Euthyphro is a dialogue written by Plato in 399 B.C. It takes place outside a courthouse named King
Archon’s Court in Ancient Greece. The story revolves around two men named
Euthyphro and Socrates. As we all know, Socrates is a world renowned philosopher and writer, but in 400 B.C. being a philosopher can be a very dangerous job. Without guaranteed freedom of speech and with all the controversial questions that Socrates asked back then it’s easy to see why Socrates is at the courthouse; he is being charged with impiety by the Athenian Government.
Euthyphro, on the other hand, is at the court house for another more interesting matter. He is trying to prosecute his own father for murder. Here’s the situation; Euthyphro’s father captured, bound, and gagged a worker that murdered a slave on the island of Naxos. While he waited to hear from the “religious enforcement” in the area about the punishment, the murderer (who was gagged and bound in a ditch); wound up dieing after being exposed to the elements for to long. Socrates is amazed that Euthyphro (a man who had no relationship or assimilation to anybody in the situation but his father) would bring up such serious charges against his own kin. The part that’s even more bizarre is the fact that Euthyphro is actually going against Athenian Law, only the relatives of the dead can bring up murder charges. Why would a man go so far out of his way to bring up murder charges against his own father? Why doesn’t Euthyphro just let the relatives of the deceased take care of it?
Socrates is extremely intrigued by Euthyphro because of his confidence in religious and ethical matters. To make things even more interesting Euthyphro also claims to be a “religious expert”. Naturally if you’re going on trial for impiety wouldn’t you want to learn from a religious expert? The main argument starts when Socrates asks Euthyphro, what is Piety? (Piety is reverence for god or devout fulfillment of religious obligations) When Socrates finds the definition of piety from Euthyphro he can use his new knowledge to defend himself during his trial, but first he needs a clear “universally true” definition that works in all situations and scenarios. In total Euthyphro gives Socrates five unsatisfactory definitions.
Every time Euthyphro tries to define “piety” Socrates outsmarts him and shoots down his definitions. The reason why Euthyphro is unsuccessful is because his definitions are either examples, they aren’t “universally true”, or they aren’t correct. For example, in Euthyphro’s second definition he says piety is what is pleasing to the gods. Socrates disagrees with this statement because the gods can disagree about what is pleasing to them. If one god disagrees with another on what’s pious, then wouldn’t that make something both pious and impious at the same time? Throughout the rest of the dialogue Socrates uses techniques like this to shoot down Euthyphro and eventually the “religious expert” walks away with excuses, frustration, and anger.
3 comments:
At first I did not understand why Socrates was pushing such an answer from Euthyphro, for as stated he does not honestly reveal his true motive until later on in the text. It appears as though he takes the role of a teacher asking a student questions such as "What is holy and unholy?" Easier said than done, Euthyphro does not supply a concrete mathematical answer. This could lead to the conclusion that Plato felt concrete answers solved algebraically can turn any quarrel into peace, and any enemy into a friend. He chose to disguise this act of preaching by placing it into the characters of Socrates and Euthyphro.
After the mention of gods potentially becoming enemies from a disagreement on page 18, both Euthyphro and Socrates for the most part agree that any soul (god or man) believes a "wrongdoer" deserves to pay the price. This could result in the belief of punishment even if opposing parties do not agree or believe in the same person who deserves it. Even so, this locks in the belief of the legal system being just by both parties. Possibly because it strives towards a concrete answer, or at least an answer composed to make its audience believe its authenticity.
A common running theme within this text seems to be "approval": What the gods approve of as holy or unholy, haunting questions of what Socrates' jury will approve of as being just to the "wrongdoer", and simply Socrates' desire of approval for Euthyphro's answers to his question...which was not approved by Plato's beloved philosopher.
Thanks for this post, Austin.
Some questions, comments:
1) Socrates is not being charged by the Athenian government, but by Meletus, right?
2) Why do you ask the question why Euthyphro prosecutes his father? Isn't Euthyphro pretty clear on that?
3) How does your definition of piety stand to the definitions and interrogations that Socrates and Euthyphro? I thought it was really interesting that you simply posted that in parentheses, especially considering that this is the entire problem of the dialogue. It seems like you'd have to say that Socrates and Euthyphro have a non problem.
4) Is it that Socrates thinks that gods disagree about the pious, or that Euthyphro thinks this? I think it's the latter. But that means that Socrates is not using any specific "technique" other than showing the implications of Euthyphro's position.
I know the story in more depth now, this was before I grasped all the concepts of the dialogue. That was the dictionary definition for piety because to be honest with you I wasn't 100% sure what it meant at the time. I know some of my points were incorrect; the good news is I understand the whole story now after speaking the class spoke about it in detail.
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