Discussing "Euthyphro" By Plato

In this episode of Canonball we discuss "Euthyphro," which is one of the dialogues of Plato, who lived in the fifth and fourth centuries BC.

The cover art for this episode is Plato as depicted in a portion of the oil painting The Death of Socrates, which French painter Jacques-Louis David completed in 1787.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Socrates, Plato, The Dialogues Generally, And The Hackett Publishing Issue
• 7:15 Context
• 8:55 Socrates' Tone
• 10:15 Teaching The Younger Generation
• 11:46 Philosophy And Social Order
• 13:17 Defining Piety
• 16:33 The Euthyphro Dilemma
• 22:52 Socrates Wants Euthyphro's Statements To Remain Unmoved
• 24:08 Care For The Gods
• 25:25 Aporia
• 26:59 A Lesson From Euthyphro
• 27:58 Bad Reasoning Does Not Preclude Good Reasoning

Transcript

This week we're going to be looking at one of the dialogues of Plato and though these dialogues are written by Plato, the main character in them, if he can be called that, is Socrates of whom Plato was a student. And scholars think that Socrates lived from about 470 BC to 399 BC while it's estimated that Plato was born in about 428 or 423 BC and he died in 348 BC. So if those numbers are correct, Plato would have been between 42 and 47 years younger than Socrates and Socrates lived to be about 70 or 71. So that sounds like Plato would have been between 24 and 29 years old when Socrates died. And Plato is basically remembered as the primary source on the life and philosophy of Socrates. Xenophon and some other people also wrote about Socrates, but Plato wrote the most. And what he wrote were these dialogues between Socrates and some other person, some other interlocutor, where they talk through some philosophical issue. But it's generally accepted that these were not Plato taking dictation on dialogues that he was listening to between Socrates and other people. I think scholars think that Plato heard the apology, but other than that, it's not clear that he heard any of them. And the contradictions in the documents around Socrates are so many that it's very difficult to build a unified picture of his life and his philosophy. But these are among the most studied texts probably in history. And so if you wanted to go really deep and figure out what is known about each dialogue and what the historical basis for it is, you could probably do that. For our purpose, I think it's enough to summarize generally that Plato knew Socrates personally. He would have been witness to these kinds of conversations. And then maybe after Socrates died, he set about trying to collect the best ones from Socrates' former students and write them down in some way. And the result is a collection of dialogues, some of which we've all heard of. The Republic is one, the Apology is another, the Symposium is another still. But there are a lot more that at least I had never heard of until I found sometime in the last couple of years, this hardcover edition from Hackett Publishing of the complete works of Plato. And this book is really an achievement in publishing. It's a little over 1800 pages. It has 44 sections. I don't know if we could call each of those dialogues because at the end, for example, one of them is epigrams. But it was edited by John M. Cooper, who got his PhD from Harvard in the 60s. He was a philosophy professor throughout his life. He spoke at Oxford, spoke at Stanford. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh for a long time. And in 2001, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. So if you were to have somebody work as an editor for the complete works of Plato, this is the kind of person you would want to have do it. And just to be clear, in this case, an editor is obviously not touching the text, essentially. I guess they might have had some conversations about how exactly to translate which Greek word and how to make that consistent, maybe across translations, since there was more than one translator involved in this very big project. The editor is, in this context, the person who is bottom lining and is overall responsible for this publishing project. And he also wrote some introductions to describe what's going on in the context of each dialogue and many other things. But he's not touching the content of the writing, of course. And I think this book was $60 when I got it. So maybe it's not a book for students necessarily. But if you're interested in philosophy and you can't read ancient Greek, then the complete works of Plato from Hackett Publishing may be an excellent addition to your library if you don't have something similar already. Though I've never seen anything like this, not for Plato anyway. And I don't earn a penny from you buying anything from Hackett Publishing. I'm just somebody who buys a fair number of books. And when I find something unusually good, I like to promote it. And this is in that category. The advantage and disadvantage of looking at writers from antiquity is that we do not know very much about their lives. And so I don't have to spend much time on Plato's biography because there's not very much that we can talk about with any certainty. Though some details might come up about Socrates, but we'll get to those as we look at the text. But one thing that I learned in looking into this was that Plato was apparently born into a fairly aristocratic and influential family, whereas Socrates was not.particularly. Socrates seems to have essentially become what we would today call homeless. But as we'll see, maybe not today, but another week when we look at the Apology, I think he talks about it, that was a deliberate choice. That in devoting his life to philosophy he didn't have any time to be concerned with anything else. And so he lived basically in total poverty. But he mentions some of the young guys around him who, when he's questioning people, they like to come and listen and then they try to imitate him. And I think he even describes them in that passage as being from wealthy families. And so Plato would