HIPPIAS (minor) by Plato - Complete text

Page 7

Socr.: Then the same person is able to speak both falsely and truly about calculation? And that person is he who is good at calculation—the arithmetician?

Hipp.: Yes.

Socr.: Who, then, Hippias, is discovered to be false at calculation? Is he not the good man? For the good man is the able man, and he is the true man.

Hipp.: That is evident.

Socr.: Do you not see, then, that the same man is false and also true about the same matters? And the true man is not a whit better than the false; for indeed he is the same with him and not the very opposite, as you were just now imagining.

Hipp.: Not in that instance, clearly.

Socr.: Shall we examine other instances?

Hipp.: Certainly, if you are disposed.

Socr.: Are you not also skilled in geometry?

Hipp.: I am.

Socr.: Well, and does not the same hold in that science also? Is not the same person best able to speak falsely or to speak truly about diagrams; and he is—the geometrician?

Hipp.: Yes.

Socr.: He and no one else is good at it?

Hipp.: Yes, he and no one else.

Socr.: Then the good and wise geometer has this double power in the highest degree; and if there be a man who is false about diagrams the good man will be he, for he is able to be false; whereas the bad is unable, and for this reason is not false, as has been admitted.

Hipp.: True.

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