Euthyphro: Summary and Analysis Question

Euthyphro

In Plato’s dialogue, Euthyphro, Socrates discovers that he has been indicted by a young man for supposedly corrupting the youth. Socrates explains this to Euthyphro, and while they are on the topic, Euthyphro mentions that he is a plaintiff, prosecuting his own father. After a drunken slave killed another slave, Euthyphro’s father threw him into a ditch, and while waiting for legal authorities to judge the situation, the slave died of exposure. This was the reason for his indictment, which was proposed by his own son. Although many thought Euthyphro to be mad for such actions, he claimed that he was doing what was holy and just. Of course with such a broad and ambiguous claim, Socrates takes him on as a pupil, and tries to reason with him the definition of “holy.” Euthyphro first defines piety as “that which is dear to the gods.” Socrates quickly refutes this definition by pointing out the disagreement among the gods. What is considered holy by one god may be considered unholy by another. With these contradictions, no clear and absolute idea of piety can be determined. Such speculations then are reduced to the main question which the Euthyphro is spent discussing: is the holy loved by the gods because it is holy? Or is it holy because it is loved by the gods? Socrates suggests this: “carrying” and “being carried”, “seeing” and “being seen” differ in the same light that “loving” and “being loved” do. The latter is a consequent of the former; for one to engage in the act of seeing, there must be something to be seen, which is then itself “seen” by the onlooker. The same rules apply for “love.” If something is loved by the gods, then they must first engage in the act of loving it, which means there is something to be loved. If there is something to be loved, it is likely that the gods love it for its holiness. Socrates then realizes that before worrying about the gods’ love for piety, he must investigate the requirements of a good definition, so that piety can truly be defined. The best definitions, he says, are those which clearly state the genus and the species of that which is being defined. He uses the phrase, “where there is fear there is also reverence,” and points out that not all fearful things are revered, such as famine and disease. He suggests that it should be, “where there is reverence there is also fear,” since “reverence” cannot be distributed among the term “fear,” but “fear” is distributed among “reverence.” The definition of “holy” should be stated  likewise. With this in mind, Euthyphro suggests that piety is “the ministry to the gods.” This definition suggests that piety is to do service unto the gods, in order for them to better produce what is beneficial. His makes another attempt to define holy, and defines it as “the art of prayer and sacrifice.” The trouble with this is that it suggests that the holy is what is loved by the gods, since the prayers and sacrifice from people couldn’t possibly benefit the gods, as great as they are. Socrates sees this definition to be reverting to the previous definition, and not stating clearly the genus and species of “piety.” Although Socrates hungers for a settled definition, Euthyphro decides to abandon the discussion, and the definition of piety is still unknown to either of the men.

Euthyphro Analysis Question: From a Christian view, does God love something because it is good, or is it good because God loves it?

The Greeks’ concept of deity definitely differs greatly from the modern one. The dialogue Euthyphro, uses the Greeks’ polytheistic mythology as a basis for their question, but what would happen if we continued the discussion, only from a Christian perspective? It seems like the answer would be more clear with a God who is unified; also less likely to end in confusion and lack of a clear conclusion. Unlike the Greek gods, there is no disagreement that could result in the contradictions between what may be considered holy among the Holy Trinity. In fact, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all one with each other and ultimately, one God. This opens up the possibility of goodness being that which is loved by God, since he is divine, and unlike the Greek gods, has no sin nor disagreement.