have been one of those guys. And this was all going on in Athens. And the dialogues that Plato wrote are of varying length, some only a few pages and several of them are book length and often published as individual books like And the influence of Socrates and Plato goes without saying and is also a topic of its own. But there's a nice quote that I first read in my undergrad sometime 15 years ago. And it was, And at the time I thought that line was interesting, but I didn't know the person who said it. I'm sure it was written there, but since I didn't know who the person was, I just forgot. But then I encountered the quote again years later. And by then I had learned who Alfred North Whitehead was. Major late 19th and early 20th century philosopher and mathematician. And so now I like that quote even more. But to read it in full there are a couple lines after. Whitehead wrote, So Whitehead is pointing at all of the different ideas that are in Plato's writings rather than people trying to piece together some overall scheme. He says doing so doubtfully. And in getting into these lesser-known dialogues it's easy to see why Whitehead viewed them that way because they cover a lot of ground. And with that we can get into this very first dialogue as they are presented in this edition from Hackett Publishing titled, Euthyphro. And this dialogue deals with the definition of piety. Socrates and Euthyphro are trying to define what piety is. And the context is that Socrates has been indicted by Miletus on charges of corrupting the youth. And so Socrates is getting ready to defend himself in court against these charges and so he wants to have a good clear definition in his mind of what piety is so that he can argue using that. And then there's this other guy Euthyphro who apparently knows Socrates and they bump into each other on the street. And Euthyphro is going to prosecute against his father for murder. What happened was a dependent, I don't know if that is like an employee of Euthyphro's father, but around Euthyphro's father got drunk and killed a slave. And so Euthyphro's father bound him up and threw him in a ditch while he sent somebody to ask a priest what to do in this situation. We have this guy who drunkenly killed a slave, we bound him up, what should we do next? And in the meantime while the person went to go find a priest the bound guy died. And so now Euthyphro is prosecuting his father for murder and his relatives and friends are all against him saying how could you go against your father like that. But Euthyphro views himself as superior to the majority in his knowledge of the pious, of what is pious. And his decision to prosecute his father is related to that knowledge in his view. There is a funny, I don't think it's sarcasm, I think it's more earnestness or maybe it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek, there's a tone that Socrates uses sometimes where because his whole project is that he's going around looking for wise people. He's trying to find someone who's wise in order to benefit from their wisdom but what inevitably happens is that he hears that somebody's wise, he goes and talks to them and he finds out that in fact they're not wise. They don't know what they think they know and he figures this out by asking questions. But before getting to that point he talks in a way as if the person he's talking to really is wise and he's just withholding it from Socrates for some reason. Socrates says don't be coy, give me the answer, what's the definition of this or that? And actually the person he's talking to can't think of a good definition or can't explain it very well. But Socrates talks as if they know what it is, they're just teasing him. And one of the things that Socrates says about Miletus, the guy who has charged Socrates in court, and Miletus doesn't show up in this dialogue, but Socrates says that he must be very wise because he knowsknows what corrupts, because if he's charging Socrates with corrupting the youth, he must know what corruption is and what causes it. And if he means that, he must be a very wise man. Now in the Apology, we learned that that's not the case, but that's how Socrates talks about it here. And there's a line pretty early on in this one about being concerned with the youth first, just as the farmer is concerned with the youngest plants first. And most of my experience with agriculture comes from our little garden in our backyard. But this is a nice analogy because if you think about it, you do find that you pay a little more attention to the smaller plants. That once they're big and solid and giving fruit, then you mostly are just collecting the fruit and you might prune them a little bit. If there's a big long branch that's not giving anything, you can cut that branch in order to refocus the energy towards the branches that do for whatever reason. But when the plants are smaller, you're worried about them getting crushed or have they taken to the soil? Did they transplant from inside? If you brought them from inside, did they take well? And that analogy for younger people is nice because it seems that it's easier for a young person, especially if you're talking about philosophy, to get onto a very bad path. If someone is 35 and their life is more or less stable, obviously you can still become addicted to something or fate can hit you with some difficulty. But your own worldview is established to a great extent. It's intact. That person has good habits of action and of mind. But a young person, maybe an 18 year old, they're not so grounded yet. Their roots are not yet really deep in the soil and holding them in place. And so they could still get blasted by one stupid thing or another and end up on a very bad path. And specifically Socrates is accused of idolatry, of being quote, a maker of gods and innovations in religious matters, end quote. And Socrates says, quote, the Athenians do not mind anyone they think clever as long as he does not teach his own wisdom. But if they think he makes others to be like