Lesser Hippias

"Lesser Hippias" by Plato and Benjamin Jowett is a dialogue thought to be one of Plato's early works. Socrates debates the sophist Hippias about Homer's heroes and the nature of lying. Through provocative arguments, Socrates challenges conventional morality by suggesting that deliberate wrongdoing is superior to unintentional error. He claims that skilled liars who knowingly deceive are better than those who lie unknowingly, using this reasoning to reinterpret the characters of Achilles and Odysseus in unexpected ways.

Lesser Hippias, from the public domain. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #1673.