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Plato's Hippias Minor proposes a thesis that I call the Superiority of the Voluntary Wrongdoer (SVW), which states that the person doing something wrong voluntarily is better than the person doing it wrong involuntarily. This claim has long unsettled scholars, who have tried to determine whether Socrates is serious about SVW or disavows it. The primary strategy among interpreters is to appeal to Socrates' prior commitment to the "Socratic paradox" that no one does injustice voluntarily; with the Socratic paradox in the background, it is argued, we can better understand how Socrates treats SVW. In this paper, I aim to show that the Hippias Minor points us towards a different understanding of SVW and the Socratic paradox, with implications for their role both in the dialogue and in Plato's philosophy as a whole. My first step towards this understanding is to consider the distinctive methodology of the Hippias Minor. Socrates' attitude towards his and Hippias' arguments is characterized by πλάνη, or wavering; I argue that this wavering shows that Socrates wants to determine how he might accommodate what is compelling about both his and Hippias' positions, rather than choosing one over the other. To that end, I look more closely at what each interlocutor proposes in the dialogue, concluding that many of their primary commitments are shared by both interlocutors and do not contradict. We do not, then, need to throw out SVW, and we can grasp the true role of the Socratic paradox: it is not axiomatic but a conditional conclusion of the dialogue, and Socrates' attempt to reconcile SVW with Hippias' arguments provides reasons and motivation for accepting it. Accordingly, we cannot assume that the Socratic paradox will be in place, and we should look for some indication in the Hippias Minor as to why it could hold. I argue that the dialogue provides a framework for doing so, by taking steps towards a new understanding of knowledge (epistēmē) that can support the Socratic paradox. These moves put the Hippias Minor in the position of beginning to examine and develop key ideas in Plato's ethics and epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Hp. mi. 364b1-3 καλόν should be taken with ἀνάθημα and not as the direct object of λέγεις. An idiomatic expression like καλόν γε λέγεις meaning «fine thing you say, fine reply», as the majority of translators renders it, apparently does not exist, the usual form being καλῶς (γε) λέγεις. On the contrary, the ironical use of καλός followed by γε and by the substantive to which καλός refers is well attested in Greek and frequent in Plato’s dialogues, especially at the beginning of a reply, as in this passage of the Hippias minor. A similar problem arises in two other passages too: Hp. mai. 282e9-283a1, which is very close to Hp. mi. 364b1-3 and where καλόν goes with τεκμήριον, and Euthyd. 294a4-5, where the main verb λέγεις governs the whole sentence ὡς θαυμαστὸν … πεφάνθαι and not ὡς θαυμαστόν alone.

More than any other poem, the Odysseus thematized the issue of lying and deceptive stratagems to the extent of praising them. That thematization is all the more interesting since it includes a reflection on the very status of poetic discourse and the conditions of information. It notably invites a reconsideration of the concept of “master of truth”, and an attempt also to understand that lying in archaic Greece is not the object of moral reprobation but a reality linked to particular conditions of information. Before we wonder whether the Odysseus is on the side of history or of fiction, attention must be paid to the discourse it holds on the status and conditions of a narrative that would relate the history of the event.