Euthyphro has a metaphysical message. — Apollodorus


For the second time: of course it does. Who said it didn't? All I am saying is that you grossly misunderstand this metaphysical message. — Olivier5

For the most part, he understands it pretty well, because he understands the author.

it's about turning inward.

As i pointed out to @Olivier5:

When I first read the Euthyphro, I had already read the Republic and other dialogues, so I was familiar with the forms, etc. ... But I never took the "aporia" as a big deal at all. — Apollodorus

That may make an interesting possibility. But as I already pointed out, the text says absolutely nothing about the relationship Euthyphro has with his father. If he really believes in doing right and avoiding wrong as he seems to be saying, then it is unlikely. Besides, we don't know what the inheritance may be. And if his father is old and frail he may die soon anyway.

Another point worth mentioning. Euthyphro says this happened when they were farming in Naxos. (4c) Naxos was lost in the Peloponnesian War with Sparta in 404, five years before the time of the dialogue. Why did he wait for five years to bring charges against his father?

Plato was known for seemingly offhand comments regarding dates that situate the time of a dialogue and other events related to it.

There is quite a bit said in the literature about Naxos and the dialogue. Euthyphro indicates that they were no longer farming there. (4c)

Yes, but this leads to the question of why this detail, why this place. In this case I think Plato leads to reader to ask further questions about Euthyphro's intentions. It does seem suspicious to me that he waited all this time and then brought the case to a public rather than private forum.

That makes no difference. Whoever invented the story might have chosen whatever location came to his mind. — Olivier5

I think it does matter. If it wasn't Jesus who wrote the story, then it wasn't he who "invented" the story.

But I agree that Plato probably invented the Naxos location and possibly the rest of it. After all, the dialogue is just a story he uses to make a point. We don't even know that Euthyphro is not a fictitious personage.

Euthyphro being real or not is a meaningless detail which makes no difference whatsoever to the philosophical meaning of the story. — Olivier5

Right. This should be too obvious to mention, but unfortunately it is not.

The dialogues are all inventions. Parmenides was a real person but his meeting and discussing the Forms is usually regarded as fictional. The characters is Plato's Symposium are real people, but it is not an historical account. Even the Apology is not an historical account of what was said. It differs significantly from Xenophon's account.

For the story to work, it had to be far away from Athens because a judge had to travel there, and had to arrive too late, after the criminal labourer had already died of his wounds. — Olivier5

Yes, I agree. The question then is why did Euthyphro wait five years?

Alright. What are some of the other possible interpretations then? — Olivier5

Euthyphro may have no agenda than to be pious. Being impious could bring disaster down upon his house, so he may want to attend to it before he embarks on a project.

There are endless scenarios where he thinks he doing what's right. Chaining someone up and leaving them to die is pretty horrific.

So perhaps what Socrates reveals is not iniquity, but the shifting ground beneath our certainty.

Think about the dilemma this way:

Do we love money because it's valuable? Or is it valuable because we love it?

Notice the unresolvable circularity? As if it might be both.

I held off answering him. You provided a better answer than I would have.

I think Euthyphro did have an agenda. He could have done what his father did and asked an exegete, an official who expounded the sacred and ancestral laws of the city. Instead he brought it to a public forum to demonstrate his own expertise in such matters. He says:

... whenever I say something in the assembly concerning the divine things ... I have spoken nothing that is not true ... they envy all who are of this sort. (3c)

He is blindly convinced that he knows divine things and that what he is doing is right. In addition, he makes a public display of it.

As to his family, he tells Socrates that they are indignant and that they tell him that it is impious for a son to proceed against his father for murder. But he claims they:

knowing badly, Socrates, how the divine is disposed concerning the pious and impious. (4 d-e)

This. In lieu of his own interpretation one of his many cut and paste. This one from Lloyd Gerson:

Socrates in Euthyphro does not just want to know what the Form of Piety is; he also believes that there is such a thing as Piety that is the instrumental cause of the piety in pious things [see 6D 10 – 11 — Apollodorus

The key is the theory that the Forms are instrumental causes.

First, the passage cited. Socrates is asking what the pious itself is:

that eidos itself by which all the pious things are pious

Gerson takes this to mean something that causes pious things to be pious. But Socrates goes on to say:

... it is by one idea that the impious things are impious and the pious things pious.

That one thing that is the cause of the pious would then be the cause of the impious. But what he means is that:

... this idea itself is, so that by gazing at it and using it as a pattern, I may declare that whatever is like it, among the things that you or anyone else may do, is pious, and whatever is not like it is not. (6e)

A pattern is not an instrumental cause, it does not cause anything to be like it. It is, rather, that by which we can identify something as being of that kind.

This thread is about the Greek arguments concerning the origins of piety, goodness, and justice... isn't it? — creativesoul

I would not say it is about the origin of them but rather the problem of piety and how it relates the goodness and justice. What Socrates tries to get Euthyphro to see is that piety without regard to goodness and justice leads to impiety.

