Philosophical Piety in Plato\'s Euthyphro

Philosophical Piety in Plato’s Euthyphro

Abstract: I argue that, through the course of the argument of Euthyphro, the traditional Greek gods are quietly replaced by universal causal essences or forms. Once this substitution has been made, the traditional conception of piety as the proper way for humans to relate to the gods can be preserved. Socrates exemplifies in his words and deeds this combination of traditional piety and revolutionary philosophical theology. Two questions have dominated debates about how to interpret Plato’s Euthyphro. First, readers wonder whether there is a positive conception of piety implicit in the argument beyond its explicitly unsuccessful conclusion. Second, because of Socrates’ language of i0de/a and ei]dov, there is some question as to whether a Platonic notion of form is at work in the argument. In my view, these questions are intimately connected, and the answer to both is affirmative. Through the course of the argument of Euthyphro, the gods are purged of all their particular, personal characteristics, so that they become universal causal essences or forms. Yet despite this revolutionary understanding of what it means to be a god, it is suggested that the traditional conception of piety as the proper way for humans to relate to the gods should be preserved. Socrates exemplifies in his words and deeds this combination of traditional piety and revolutionary philosophical theology. While it is important to recognize that the dialogue ends in aporia, the life and deeds of Socrates as exemplified in Euthyphro offer a practical example of an attitude towards divine and human things that ties together many of the strands which the theoretical search for a definition cannot. The charges against Socrates are twofold. He is guilty of having improper relations with other human beings – corrupting the youth – and improper views about the

1

gods.1 The Euthyphro answers both these charges. In the dialogue, Socrates sets up the dialectical investigation of Euthyphro’s views as a cross-examination of the grounds for his prosecution of his father in the following terms: Whereas, by Zeus, Euthyphro, you think that your knowledge of the divine (peri\ tw~n qei/wn) and of piety and impiety (kai\ tw~n o9si/wn te kai\ a0nosi/wn), is so accurate that, when those things happened as you say, you have no fear of having acted impiously in bringing your father to trial.(4e)2 Euthyphro has just dismissed his family’s objections to his prosecution of his father on the grounds that they do not know “how the divine stands to piety and impiety” (to_ qei=on w(v e1xei tou= o9si/ou te pe/ri kai\ tou= a0nosi/ou - 4e). Socrates sets up the rest of the dialogue as an investigation of Euthyphro’s views about these two distinct but interrelated questions: 1) what is the nature of the divine? 2) what is the nature of piety and impiety? The dialogue is an examination of these two questions, of what it is to be a god, and what is the proper relation for human beings to these divinities.

1

The traditional Greek conception of piety includes both a religious and an ethical aspect, and it is difficult to distinguish clearly between religious from a non-religious virtue. As Versényi (1982: 1) writes, “Although the gods and all that concerned them were certainly proper objects of eusebia, and to this extent piety was a religious term even in the modern restricted sense of the word, eusebia did not in fact necessarily involve a direct relationship of men to the gods or objects and acts directly pertaining to their worship in a narrow sense. It also required reverence toward the dead, the veneration of parents and ancestors, the proper relation toward all one’s blood relatives, and indeed, in its most extended use, the right relationship of man to all other members of his community.” On my interpretation of Euthyphro, Plato is making a distinction between religious and non-religious duties, in the bifurcation of human and divine qerapei/a, for example, but he is ultimately trying to show how true ethical virtue towards humans is radically dependent upon true reverence and piety towards the gods. 2 All citations from the Euthyphro are from the G.M.A. Grube translation, in Plato: Complete Works. ed. J. M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis: Hackett) 1997. All citations from other Platonic dialogues are also from this volume. 2

In answer to the first question, the argument of Euthyphro rethinks what it means to be a god by progressively suggesting that a god must be something more like a Platonic form than a traditional Homeric divinity. Once the connection between the essences and the traditional gods is made, the conception of what it is to be a god undergoes a kind of philosophical purification. A god must be a universal beyond particulars, it must be the cause of the particulars it governs, it must exclude all difference and opposition within itself, and it cannot be opposed to other gods, i.e. the differences among the gods must be held within the unity of the highest god. Yet once the conception of what a god is has undergone the philosophical purification of Socrates’ elenchus, what it means to hold a pious attitude toward the divine is not substantially changed. It is not a new suggestion that a simple notion of Platonic form is present in Euthyphro. In his classic work Plato’s ‘Euthyphro’ and the Earlier Theory of the Forms, R.E. Allen has shown, quite convincingly, that a theory of forms is implied in the dialectical search for a definition of piety in that dialogue,3 one which is not identical to the more fully explicated view of forms in later dialogues, but which is not incompatible with it either. Similarly, many readers find in the dialogue an implicit idea of what true piety is, as exemplified by Socrates, beyond the Euthyphro’s explicitly negative

