Plato, Hipparchus

I am under no illusions about the depth of these brief notes on the Dialogues. I have read the Hipparchus carefully only a few times. Doubtless indeed I should see more of it if I read it carefully twenty times, but I must move on; and even in this brief introduction I have learned much about the Socratic life and how philosophy constitutes itself in the face of the authoritative public opinion against which it must inevitably conflict.

It helps, truly, to have a good guide. I am reasonably intelligent, but I am young and have read little. Christopher Bruell is very learned, utterly brilliant, and has been reading Plato carefully for at least fifty years. His book, On the Socratic Education is an exquisite thing, written late in life, and ironically entitled "An Introduction", which it most certainly is not. The writing is far denser than it needed to be, with seemingly endless subordinate clauses everywhere you look till you have almost forgotten what the subject was; but this is no criticism, for Mr. Bruell is a smart enough man to write intentionally. The difficult, dense writing employed by him, Leo Strauss, and those like him, is truly a barrier set up against the average reader, but the barrier is there on purpose. Not everyone is meant to embark upon philosophy; not everyone should begin to question their authoritative, traditional opinions. Such men might be made worse by philosophy, like Meno; better for them to remain simple, moral people. Though we today would call sentiment 'elitist', 'snobbish', or 'aristocratic', I believe Strauss and his students thought it was the truth, and inculcated it in themselves and employed it in their writings. But they learned it first from their masters, particularly Plato. But enough of Bruell - I shall turn to what little I have gleaned from the Hipparchus.

The Hipparchus is first in the path of sixteen Bruell lays out, indicating that he intends the Hipparchus to be the introduction to Socrates and his education, if not the introduction to philosophy. In it, Socrates approaches a young man and asks, "What is the love of gain, and who are the lovers of gain?"; or the dialogue begins in the midst of on ongoing conversation. His young companion immediately launches an impassioned, indignant assault upon the lovers of gain as sellers of the worthless, cheaters, frauds, evil men, etc. He neglects to seek out what gain could be. What is it? We think first of increase of wealth or money, but also increase of good things, since gain in the first sense is held to be good. The companion seems ignorant of this double meaning, and Socrates exploits the ambiguity rather mercilessly. Through his questioning, he shows his companion that he believes gain is always good, and thus it is unreasonable to expect anyone, even the decent or just man, from seeking it; even more, that those who love gain what is good; thus, cheaters and frauds turn out to be lovers of the good. This shocking conclusion is rendered unconvincing to the reader (and Plato intended it to be so), since Socrates banishes justice from the dialogue quite early on, locking out his companion's complaint against the lovers of gain, and refusing to acknowledge the opposing view, that gain could be criticized. And by subtly switching the terms of the argument, and proceeding on a false assumptions (when the companion defines the lover of gain in terms of the worthless, Socrates acts as if he meant "worthless for producing gain" - obviously not what his interlocutor intended), he is easily able to reduce the counter-arguments to nonsense, 'proving' his argument true.

The companion thinks of gain as a good, but wishes to restrain the love of gain in the name of decency or justice. He further argues that the lover of gain is "he who thinks it worthwhile to make a gain from that which the decent wouldn't dare to gain from", and what he has in mind is most likely the unjust increase of money through deception, bribery, etc. But in calling them gains, he implicitly recognizes them as good, since he resolutely adheres to the proposition that gain is good. Further, he asserts those who pursue such gains are harmed by them, which means he is forced to argue that the good harms. He is confused about the nature of gain, and Socrates is so willfully obtuse that the nature of gain is never clearly spelled out in the dialogue.

Why does Socrates hold this conversation? Why is he so brutal to his interlocutor? In what way is the Hipparchus meant to be a defense or propaedeutic to philosophy? This is difficult for me to say, probably because I have read insufficiently. But perhaps Socrates sees a danger in the companion's criticism of the lovers of gain, for since he does not recognize the ambiguity inherent in the word, the philosopher might well be included in his condemnation. As to what this different love of gain might be, I am rather unsure; but the interlude on Hipparchus hints that it may have something to do with wisdom.

"This is a memorial of Hipparchus: Do not deceive a friend."