That being said, I think it would be appropriate to create analogies, just as Plato did in his dialogues. God’s authority reflects that of a father, or a just ruler, and as we know, the art of ruling is always to the interest of what is good; if it is to the interest of the people, it is likely ineffective, and to the interest of the ruler makes it nothing more than tyranny. Given that God is the ultimate good, he rules to the interest of what is good, just, and right. I alluded to this in the previous sentence: It is in God’s best interest for us to come to Good and Truth; He is Good and Truth. Therefore, it is in his best interest as a just ruler for us to come to Him. As he proclaimed in the scriptures, He is the Truth and the light. Now, as far as loving is concerned, either way, whether it be that God loves good because it is good, or it is good because God loves it; it  all concludes with the notion that God loves himself. Rather, it is this: God loves his subjects with a divine love, and this nearly ‘irrational’ love makes it so that he wants his subjects to be lead to Him and his truth. So with that in mind, it is not necessarily God’s love for good that we must question, but rather his judgement of good. God loves us, and judges what is or is not good. In that case, nothing which may be seen as “good” within human understanding compares to the absolute good, that is God. This is what I usually tell people who say things like, “Well, if God is so good and forgiving, shouldn’t he just let anyone into Heaven who is a good person, even if they don’t believe?” or “I just think anyone with a good heart deserves to go to heaven.” No human conception of good can even begin to equate to God, who is the embodiment of Good itself. Believing in God and Jesus’s resurrection is believing in Truth itself. I suppose with all of this, it can be concluded that God’s judgement of good is the ultimate one, meaning that the simple answer to this question is “It is good because it is loved by God,” but I would rather it be, “It is good because it is  God.”

Meno: Summary and Analysis

Summary

In this dialogue which follows Protagoras,  Socrates and a young Athenian man, Meno discuss virtue and it’s meaning and teachability.  That is the first question which is asked: Is virtue something that is taught or something that is inborn? As usual, Socrates suggests that before forming any propositions in regard to the question, the term should be defined; the term in this case is “virtue.”  When Meno is asked to define it, he claims that it is different to the individual, i.e., a virtuous woman looks after her home, a virtuous man looks after his state and protects everyone, and so on. Socrates then complains that his definition is merely giving examples, and not an actual definition of the term itself. It is like defining “shape”  as “squares, triangles, circles, etc.” He then suggests a different approach, and that is creating a hypothesis; expressing certain conditions which the term must abide by to be considered what it is.  This is what stumps Meno, and although before encountering Socrates, he believed himself to have a sound idea of what virtue is, he now is in the dark about it. He describes Socrates as a “numbfish” or rather an electric eel, who paralyses all who come in contact with him, since his questioning always leaves people helplessly numb.

As discussed in previous discourses, virtue is supposedly knowledge, which can be taught. But after Meno was stumped by a paradox about knowledge, new conclusions were reached. The paradox was this: one either knows all there is to know about something, so no further inquiries are necessary, or he is ignorant on the topic, and doesn’t know where to base his inquiries. To this Socrates proposes a new explanation. He tells the myth of souls being immortal; because of this, the soul has already acquired infinite knowledge before taking form of a man. Having this, we do not necessarily learn new information, but rather we recall what we already knew, and in order to do this we must be asked the right questions, which will ignite this innate memory and the knowledge will be remembered. Socrates demonstrates this on one of Meno’s young slaves, who has had no education, but he can speak Greek. He draws some geometrical figures in the ground and asks the slave to find the size of the side of a square given its area. With a bit of questioning and prompting, the slave is able to answer the questions correctly. Socrates then shows Meno that while the slave was figuring out the answers to his questions, he exhibited behavior more like that of recollection rather than learning, for he hadn’t learned any of it previously. Socrates defines what the slave has  as “true opinion.” Now that he has presented his hypothesis, Meno wishes to return to the original question. Is good and virtue taught, or is it found inside oneself?

Socrates points out a problem; if good is teachable, who teaches it? Surely the sophists and great men do not, for if they were able to teach good, their sons would be good as well, which they have shown very clearly not to be.  However, the good are not good by nature, for as discussed in previous dialogues, being virtuous  requires one to resist many natural desires. This is when Anytus appears. Socrates presents him with the dilemma, and he immediately expresses his distaste for sophists, saying that they are dishonest frauds, and can easily corrupt any of their students. When Socrates exposes the fact that the good men aren’t always able to teach good, seeing as their sons are not, Anytus becomes angry, since he himself is the son of a great man. At this point the conclusion seems to be that virtue is not teachable, since good men fail to teach their sons to do likewise. Knowledge is definitely teachable, but good is not, so there must be more to good than pure knowledge. There must be good judgement, and right guidance, which is all achievable with “true opinions.” True opinions are said by Socrates to be better than ignorance, but less than knowledge, as the distinction lies in whether or not the opinion is grounded. He showed this in the slave when he beckoned him to solve some geometrical problems.  Once a right opinion is proved with reason, it is then “tied down” so to say, thus becoming knowledge. It is easily comparable to geometry; you may have a correct opinion about something, but it is not grounded until it is hypothesized and proved by good reasoning. Socrates says that right opinion must be a divine gift from the gods, therefore it is not simply knowledge which constitutes good, and virtue is not teachable. The definition of “virtue” still hasn’t been investigated, and a definite conclusion cannot be reached without a sound definition.

