Antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic.
There is one other point of similitude deserving notice, between the Greater and Lesser Hippias. In both of them, Hippias makes special complaint of Sokrates, for breaking the question in pieces and picking out the minute puzzling fragments — instead of keeping it together as a whole, and applying to it the predicates which it merits when so considered.[79] Here is the standing antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic: between those unconsciously acquired mental combinations which are poured out in eloquent, impressive, unconditional, and undistinguishing generalities — and the logical analysis which resolves the generality into its specialities, bringing to view inconsistencies, contradictions, limits, qualifications, &c. I have already touched upon this at the close of the Greater Hippias.
[79] Plato, Hipp. Min. 369 B-C. Ὦ Σώκρατες, ἀεὶ σύ τινας τοιούτους πλέκεις λόγους, καὶ ἀπολαμβάνων ὅ ἂν ᾖ δυσχερέστατον τοῦ λόγου, τούτου ἔχει κατὰ σμικρὸν ἐφαπτόμενος, καὶ οὐχ ὅλω ἀγωνίζει τῷ πράγματι, περὶ ὅτου ἂν ὁ λόγος ᾖ, &c.
A remark of Aristotle (Topica, viii. 164, b. 2) illustrates this dissecting function of the Dialectician.
ἔστι γάρ, ὡς ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν, διαλεκτικὸς ὁ προτατικὸς καὶ ἐνστατικός· ἔστι δὲ τὸ μὲν προτείνεσθαι, ἓν ποιεῖν τὰ πλείω (δεῖ γὰρ ἓν ὅλῳ ληφθῆναι πρὸς ὃ ὁ λόγος), τὸ δ’ ἐνίστασθαι, τὸ ἑν πολλά· ἢ γὰρ διαιρεῖ, ἢ ἀναιρεῖ, τὸ μὲν διδούς, τὸ δὲ οὔ, τῶν προτεινομένων.
CHAPTER XIV.
HIPPARCHUS — MINOS.
In these two dialogues, Plato sets before us two farther specimens of that error and confusion which beset the enquirer during his search after “reasoned truth”. Sokrates forces upon the attention of a companion two of the most familiar words of the market-place, to see whether a clear explanation of their meaning can be obtained.