Power in the Hippias Minor

What is it about?

The Hippias Minor presents three arguments on behalf of two allegedly paradoxical theses - one argument (366a2-369b7) for [T1] “The same person [is] a liar and truthful” (369b3-4) and, two arguments (373c6-375d2 and 375d7-376b6) for [T2] “The one who willingly misses the mark and does what is shameful and unjust, ... - that is, if there is such a person - would be no other than the good man” (376b4-6). These three arguments all rely on the same understanding of power. This understanding may be roughly characterized by three conditions: [V] A is good relative to some kind of activity iff A has the power manifested in that kind of activity [WI] A has the power manifested in some kind of activity iff (if B possesses and uses A in the performance of the activity & B wants to perform the activity well & there are no obstacles, then B performs activities of that kind well), and [D] A has the power manifested in some kind of activity iff A has the power manifested in the opposite kind of activity (in some sense of opposite). I call the first condition the valence condition, the second the weak infallibility condition, and the third the duality condition.

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