3

Allen summarizes the notion of form in Euthyphro as follows: Socrates “assumes, in pursuing his inquiry, that there is an i0de/a, or ei]dov, a Form, of holiness, and that this form is a universal, the same in all holy things (5d, 6d-e). He further supposes that the Form may be used as a standard, by which to judge what things are holy and what are not (6e); that it is an essence, by which or in virtue of which holy things are holy (6d); and that it is capable of real or essential definition (11a, 12c-d). These assumptions constitute a theory of Forms.” See Allen (1970: 67-8). My interpretation is in full agreement with all these points, though it expands upon them. 3

conclusion.4 That the highest god is equated with the good itself was once a common reading of 13e5-14c5,5 and that philosophy is being in some sense divinized has also been suggested.6 But I think it is only when we can draw all these suggestions into a coherent whole that the real argument of the Euthyphro becomes clear. In the interpretation that follows, I will attempt to show that the five definitions7 constitute a continuous argument which redefines ta_ qei=a as the forms and the good as the form of the forms, and then shows that the older piety reflects the proper reverence and awe towards divinity. The Euthyphro is an important text for seeing how the SocraticPlatonic philosophical purification of traditional Greek religion preserves rather than undermines the subordination of the human to the divine and the primacy of our obligations to the gods. In his important study Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Immortals, Richard Bodéüs argues that identifying Greek metaphysics with theology is anachronistic. Although the goal of his book is to argue that Aristotle’s perfectly traditional view of Greek divinity can be read at face value only once one realizes that for him the theoretical science of ousia has no theological significance, Bodéüs extends his conclusion back to Plato, who does speak straightforwardly and uncritically of the Greek 4

C.C.W. Taylor claims that it contains “fairly clear hints of a conclusion which is not explicitly drawn.” See Taylor (2008: 66). See McPherran’s account of the debate concerning whether Euthyphro contains a positive doctrine of piety, in McPherran (1996: 29-31). 5 For a critical summary of these readings of the passage, see Versenyi (1982: 106-112). 6 See for example, Anderson (1967) where he argues that the dialectic is divinized. In contrast, I hope to show that the forms are divinized, while dialectic reflects a properly pious attitude towards these divinities. 7 Øyvind Rabbås (2005) offers another persuasive treatment of the attempted definitions in which there are ultimately three principal definitions, the other definitions serving as secondary attempts at revising these three central proposals. See Rabbås (2005: 291309). 4

gods in Phaedrus, Timaeus and Laws: “The fact that Plato required a transcendent world of Ideas did not place him in opposition to this perspective: the gods described in the Laws, the Timaeus, and the Phaedrus do not belong to the world beyond, but are the beings in our world who most perfectly attain knowledge of the immutable. This is why Plato offers them as models for our imitation.”8 My interpretation of Euthyphro belongs to the “prevailing view” of Plato’s thought which Bodéüs seeks to undermine. Without considering Plato’s views of traditional religion more generally, I merely want to suggest through this interpretation that Euthyphro contains indications, however tentative and implicit, that Plato was indeed willing to judge the adequacy of traditional theological conceptions in the light of his own metaphysical views.

