Hello, I'm Dr. Anadale and our text for
today is Plato's dialogue Euthyphro. This is
a short dialogue on the nature of piety.
Piety is having a correct relationship
with the gods, something akin to holiness or moral rightness, doing well morally. In this dialogue we
find Socrates, Plato's teacher, on his way
into court to answer a charge of impiety.
We will see the result of this trial in the next dialogue, Apology. On his way in, he meets a
man named Euthyphro. Euthyphro is a scholar of the law, and he is very pompous and puffed up and boasts of his exact and perfect
knowledge of all things related to
religion, gods, and piety. So Socrates
challenges Euthyphro to define piety, and we find in the course of the dialogue that Euthyphro is unable to do so.
Each of his definitions meets up
with some fatal objection from Socrates.
There are three themes I'd like you to
think about in reading the dialogue.
First: the quest for philosophical
definitions. Socrates is after something
very specific when he asks Euthyphro about piety. He is not content simply to have a working
knowledge of piety or a reputation for
piety. What he wants is the essence of piety,
the definition, the meaning of it, what it is in itself. And that's going to be important for
our understanding of what the Socratic style of philosophizing is, what it means and
how Plato is going to continue it in his own work. That's the first theme to look for: Socrates is after a
particular kind of knowledge of piety which is philosophical knowledge. Second point:
the assumption shared by both Euthyphro and Socrates that the universe is a rational
place, that is, that when we begin to inquire deeply into the nature of something like
piety or God, that we will under the best
circumstances find some kind of answer
that is acceptable to us. We will find an
answer that is rationally compelling.
What this means is that the the Greeks
by and large assume that the universe is
not a chaotic random place, the universe is not governed by the will or the whim of some capricious God,
but there's some kind of order to the
universe that can be penetrated by the
human mind and that we can know and incorporate into our body of knowledge. That's the second thing
I'd like you to look for. The third thing to
keep in mind as you read is Socrates' use
of irony. Socrates is very ironic
throughout the dialogue. We see this
from the very beginning, where Socrates
professes admiration for Euthyphro's
knowledge, and announces that he will become Euthyphro's student because he is so wise.
We realize by the middle and the end of the dialogue that this admiration for Euthyphro
was plainly ironic: Socrates does not
think as he initially says of Euthyphro
and of Euthyphro's knowledge of piety. We're most familiar in our culture with irony as the type of
personal aggression, a way of tearing
people down or humiliating them. And I don't
think that's what's going on here, or at
least that's not all that's going on
here with Socrates' use of irony. I want to suggest, and I'd like you to look for signs, that Socrates
is using irony not as a type of cruelty
but as a teaching tool. He is trying to
teach something to Euthyphro that can only be taught
by this use of irony and this is
connected I think very closely with
Euthyphro's absolute certainty that he
already knows the answer about piety.
So I invite you to reflect upon these three themes as you read Euthyphro.
Bring your questions to class or to the comment section below. Thanks for watching today; bye.
