Il problema della bellezza (review)

Book Reviews M. T. Liminta. llproblema della bellezza. Milan: Celuc, 1976. Pp. 152. L. 2,600. Even though the authenticity of the GreaterHippias was defended in the sixties by scholars such as R. Robinson, Crombie, and Ryle, and reconfirmed in the seventies by the science of stylometric, the lack of exegesis of this dialogue testifies to a persistent philosophical skepticism. In the Anglo-American community the last article on the Hippias appeared in 1968. G. Vlastos's volume devoted to Plato's ethics, politics, and aesthetics contains but one reference to the dialogue . In what follows I shall consider solely the second and last chapter of Liminta's IIproblema della bellezza, namely, her interpretation of the meaning of beauty and her views on the order of the Hippias in Plato's intellectual career. But the first chapter, devoted to assuring authenticity, is worth studying if at least to acknowledge the extent to which, in Plato, philosophical and philological issues are interwoven. Opinions on the date of production of the Hippias are neatly divided between those scholars who consider it metaphysically laden and therefore a late dialogue and those who place it at the outset of Plato's philosophical development. Taking a leaf from Friedl~nder, Liminta opposes the late-production thesis. Correctly, she argues that it is unreasonable to believe that Plato wanted to revive the early Socratic style after having written the Symposium, Timaeus, and Philebus. It is equally unjustifiable to regard the Hippias as a very early production preceding even the Ion, for the Hippias seems already conversant with the language of xb et~x6 and tib~ct. Thus Liminta's theory that on purely philosophical grounds the Greater Hippias is the latest of the "earlier" dialogues is acceptable and textually defensible. For the Hippiasspecifies what was only assumed in the previous dialogues. The existence of an X is necessary to make individual things beautiful, just, wise, and so on. Hippias is lead by Socrates to agree that if beauty is that by which beautiful things are beautiful, beauty exists (287c-d). The apparent aporia with which the dialogue ends reveals the hidden meaning of beauty. With the expression Xoake.~&x~t • Plato shows the difficulty involved in seeing that beauty is inclusive of the useful, the good, and the pleasant. For anything which is beautiful is so because it is advantageous, leads to moral goodness, and is pleasant. Liminta's arguments in support of what she calls "Plato's intentions," however, are, at most suspicious and at least unnecessary. She argues that Plato, through the device of the unknown somebody, bids farewell to Socrates and begins his own philosophical career. The-Hippias is thus transitional in the "existential" sense, for in it Plato chooses, vis-A-vishis teacher, his own mode of thinking. The Hippias, Liminta claims, becomes absolutely necessary to the understanding of the Symposium, which will remain incomprehensible without the earlier dialogue. Leaving aside the fact that this strong claim may come as a surprise to those scholars who have written profusely on the Symposiumand have not once mentioned the Hippias, the logical structure of this dialogue does not warrant Liminta's interpretation. A cursory glance at Hippias 286, which deals with "beautiful endeavors" and sets up "many and beautiful rules," suggests the scale of love outlined by Diotima in Symposium 210a ft., but certainly it does not evince the transcendence of the Good and the Beautiful, so necessary to Plato's taking leave of Socrates. As R. E. Allen has argued, the difference between the theory of forms in the Symposium and the theory of forms in the Hippias consists precisely in the way separation of forms and their in- [79] 80 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY stances is conceived.1 In the Symposium the lover of beauty ascends to the mystic heights of another world; in the Hippias, pace Liminta, he remains playfully in the here and now of everyday eristic. Nevertheless, Liminta's rendering of the last section of the dialogue is convincing and rewarding . The hypothesis that the proverb captures the meaning of beauty will encourage classical scholars to reevaluate Plato's aesthetics and theory of feeling. This point alone makes the volume worth studying...