The Continuity Theory of Reality in Plato's Hippias Major

The Continuity Theory of Reality in Plato's HippiasMajor MICHAEL L. MORGAN THE PRIMARY REASON that students of Plato have recently returned to the Hippias Major is to assess its role in Plato's philosophical development.' In the most important among recent treatments, John Malcolm argues for a kinship between the Hippias Major and Plato's middle Theory of Forms, while Paul Woodruff" defends the Hippias Major's neutrality on metaphysical questions. The case seems to turn on three doctrines and whether they are present in the dialogue. They are (1) the Xc%)to~6g or separation between Forms and concrete particulars, (z) the compresence of opposites in concrete particulars and the purity of Forms, and (3) so-called self-predication. Once this well-known trio is examined and clarified, the Hippias Major can he plundered for evidence of their presence. Malcolm, while admitting that (i) is not explicit in the dialogue, argues that (2) ~ and (3) are. Clearly he takes separation to contain something more than, or at least different from, the compresence of opposites. Woodruff argues vigorously against (i) but takes all three to be closely related. :3 ' On the Hippias Major (hereafter HM), see Dorothy Tarrant, The Hippia,~Major (Cambridge , 1998); John Malcolm, "On the Place of the HzppiasMajorin the Development of Plato's Thought," Archivfiir Geschichteder Phi&sophie5o, 3 (1968), 189-195; Paul Woodruff, "Socrates and Ontology: The Evidence of the HippiasMajor,"Phronesis23,2 (1978), ml-117; R.E.Allen, Plato~ Euthyphro and the Earlier Theory of Forms (London,197o), passim; Marion Soreth, Der PlatonischeDialog Hippias Maior (Munich, 1953); A. Croiset, HippiasMajeur, Charmide,Lache,~, Lysis (Paris , 19~1). I have nothing to add to the debate concerning the authenticity of the HM. I agree with Grube and Malcolm in behalf of its authenticity. Cf. W.K.C. Guthrie, A Historyof GreekPhilosophy , IV (Cambridge, 1975), p. 175-6. Allen claims (2) in Plato~Euthyphro73-4. :~ Guthrie (IV, 176-6) argues that none of Plato's language in the HM requires a theory of transcendent Forms. [133] 134 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Late in the Hippias Major, as part of a refutation of the proposal that z6 • is visual and auditory pleasure, Socrates and Hippias debate the merits of a theory, which Socrates calls "Hippias's continuity theory of reality." The result of Socratic criticism, it is a theory of two kinds of properties and how they are distributed throughout wholes and their parts. Among older commentators, Tarrant and Ross have discussed this theory and the elenchos of which it is a part, but their treatments are inadequate. 4 My proposal is to look first at the setting for this metaphysical view, then to describe it, arguing that it is a theory about properties, parts, and wholes, and finally to explore its relations to (1), (2), and (3) above. The Hippias Major, in short, may exhibit an early stage in Plato's metaphysical thinking, but whether that stage includes (1), (2), or (3) might best be assessed by couching our examination in the framework of a metaphysical theory explicitly presented in the dialogue. THE FINAL ARGUMENT IN THE HIPPIAS MAJOR In the Hippias Major Socrates and the sophist Hippias discuss a number of definitions of the beautiful (~6 • 5 At first Hippias offers his own proposals , but eventually Socrates is himself compelled to make suggestions, although these too---for example, that the beautiful is the fitting (T6 nQ~rov) and that it is the useful (Xff~,ot~ov)--are subsequently rejected. The final major one of these proposals, introduced by Socrates and endorsed by Hippias , requires extensive discussion (297e5-3o3d lo); it is that "the beautiful is the pleasure which comes through hearing and seeing" (~98a6-7). 6 The elenchos that follows has three parts: (I) 298d5-3oob3; (II) 3oob4 3o2c7 ; (III) 3o2c7-3o3dlo. In (I) Socrates begins his refutation by seeking to establish two things: that if a pair of things are beautiful, then each too must be beautiful and that if both a pair and a member are beautiful, all must possess something, indeed some identical thing, that makes them all beautiful. At least the second part of this conclusion, that beautiful things have some one thing in...