Hippias Major
E39228
Hippias Major is a Platonic dialogue in which Socrates and the sophist Hippias attempt, and repeatedly fail, to define the nature of beauty.
All labels observed (5)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Hippias Major canonical | 8 |
| Hippias | 2 |
| Hippias Maior | 1 |
| Hippias Minor | 1 |
| Plato's dialogue Hippias Major | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T281256 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Hippias Major Context triple: [Plato, notableWork, Hippias Major]
-
A.
Philebus
Philebus is one of Plato’s later philosophical dialogues, chiefly concerned with examining the nature of pleasure, knowledge, and the good life.
-
B.
Timaeus
Timaeus is a Platonic dialogue that presents a cosmological account of the universe’s creation, structure, and order through the speech of the character Timaeus.
-
C.
Phaedrus
Phaedrus is a philosophical dialogue by Plato that explores themes of love, rhetoric, and the soul through a conversation between Socrates and the young Athenian Phaedrus.
-
D.
Phaedo
Phaedo is a Platonic dialogue that recounts the final hours and philosophical discussions of Socrates before his execution.
-
E.
Theaetetus
Theaetetus is a Platonic dialogue that explores the nature of knowledge through a conversation between Socrates and the young mathematician Theaetetus.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Hippias Major Target entity description: Hippias Major is a Platonic dialogue in which Socrates and the sophist Hippias attempt, and repeatedly fail, to define the nature of beauty.
-
A.
Philebus
Philebus is one of Plato’s later philosophical dialogues, chiefly concerned with examining the nature of pleasure, knowledge, and the good life.
-
B.
Timaeus
Timaeus is a Platonic dialogue that presents a cosmological account of the universe’s creation, structure, and order through the speech of the character Timaeus.
-
C.
Phaedrus
Phaedrus is a philosophical dialogue by Plato that explores themes of love, rhetoric, and the soul through a conversation between Socrates and the young Athenian Phaedrus.
-
D.
Phaedo
Phaedo is a Platonic dialogue that recounts the final hours and philosophical discussions of Socrates before his execution.
-
E.
Theaetetus
Theaetetus is a Platonic dialogue that explores the nature of knowledge through a conversation between Socrates and the young mathematician Theaetetus.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Platonic dialogue
ⓘ
Socratic dialogue ⓘ |
| author | Plato ⓘ |
| authorshipStatus |
disputed
ⓘ
traditionally attributed to Plato ⓘ |
| cataloguedIn | Thrasyllan tetralogies ⓘ |
| centralQuestion |
What is beauty itself?
ⓘ
What is the beautiful? ⓘ |
| characterRoleOfHippias | sophist ⓘ |
| characterRoleOfSocrates | questioner ⓘ |
| conclusion | no final definition of beauty is reached ⓘ |
| corpus |
Platonic corpus
ⓘ
Socratic dialogues of Plato ⓘ |
| dialogueForm | elenchus ⓘ |
| ending | aporia ⓘ |
| examinesConcept |
absolute beauty
ⓘ
difference between examples and essence ⓘ relativism about beauty ⓘ use of examples in definition ⓘ |
| featuresCharacter |
Eudicus
ⓘ
Hippias of Elis ⓘ Socrates ⓘ |
| focusesOn | distinction between beautiful things and Beauty itself ⓘ |
| genre |
aesthetic treatise
ⓘ
philosophical dialogue ⓘ |
| hasTitleInGreek | Ἱππίας μείζων ⓘ |
| influenced |
later aesthetic theory
ⓘ
medieval discussions of pulchrum ⓘ |
| language | Ancient Greek ⓘ |
| mainTheme | beauty ⓘ |
| period | Classical Greek philosophy ⓘ |
| philosophicalApproach | dialectic ⓘ |
| philosophicalTopic |
Socratic method
ⓘ
aesthetics ⓘ definition of beauty ⓘ nature of the beautiful ⓘ |
| preservedIn | manuscripts of Platonic dialogues ⓘ |
| questionsViewOf |
beauty as appropriateness
ⓘ
beauty as pleasure ⓘ beauty as usefulness ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
Hippias Minor
ⓘ
Phaedrus ⓘ Συμπόσιον ⓘ
surface form:
Symposium
|
| setIn | Athens ⓘ |
| structure | aporetic ⓘ |
| style |
early Platonic style (according to some scholars)
ⓘ
possibly later Platonic style (according to other scholars) ⓘ |
| traditionallyDatedTo | 4th century BCE ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Hippias Major Description of subject: Hippias Major is a Platonic dialogue in which Socrates and the sophist Hippias attempt, and repeatedly fail, to define the nature of beauty.
Referenced by (13)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Hippias Minor
this entity surface form:
Hippias Maior
this entity surface form:
Hippias
this entity surface form:
Hippias
this entity surface form:
Plato's dialogue Hippias Major