Euthyphron

The Euthyphron (or On Piety ) is a dialog of Plato. It belongs to the series known as of the “First Dialogs”, made up at the time where the author was still young person and which has in general the Vertu for object. The date of the exact drafting remains however dubious, the commentators varying it 399, right before the lawsuit of Socrate, with 395 av. J. - C., a few years after its death.

Dramatic framework

Date from the action

The dialog is supposed to proceed in 399 av. J. - C., more precisely between the charge carried by Mélétos against Socrate and the lawsuit itself of this last.

Characters

They are two, it is of Socrate and Euthyphron .

Euthyphron is an obscure character but pretense to have really existed, as it is of rule among characters put in scene by Plato. The facts reported in the dialog which bears its name are undoubtedly themselves exact, and well-known by the Athéniens of the time: as a soothsayer considered intractable in the field of uprightness and piety, it would have translated his own father into justice to have let die at the bottom of a pit one of its workmen, which in addition had just assassinated somebody. It is difficult to say if this Euthyphron corresponds to the character of the same name present in the Cratyle , but nothing seems a priori to make objection there.

The dialog: to define piety

The Euthyphron treats nature of the Piété but does not bring any final decision on this subject.

Introductory scene

Socrate has just learned that it is the subject of a charge on behalf of some Mélétos, an opportunist young person reproaching him for corrupting youth by its speeches and its subversive ideas, in particular as regards religion.

Going to the royal Gantry Athens to be there understood by the archonte-king, it crosses Euthyphron, which is astonished to see it there. After him to have told its mishap by decorating it of ironic compliments to the address of Mélétos, Socrate enquiert in its turn of the reason for which Euthyphron goes to the same place as him.

It is, answers him it, which it is on the point of making an act of a great piety. It indeed comes to carry a charge against his own father. One of the workmen of their family, working on their fields with Naxos, had one evening too drunk and made the irrevocable one on another workman while cutting the throat to him. The father of Euthyphron then made bind the feet and the hands of the criminal, before throwing it in a pit, time to send somebody near the religious leaders in order to learn what it was advisable to do. Before their opinion did not reach him, the faulty one had unfortunately already found death, carried by the cold and the hunger.

Socrat is delighted by these circumstances: if Euthyphron acts like it makes it with such an amount of determination, it is undoubtedly that it has a vision clear and precise of what is pious and of what is not it. Without what, he would not dare to carry such a serious charge against his father. He thus requests it urgently to inform it on the nature of piety, so that Mélétos cannot any more show it to miss itself of it.

First definition of Euthyphron: it is to continue any person having made a fault

Not including/understanding immediately the request of Socrate, which had however specified well to him that he wanted a definition of piety in general, Euthyphron proposes a first answer well too narrow to him: to be pious, it is according to him “ to continue any criminal who made a murder, concealed crowned objects, or makes any other fault of the same kind, that it is your father or your mother or very other ”.

And the best proof, does he add, is not it that the gods act him just like, Cronos having castrated his father Ouranos before being itself reduces to the impotence by his son Zeus?

But Socrate, as a rational man, grants only little importance to all these “ tales ”, and requests Euthyphron to agree to give a more general idea of than is, according to him, piety.

Second definition of Euthyphron: it is what is expensive to the gods

Having this time seized where Socrate wanted to come from there, Euthyphron answers that “ what is expensive to the gods is pious, and what is not expensive to them is impious ”.

But, objects Socrate, aren't the gods constantly quarreling on many subjects? Consequently, which is expensive with a god can not be expensive with another. The same things could then be pious and impious, which proves that the definition suggested is bad.

Third definition of Euthyphron: it is what all the gods like

To the invitation of Socrate, Euthyphron is then brought to modify its definition slightly: what is expensive with all the gods is pious, and what is odious for them with all is impious. As for the things being expensive with certain gods and odious with others, they are at the same time pious and impious or neither one nor the other.

Socrat is still not satisfied by this a little wobbly definition, and brings a subtle remark which he explains lengthily. The piles, according to Euthyphron, is what is liked gods. However, it is not because a thing is led that it is led, but well because it is led that it is led. In the same way, it is not because a thing is liked gods whom the gods love it, but well because the gods like it that she is liked gods. In addition, Euthyphron had defined the piles as what is liked gods. However, if the piles on the one hand is what is liked gods, and if, on the other hand, which is liked gods is because the gods like it, then the piles is pious simply because the gods like it. However it is because it is pious that the gods like the piles, and not because the gods like it that the piles is pious.

Consequently, one cannot define piety as what is expensive to the gods: it is at most about an accidental characteristic of this virtue, but not of what makes its gasoline.

Summoned to re-examine its definition again, Euthyphron is acknowledged lost: Socrat, the such mythical Dédale which gave life to its statues, treats the ideas of his interlocutor in such a way that they do not remain in place.

The definition of Socrate: it is part of the Juste

Socrat intervenes then to leave Euthyphron the embarrassment. He is not any doubt, initially, but all that is pious is right. One can on the other hand affirm only all that is right changing inevitably of piety.

It thus seems undeniable that piety is part of the broader concept of justice. But about which part is it?

Euthyphron answers that it is about the part of justice “ which relates to the care due to the gods, and which what looks at the care that the men go between them forms the part which remains justice ”.

Interested by this idea, Socrate is however obstructed by the concept of “care”. When a slave lavishes care with his Master, or a rider with his horse, it is always in order to profit with that which is the object of it, from a way or another. However which benefit the gods do they withdraw piety of the men? In do they become better, or that enables them it to produce something?

Embarrassed once again, Euthyphron is left there while returning on one its preceding definitions, namely that piety consists to say and make what is pleasant to the gods, while requesting and while sacrificing. However Socrate showed already the falseness of this idea, and estimates that best is to continue the discussion since the beginning.

Having to better do than to ridicule itself again, Euthyphron is excused vaguely and takes leave of Socrate, leaving the abortive dialog.

Philosophical range

With regard to the question of piety, the reader is left only with one beginning of answer to the initially put question: it is, thinks Euthyphron, part of the Juste. But which part, and how to define it more precisely? One does not manage to answer this question. Perhaps is the question badly put? Perhaps isn't piety, as it affirms Euthyphron, part of justice, but justice even?

The philosophical range of Euthyphron is spread nevertheless on another plan: it is philosophical lifestyle of which it is question. In this direction, the Euthyphron form to some extent a prolog or an appendix with the Apology for Socrate . Indeed, one of the concerns for Plato here, just like in the Apology, is to illustrate and defend the philosophical lifestyle in opposition to a not-philosophical lifestyle (illustrated here by Euthyphron which goes until showing his/her father in the name of piety whereas itself does not know what is piety).

The goal of the Euthyphron was not undoubtedly to answer completely the question of piety, but to provide to the reader an exemplary model of socratic discussion, in order to encourage it to continue itself philosophical research while using of the same methods of reasoning.

Other dialogs around the judgment of Socrate

Théétète : Socrat, at the end of the dialog, must go to the gantry Archonte-king which judges the businesses of religion.
Euthyphron : dialog close to the Gantry royal, right before the passage of Socrate in front of the Archonte-king.
Apology for Socrate : lawsuit, speech and judgment of Socrate.
Criton : Socrat, in prison, refuses to escape.
Phédon : execution of Socrate.

See too

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