Analysis

When Meno is first asked to give his definition of virtue, he defines it as a concept which differs from person to person; a good wife cares for the home, a good man protects the household, and a good pupil heeds the teacher, and so on. When Socrates shows dissatisfaction with this definition, since it is only defining virtue by examples of it, Meno defines it as acquiring what is good for a person in a just way. Socrates immediately identifies the circular reasoning in his statement, since justice is a virtue, and one cannot use a virtue to define virtue. Without a clear definition of virtue, it is no easy task to determine whether it is teachable or not. So in order to refute that question, Socrates resorts to his original idea that virtue is knowledge, and that it is only achieved with knowledge; if one knows what is best for him, he will do so. Ideally, this would be true, but it is displayed very often by regular human behaviour that one does not always do what he knows is best for him. One’s desires are typically much stronger than his moral sense, since the latter is something which is constructed by education and good teaching, and the former is natural. His natural desires will most likely overpower his will to be  good. That being said, knowledge of virtue definitely is the first step to obtaining it, so Socrates is not too far off.

How this knowledge is acquired is another question to discuss. After going through several attempts at defining virtue, Meno, who positive that he could define it, is stumped. Already paralysed by Socrates’s rhetoric, he runs into a paradox. How can knowledge be acquired if there are two circumstances in which knowledge has a place: either one has no more to learn, or he is so ignorant that he has no basis for questioning. Now obviously there is as grey area, so it is not much of a paradox at this point; one can know a little about a certain thing, so he has a basis for questioning, but not necessarily know so much about it that no more questioning is needed. But rather than presenting that grey area, Socrates solves this paradox with reasoning and a hypothesis. Using the myth of immortal souls, he suggests that before inhabiting a body, the soul knew all the knowledge that there ever was, but when it came into a physical body it forgot all of this knowledge that it once possessed. Now, the knowledge isn’t gone, it is simply forgotten, and questioning is what can remind the soul of what it knew. Basically, learning is not having new information imparted upon a person, but rather the soul remembering or recollecting the old, and most importantly, questioning which merits the essence of the knowledge is what prompts it. Socrates proceeds to demonstrate this on a young slave, explaining to Meno how the he seems to be remembering when prompted with good questioning (this demonstration regarded a geometrical figure). Even if Socrates’s theory seems ridiculous, it illustrates how problems in every form should be dealt with logically. Just as done in geometry, one formulates a hypothesis, then uses reason to prove it. Socrates formulated a theory to solve Meno’s paradox, and used the myth of immortal souls, and some deductive inference  to prove it.

Now the question of whether virtue can be taught or not is revisited, and with a new idea of knowledge in mind, there are new conclusions to be reached.When the slave boy was answering Socrates’s questions about the square, he wasn’t necessarily proving anything that he was saying, even though it was correct. So these things which are “remembered” by the soul with questions to prompt them are not so much knowledge, which is proved with reason, as they are “true opinions.”  True opinions are just as truthful as knowledge is, but they are not as reliable, since they are not proven (Socrates describes them as statues which walk away unless tied to the ground). Socrates proposes that these true opinions are possibly divine gifts granted by the gods, which means they are not taught. This brings him and Meno to a new conclusion, that virtue is not taught, and they have finished their discussion with opposite stances of what they entered with. Besides, if virtue was taught, the virtuous men would have virtuous sons, and there would be actual teachers. Earlier in this discussion, Anytus came in and took offense to this claim, for he is the son of a great man himself. He admitted that sophists are no good, though, and agreed with Socrates for the most part. Socrates presents a very convincing hypothesis, and the great thing about logic is the correspondence that the metaphysical has to the physical. He shows that relation when comparing true opinions to unproven truths, and knowledge as proven.