himself, they get angry, end quote. So the problem they have with somebody teaching his own wisdom is that then other people will start to imitate that. They'll start to be like that person. And people acting differently can disrupt the social order. Maybe that is what disrupts the social order and it's only a question of degree. And so maybe Socrates is saying that that's what the charges are actually about. And pretty early on when Euthyphro is talking about his case, Socrates asks him if the victim in the murder was a relative. He asks it as if he's looking for a reason why Euthyphro would prosecute his own father. And one possible reason would be that the victim was also a relative. And maybe my reading eye is a little bit too modern here, but that almost seemed like Socrates was testing Euthyphro because then Euthyphro says that it's ridiculous to even think that that matters. That if a family member of yours murdered somebody, it doesn't matter who the victim was. Justice requires that you prosecute that person. And since Socrates thinks so deeply specifically about justice, but about a lot of topics, but he's very interested in justice, I think he must have had to have been testing or teasing Euthyphro there. And they talk for a while and finally Socrates says, quote, tell me then what is the pious and what the impious do you say? And Euthyphro answers, I say that the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or temple robbery or anything else, whether the wrongdoer is your father or your mother or anyone else. Not to prosecute is impious, end quote. But then Socrates says, you've given me an example of one pious action. You haven't told me what piety is. Give me a model that I can then apply to any other action to determine whether it's pious or not. So then Euthyphro says that what is dear to the gods is pious and what is not is impious. Socrates asks Euthyphro if he believes that the gods do battle and Euthyphro says that he does. And so then there's the problem of the gods not agreeing on what is pious and impious. And Socrates says about men fighting, he says that they don't fight over what is heavier or lighter, greater or lesser in number, larger or smaller, but they fight about what's just and unjust, what's good and what's bad and what's beautiful and what's ugly. And he says, if the gods fight, they must be fighting about the same thing. So that's one of those examples where sometimes you're reading Plato and Socrates says, well, isn't it so that this and the person says, yes, and therefore that, and they say, of course. And he says, well, so then it must be that this, and they say, I suppose that's true. And this is a nice way of writing because Plato is trying to show all the inferences. He's trying to be transparent in the logical steps as he moves along this line. But sometimes you'll see one and you'll say, I don't know if I think that follows.Sometimes the interlocutor will say that. They'll say to Socrates, well, but you said this, but isn't it true that this other thing? And then Socrates will address that. But sometimes there'll be kind of a weak inference that doesn't get addressed. And reasoning about gods and the divine is its own thing, of course, but I don't know if it necessarily follows that because these are the kinds of things that men fight about, that therefore gods must fight about the same things. You could just as easily say, these are the things that men fight about, therefore the gods would not fight about them because they're different. But that's not terribly important right now. Socrates tells Euthyphro that he has to be able to demonstrate that all the gods agree that his father's action was unjust. And even if he could do that, this would still not give them a definition of piety. So maybe a better definition would be that what all gods hate is impious and what all gods love is pious. And Socrates says, quote, then let us again examine whether that is a sound statement or do we let it pass? And if one of us or someone else merely says that something is so, do we accept that it is so or should we examine what the speaker means? Euthyphro says, we must examine it, but I certainly think this is now a fine statement. And Socrates says, we shall soon know better whether it is, end quote. And part of the fun of reading Plato and Socrates in Plato is even 24 centuries later, this excitement that Socrates must have had or maybe that Plato had for what is true, his enthusiasm and his tirelessness in going after it comes through even today. And this is, I think the longest passage I'm gonna read, but this is both subtle and central to what Socrates is getting at here and also to this dialogue in general. So it's worth quoting it exactly as he has it. So picking up from the same spot, Socrates says, quote, we shall soon know better whether it is. Consider this, is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods? I don't know what you mean, Socrates. I shall try to explain more clearly. We speak of something carried and something carrying, of something led and something leading, of something seen and something seeing. And you understand that these things are all different from one another and how they differ. I think I do. So there is also something loved and a different thing, something loving, of course. Tell me then whether the thing carried is a carried thing because it is being carried or some other reason. No, that is the reason. And the thing led is so because it is being led and the thing seen because it is being seen. Certainly. It is not being seen because it is a thing seen, but on the contrary, it is a thing seen because it is being seen. Nor is it because it is something led that it is being led, but because it is being led that it is something led. Nor is something being carried because it is something carried, but it is something carried because it is being carried. Is what I want to say clear, euthyphro? I want to say this, namely that if anything is being changed or is being affected in any way, it is