First Definition Consider Euthyphro’s very first definition, which contains many details of crucial significance for interpreting the dialogue that have mostly gone unappreciated. I break Euthyphro’s first attempt into 5 distinct points: (1) I say that the pious is to do what I am doing now, (2) to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or temple robbery or anything else, (3) whether the wrongdoer is your father or your mother or anyone else, not to prosecute is impious. (4) And observe, Socrates, that I can cite powerful evidence that the law is so. I have already said to others that such actions are right, not to favor the ungodly, whoever they are. (5) These people themselves believe (oi9 a!nqrpwpoi

8

Bodéüs (2000: 31-2). 5

tugxa&nousi nomi/zontev)9 that Zeus is the best and most just of the gods, yet they agree that he bound his father because he unjustly swallowed his sons, and that he in turn castrated his father for similar reasons. But they are angry with me because I am prosecuting my father for his wrongdoing. They contradict themselves in what they say about the gods and about me. (5d8-6a5) Euthyphro’s definition contains important points about the nature of the gods, as well as the nature of what constitutes piety and impiety, or the proper human relation to the gods. Starting with point #5, Euthyphro argues, in conformity with the traditional Greek viewpoint, that there is one god (Zeus) above all the rest, a divinity which is the most good and the most just. This highest god, he argues, should serve as a model for pious human actions, in that the measure of what constitutes a pious human is the imitation of this highest divine principle. Socrates will dispute the particular actions here being ascribed to divinity, but not the way that the highest divinity should be the measure of human actions. That Euthyphro imitates his own conception of divinity is implicit in the very first point of his definition –piety defined as “that which I am doing right now” (o3per e0gw_ nu=n poiw~). Taken in the context of the dialogue as a whole, this refers to more than just the claim that Euthyphro’s present action – prosecuting his father for murder – is pious. Rather, this answer contains both sides of what emerges as Euthyphro’s viewpoint, his absolute confidence in the indisputable piety of his own particular actions and

9

I will argue later that Socratic piety contrasts with Euthyphro’s view in that it heeds not what men happen to believe, but the divine forms beyond human opinion. 6

perspective, and his conception of the gods, whom he imitates.10 He holds a voluntarist concept of divinity – that a god constitutes what is pious simply through freely acting, without reference to some measure of the pious independent of these divine actions. From a voluntarist theological viewpoint, the gods make an act pious, by perceiving, saying, or doing anything.11 If asked to define the pious, this is exactly the answer Euthyphro’s Zeus would give - ‘exactly what I am doing right now’ – for it is the doing that causes any particular act to be pious. Euthyphro’s imitation of the highest divinity applies not only to the particular actions he is executing, but also to the causal source of their being pious. The second and fourth points made by Euthyphro are intimately connected: being pious involves prosecuting people who act impiously.12 Piety involves living in accordance with divine or religious law, and pursuing those who do not live up to this law. The third point is that this law must be used to measure the actions of everyone indifferently, without regard for the particular position or role of the law’s transgressor, or the relation between the prosecutor and the prosecuted. Within the oikos, which is the sphere of Euthyphro’s case involving the father, the household slave and the pela/thv, this means that anyone should be prosecuted “whether the wrongdoer is your father or 10

These two sides will be brought together in Socrates’ refutation of Euthyphro’s third definition of piety, treated below. 11 A theological voluntarism is the divine version of the sophistic position which Plato elsewhere opposes – that man is the measure of all things, that if he perceives something, it is as he perceives it, with no independent measure of the truth or falsity of this perception. 12 The wording here is important – piety demands that one not trust, rely upon, or yield to the impious person (mh\ e0pitre/pein tw|~ a0sebou=nti – 5e4-5) – but rather, judge or prosecute them. This idea of a duty to judge and evaluate is present in Socrates’ question at 9e4-7: “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, do we accept that it is so? Or should we examine what the speaker means?” 7

your mother or anyone else.” Relative to the city, which is the sphere of Meletus’ case against Socrates, as well as Socrates’ own philosophical activity, this means that impiety must be prosecuted regardless of the particular social role or status of the guilty party: poet, artist, politician, craftsman, or even, as in the case of Socrates’ cross-examination in this dialogue, prophet. As Steven Burns notes,13 none of the points I have labeled 2-5 are refuted by Socrates, and the possibility that these are retained in the Platonic conception of piety must be seriously considered. Where Socrates does depart from Euthyphro’s account is of course in the traditional characterization of the pantheon as comprehending different and opposed perspectives and the conflicts and hatred that result. This is the heart of the charges against Socrates. Socrates corrects Euthyphro’s original assumption that his prosecution for religious innovation and introducing new gods refers to his daimon. But in his rejection of divine discord, Socrates is a revolutionary theologian. In other words, Socrates finds unacceptable the conception of a god as a particular, self-interested perspective opposable to other particular, self-interested perspectives. The logical problem with the definition is closely related to this theological deficiency. This conception of the gods is not sufficiently universal for what are the best and most just kinds of being. The problem with the definition is that Euthyphro has given one or two particular instances of piety, but no perspective comprehensive of these viewpoints which, until reconciled, can be opposed and even antagonistic to one another. What is required beyond particular instances is “that form itself by means of which all pious actions are pious (e0kei=no au0to\ to\ ei]dov w{| pa/nta ta\ o3sia o3sia/ e0stin)” (6d10-