As @Olivier5 has said, the thread has unfortunately been muddled by a troll who cannot abide the fact that his belief in Platonism is not the focus of every discussion of Plato's dialogues.

Thus pointing at situations where piety may be detrimental to being good. E.g. human sacrifices. — Olivier5

Right.

The pious often expects a reward for his piety. — Olivier5

People are different and are pious for different motives. This is precisely why @Fooloso4 has failed to prove his point and will never succeed even in a million years.

1. Some humans are pious because they follow the divine sense of goodness and justice within themselves.

2. Some are pious because they follow the command of God as communicated through laws, customs, etc. which they recognize as being good and just.

3. And others are pious to escape punishment in Hades and to reap the rewards of a pious life in paradise (Phaedo 114e - 115a).

Very simple, really.

The Book of Job — Olivier5

This and Ecclesiastes have always been problematic. They do not give us the kind of answers we want. Instead they say that such things are beyond the limits of our understanding. We cannot understand why God would allow the Adversary to do all these things to Job simply to prove that Job is only righteous because his circumstances allow him to be.

The problem with Job's friends is that they insist that he is to blame, but, as the author says, Job is blameless.

We might read this as merely symbolism, that the author is pointing to what happens in life, that we do not always get what we deserve. That righteousness is tested against adversity. But the story says more than that. God does not defend the idea that he is just. He has no defense against Job's accusations.

The truth of the matter is Job is never fully restored. He endured terrible suffering. His children were killed. No happy ending, which some scholars think was a later addition, can fix that.

Not every God lover is necessarily beloved of God. You may love god(s) with all you heart and not be sure that god(s) love you back. — Olivier5

Sure. The Gods are under no obligation to love you back.

However, the central issue is not the lover of God but the pious, i.e., piety - literally "the pious", to hosion, in the neutral - meaning "that which is good and just".

God is not obliged to be fair. — Olivier5

Correct. God is good, but the way or ways in which he manifests his goodness in relation to humans is subject to his own free will, not to human wishes. It would be absurd to claim otherwise.

These rules are not made FOR them but BY them FOR US — Olivier5

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Hence the kind of analytic theology you seem to rely on, is foly. God is not bound by human logic. — Olivier5

If you are suggesting that we cannot provide reasonable answers to what God does or allows to happen, then I agree. But a great deal of theology does just that. In addition, all kinds of wonderful things are attributed to God. It is one thing to believe them as a matter of faith, it is quite another to make them the foundation of logical arguments attempting to defend those beliefs.

That's only pointing to more conceptual confusion. I think we can confidently conclude from human experience since Plato that not all pious person is just, and that not all just person is pious. — Olivier5

If there is no definition of terms from the start, then there will be confusion and no debate, for sure.

That's why I said that the terms involved may be interpreted in many different ways.

I for one, was using the dictionary definition. On that definition, it doesn't make sense to say that the Gods don't love what they themselves sanction.

He made them, supposedly. Don't try and use these tools on Him. — Olivier5

He did make them, but he gives humans the freedom to use them as they think best. And some humans get it wrong. Most of us though, have a pretty accurate conception of what constitutes right and wrong.

So what is the right thing to do about global warming? — Olivier5

I said "most of us have a pretty accurate conception of what constitutes right and wrong" in terms of our personal conduct in society.

I haven't studied global warming but I'd venture to say that communism does not seem likely to be the solution.

Wrong. I do care. I do my best to save energy, recycle stuff, don't smoke, etc. And I vote for politicians I think are serious about finding real solutions.

Anyway, have a nice day. And enjoy your drink.

In that case they probably aren't pious by the dictionary definition I provided. But putting a 21st-century spin on a work by Plato isn't exactly a solution either.

Socrates himself didn't do such a great job at this task. — Olivier5

That made me laugh.

The kind of people who uses pious rhetoric to justify killing their father. — Olivier5

Yes, but that doesn't say anything about true piety and the truly pious.

I am in general agreement, but I don't think his motivation was to kill his father. That is in his mind an unavoidable consequence

I do think that part of his motivation was to make a demonstration of his piety and expert knowledge of the gods.

I can't see that this answers my reply.

It seems to me that the reply to the god/gods is pretty straight forward, as set out by @Fooloso4. I agree that many will dismiss the argument forthwith, but that there is more to it. I don't agree that your argument - roughly that the will of god and the god are extensionally equivalent so the intensional distinction is irrelevant - works; of course I don't agree, since the terms have distinct uses; I think that line falls to the Naturalistic Fallacy.

I had thought @Olivier5 was making a joke with "Socrates himself didn't do such a great job at this task." - as if Socrates had as his task getting off the charge of impiety, when the opposite is the case.

All might be detailed more thoroughly, given time. Which line interests you the most?

It says that piety can be used to justify any crime, even the most disgusting. And that is true. — Olivier5

I've already addressed that, but it seems you never pay attention.