ends with an admission of defeat (376b–c), for Socrates and Hippias cannot accept that it pertains to a good man to choose deception and voluntary wrongdo- ing; yet they cannot succeed in correcting the argument. Yet, it is possible to read the course of the discussion in another way, by asking, Do the competence and capacity that enable one to tell the truth or to deceive, to distinguish and then to practise the true or the false by exercising free choice presup- pose a genuine indifference with regard to good and evil on the part of the agent? In other words, do ‘knowing’ and ‘being able to

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>>8445203
>do’ evil necessarily imply that one does it? Is the knowledge that leads one to do evil genuine knowledge? As Aristotle empha- sizes, alluding explicitly to these difficulties (see Metaphysics 5.29, 1025a2–1; cf. also Nicomachean Ethics 7 3, 1145b), the demon- stration of the Hp. Mi. puts to the test a cer- tain idea of knowledge (sophia), understood as the neutral possession of several items of theoretical knowledge, which are trans- lated into technical competence and practi- cal capacities. This conception of knowledge is characteristic of the epistemological and ethical doctrine of the sophists (q.v.), at least insofar as Plato depicts and refutes it. In this sophistic perspective, ‘knowledge’ indeed leads to a ‘know-how’, indifferent in itself to good and evil, and the choice of good or of evil, detached from knowledge, remains up to the agent. Reading the Hp. Mi. in this way, and imputing the aporiai of the dia- logue to the sophistic conception of knowl- edge, one immediately realizes what must be opposed to the sophist, at the same time as the result of these aporiai: the Platonic ethi- cal doctrine of excellence as knowledge. For, theknowledgethatcoincideswithexcellence consists, according to Plato, in the posses- sion of a knowledge that contains its good (agathon) within it: that is, the element that guides and orients the agent’s will and his choice. One must concede that all knowl- edge implies the knowledge of good and evil (with regard to its objects and with regard to its eventual implementation), so that no neutral knowledge exists, nor, consequently, does any will that is indifferent to good and evil. The sophoi kai dunatoi, who were to deceive intentionally, according to Hippias, turn out to be bereft of genuine knowledge: if they choose in full cognizance that they are deceiving, their knowledge lacks the indispensable awareness of the distinction
between good and evil and is therefore not genuine knowledge. If, however, they deceive unintentionally, this can obviously only be through ignorance of the good.
Taking the measure of the conflict between the paradoxical ethics assumed in the Hp. Mi. and the Platonic doctrine of excellence (aretê), one is able to see more satisfacto- rily the meaning of the dialogue, and the direction Socrates wishes to impose upon the discussion. We are invited to do this by the discussion at 376b, when Socrates adds a restriction to his conclusion according to which ‘the person who behaves and works in a shameful and unjust way . . . can only be the man who is good’, adding nonchalantly, ‘if a man of this kind exists. . . .’ However, for the reasons that have just been indicated, this man cannot exist if aretê is really a form of knowledge.

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Let me know if that gives you an ideas you'd like to discuss. Also sorry for the fucked greentext attempts.

>>8445206
What's the name of the book you took this from?

>>8445224
"The Bloomsbury Companion to Plato"
isbn: 1474250912
And for some reason the ebook is titled "The Continuum Companion to Plato"

Haven't used it very heavily, and only started a few days ago. It includes synopses of all the dialogues, contextualization of them within the Platonic corpus, consequences for the other dialogues and for their relevant branches of philosophy; and it has about 300 pages on major themes, historical contexts, etc.