Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Ph.D. student, Department of philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2
Associate professor of philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, University of Esfahan, Esfahan, Iran
10.22108/mph.2026.146821.1667
Abstract
To establish the foundation of political philosophy, Socrates had to define his position in relation to the Sophists, as proponents of the union between politics and wisdom, and to the pre-Socratic philosophers who withdrew from politics. Plato reports this dual encounter with Socrates in several dialogues, among which the Greater Hippias holds a special place because of its theme and explicit examination of this issue. This paper seeks to reinterpret this dialogue through the method of Close Reading, demonstrating how Socrates, by posing the question of the nature of beauty to Hippias and pursuing a dialectical examination of his responses and arguments, advances this dual engagement. This approach goes beyond merely analyzing the logical content of the arguments; it also considers the dramatic details of the dialogue, insofar as they contribute uniquely to the significance of the arguments. Efforts were made to extract implicit reasoning woven into the dialogue, as intended by the author. In doing so, it becomes evident that Socrates, while refuting Sophists' claim to progressive wisdom, does not reject the notion of progressive wisdom altogether. Hence, his dialectical defense of the wisdom of the ancients against the Sophists exceeds mere affirmation, as he introduces fundamental principles—namely, the dialectical ontology of the intelligible and the sensible. At the same time, Socrates demonstrates through these principles that the practical union of wisdom and politics, intrinsically tied to a definitive answer to the question of the nature of beauty, is impossible, contrary to Sophists’ presumption.
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