not being changed because it is something changed, but rather it is something changed because it is being changed. Nor is it being affected because it is something affected, but it is something affected because it is being affected. Or do you not agree? I do. Is something loved either something changed or something affected by something? Certainly. So it is in the same case as the things just mentioned. It is not being loved by those who love it because it is something loved, but it is something loved because it is being loved by them, necessarily. What then do we say about the pious, euthyphro? Surely that it is being loved by all the gods, according to what you say? Yes. Is it being loved because it is pious or for some other reason? For no other reason. It is being loved then because it is pious, but it is not pious because it is being loved, apparently. And yet it is something loved and God-loved because it is being loved by the gods. Then the God-loved is not the same as the pious, euthyphro, nor the pious the same as the God-loved, as you say it is, but one differs from the other. How so, Socrates? Because we agree that the pious is being loved for this reason, that it is pious, but it is not pious because it is being loved. Is that not so? Yes. And that the God-loved, on the other hand, is so because it is being loved by the gods, by the very fact of being loved, but it is not being loved because it is God-loved. But if the God-loved and the pious were the same, my dear euthyphro, then if the pious was being loved because it was pious, the God-loved would also be being loved because it was God-loved. And if the God-loved was God-loved because it was being loved by the gods, then the pious would also be pious because it was being loved.loved by the gods. But now you see that they are in opposite cases as being altogether different from each other. The one is such as to be loved because it is being loved. The other is being loved because it is such as to be loved. I'm afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what piety is, you did not wish to make its nature clear to me, but you told me an effect or quality of it, that the pious has the quality of being loved by all the gods. But you have not yet told me what the pious is. Now, if you will, do not hide things from me, but tell me again from the beginning what piety is, whether being loved by the gods or having some other quality. We shall not quarrel about that, but be keen to tell me what the pious and the impious are." The first time I read that, I said this seems like a word game, like Socrates is getting tangled up on words. But when you look at it more closely, you can see that this actually explains very clearly why Euthyphro's definition is not a good definition of piety. You can't just say the pious is what the gods love, or what they all love together. You can't say A equals B, because on the one hand, something is God-loved because the gods love it. Because the gods acting on it, it is caused to be loved. The way that the carrying person causes the carried object to be carried, the loving person causes the loved object to be loved. But something is not made pious by it being loved. It's pious for some other reason, and maybe that's where Euthyphro contradicts himself. Socrates says, quote, because we agree that the pious is being loved for this reason, that it is pious, but it is not pious because it is being loved. Is that not so? And Euthyphro says yes. So he started out by saying that what is pious is what the gods love, but then when it comes right down to it, he says that it's pious for some other reason, not because the gods love it. Anyway, this problem is called the Euthyphro dilemma, and there's a whole Wikipedia page about it if you want to read about it in more depth. But it's related to questions about what is pious not only in the ancient Greek religion, but in the monotheistic religions. And it's related to questions about what is good and what is just. But it's not the same as those questions, because at least modern discussions about what is good or just are usually a little more transparent, or are at their best a little more transparent than conversations about what God or the gods love or want. And that's how you end up with definitions like utilitarianism about the most good for the most people, or justice being about balance, people getting what they deserve, whether good or bad. People don't usually say that what is just is what justice loves, or if they try to say that, they can't get away with it for very long. And Euthyphro makes a joke about Socrates being a descendant of Daedalus, the mythological craftsman who built the labyrinth that the Minotaur was in, and who was the father of Icarus. And Daedalus built the wings that he and Icarus escaped on, and then Icarus, of course, flew too close to the sun. But Euthyphro makes a joke about Socrates being a descendant of Daedalus. And it seems like it's a reference to the labyrinth, because Euthyphro says the ideas are all running around in circles now. And Socrates says, quote, I would rather have your statements to me remain unmoved than possess the wealth of Tantalus and the cleverness of Daedalus, end quote. Socrates wants Euthyphro's assertions to sit. He wants to not be able to move them around. He would much rather have that. But unfortunately, he's able to shake them. And then using shame and fear, they start talking about concentric circles. And Socrates says that shame always involves fear, but fear does not necessarily always involve shame. And then he asks the same question about piety and justice. And they decide that the pious is a subsection of the just, that the pious always involves the just, but the just does not necessarily always involve the pious. And then Euthyphro says that the pious is the part of justice that is concerned with the care of the gods. So then they get into a thing about what is care. And Socrates says that horse breeding is for horses. The hunter cares for dogs. Cattle raising is