Lesser Hippias

by Plato

HIPPIAS: Yes, I remember; it was so said.

SOCRATES: And were you not yourself just now shown to be best able to speak falsely about calculation?

HIPPIAS: Yes; that was another thing which was said.

SOCRATES: And are you not likewise said to speak truly about calculation?

HIPPIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: 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?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: 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.

HIPPIAS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: 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.