concerned with the care of cows. So then is piety looking after the gods in the same way? And Euthyphro, of course, says no. And they decide it's more like the kind of care that slaves take of their masters. It's a service to the gods. And so then they're talking about service. And Socrates says that serving doctors results in health. Serving house builders results in the construction of a house. Serving shipbuilders results in the construction of a ship. But in what does service to the gods result? And Euthyphro dodges. And Socrates says at one point, quote, the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him.And again, showing Socrates enthusiasm, I don't think it's sarcasm. He says, quote, that is because I am so desirous of your wisdom and I concentrate my mind on it so that not one word of it may fall to the ground, end quote. And Socrates asks, what is the use to the gods of our gifts to them? And Euthyphro says, it's to please them. And Socrates says, so the pious is once again what is most dear to the gods. And Euthyphro says, yes. And Socrates says, we just talked about how that is not true. So now we have to start all over and retrace our steps to see where we got off course and figure out what the pious is. He says, quote, so we must investigate again from the beginning what piety is, as I shall not willingly give up before I learn this. Do not think me unworthy, but concentrate your attention and tell the truth. For you know it, if any man does, and I must not let you go like Proteus before you tell me. If you had no clear knowledge of piety and impiety, you would never have ventured to prosecute your old father for murder on behalf of a servant. For fear of the gods, you would have been afraid to take the risk, lest you should not be acting rightly, and would have been ashamed before men. But now I know well that you believe you have clear knowledge of piety and impiety. So tell me, my good Euthyphro, and do not hide what you think it is. Some other time, Socrates, for I'm in a hurry now, and it is time for me to go, end quote. And I like at the end that Euthyphro just says he has to leave because Socrates is about to start over from the beginning. And also at other times in the dialogue, Euthyphro says, I don't know what you mean, Socrates, and I do not follow what you are saying, Socrates. And that's a little bit of a relief because when you're reading this, it's not terribly complex, but I definitely found that I had to reread some things to make sure I was following what he was talking about. And it's sort of a relief to see the people that Socrates is talking to saying similar things. Because even if it's fictionalized, Plato would have been witness to similar conversations, and probably it sometimes went like this. The person didn't quite follow what he was saying, or he was talking too much, and they had to go do whatever they were going to do. And I thought there might be a little bit of sarcasm at the end there because he's saying, oh, if you didn't know what piety was, there's no way you would take the risk and prosecute your own father because you might be wrong and be doing something that the gods don't like, and you would never do that. So you must know what piety is. You're just not telling me. And the dialogue starts out with Euthyphro being very confident that he knows better than most people, if not anybody, what the pious is, and he's taking action according to that. And what Socrates shows here is that people take dramatic action based on principles that they hold very dearly, and they maybe don't even understand that well what they think they mean because they've never examined it closely. And maybe that's one strong, clear lesson to try to take from this one is to not be like Euthyphro. But the trouble with that is that alone maybe was what Socrates spent his life on, trying not to do what Euthyphro does here. So it's much easier said than done, but it's very well illustrated in this relatively short dialogue. This one is not very long at all. And I was talking to somebody recently about the limits of logic and reason, and they were kind of saying that if the end game of the path of thought that leads through linear thinking and reason and logic and modern science ends with a nuclear war or a large-scale ecological collapse, then maybe that was the wrong path to be on. But we've talked a lot about the limits of reason and of logic and of the senses, and a healthy, robust skepticism must include a skepticism of reason and of the senses. Because when you're reading one of these dialogues of Plato and you're going along, and the logic seems to falter a little bit, there's no obvious indication of that. You don't get immediate feedback. It doesn't hurt to reason badly. You might do it without noticing it. In fact, people do it constantly without noticing it. But that problem is the beginning of philosophy, not the end of it. In the same way that if you study politics and you read the news a lot, you can become disillusioned by the abuse of words. But the presence of those using words to deceive, be they journalists or politicians or anyone else, does not preclude the possibility of using words carefully and honestly to organize our view of abstractions and formulate more true ideas about them. Just because somebody is misusing words and is applying a faulty reasoning doesn't mean that the way that we organize abstractions in our minds can be more and less reflective of reality. That all abstract statements are equally true or equally false. And this is as much a reminder to myself because I sometimes feel that the only lasting truth is in mathematics and that rather than Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, we'd be better off studying Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius of Perga. But more often I feel all of the above. Let's be like Socrates.He's looking for wisdom anywhere that it might possibly be found and indefatigable in pursuing it. Farewell until next time, take care, and happy reading.