13

See Burns (1985: 315). 8

11). What must be disclosed by a definition, Socrates reminds Euthyphro, is a universal cause of each particular instance’s being what it is, responsible for them all having this characteristic. Socrates’ statement of this new demand shows that everything that had been true of Euthyphro’s gods is taken up into Socrates’ forms: Tell me then what this form (th\n i0de/an) itself is, so that I may look upon it, and, using it as a model (paradei/gmati), say that any action of yours or another’s that is of that kind is pious, and if it is not that it is not. (6e3-6)

In asking for the next definition in these terms, Socrates positively incorporates all the acceptable points which Euthyphro has brought up in the first definition (points 2-5 above), thereby assimilating his own view of the idea to what it is to be a god, and opening up the possibility that piety can involve the proper relation to the divine ei1dh in things. The form is a principle by which one can judge acts to be either pious or impious, serving as an objective measure or divine law to be obeyed and to be used to judge the guilt of those who disobey (points # 2 and 4 above).14 This law applies to anyone’s actions, regardless of who they are (point #3 above). Further, like Zeus in Euthyphro’s initial response, the form can be imitated as a model or paradigm regulating one’s own actions (point #5 above).15 Second Definition

14

Allen’s account of the forms as standards is excellent: “Knowing the form is a condition for recognizing its instances: to ask what holiness is, is to ask for knowledge of a criterion by which to distinguish things which are holy from things which are not.” See Allen (1970: 72). 15 The point about Zeus as the highest god among the gods will only be taken up by Socrates again in what I treat as the fourth definition. See my treatment below. 9

Euthyphro then volunteers a second definition: “what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious” (7a). Socrates is pleased with the correction of the particularity of the first logos – this is a universal definition which expresses what is common to all instances. Further, insofar as Euthyphro is actually answering Socrates’ demand that the definition yield a cause which is universal, this definition implies that “the form itself by which all pious things are pious” is the loving activity of a god.16 Through the activity of loving something, a god is responsible for the particular object’s being pious. At this point in the argument, Euthyphro’s answer further suggests that the forms are gods, active universal causes responsible for making particulars what they are. Socrates immediately clarifies what is implied in Euthyphro’s conception of piety: “Come then, let us examine what we mean. An action or a man dear to the gods is pious, but an action or a man hated by the gods is impious” (7a). Euthyphro here assumes a certain picture of the world and the relation between divinity and humanity within it. On the one hand there are particular actions or particular men, and on the other hand there are the causes of these particulars being what they are, the gods, with nothing in between. This is essential to Euthyphro’s voluntarist conception of deity: no stable universals stand beyond the gods and particulars, and nothing exists outside of the will of the gods to measure the truth or falsity of their beliefs or actions. As a result, there is no way of discerning the reason behind divine activity – the gods act freely, without the constraint of any logical necessity. In this view of the relation between divinity and humanity, only one person can actually communicate the divine will to humanity – the prophet who,

16

Whether the gods, through holding something dear, are actually the causes of that thing’s being pious, will become explicitly investigated in the discussion of the third definition. 10

through a privileged, otherwise inaccessible knowledge of divinity, reveals the divine will to the ignorant, non-prophetic many. The prophet’s attitude is repeatedly manifested by Euthyphro throughout the dialogue, through his references to his privileged knowledge, inaccessible to others.17 Without any objective mediation between the gods and particulars, in the absence of the immediate presence of a god pronouncing legal judgments, it is the prophet who is the mediator between divine causality and sensible particularity. For Socrates, the forms, as the philosophically accessible mediation between the gods and the sensible world, relieve Euthyphro and other prophets of this task. Through their further consideration of Euthyphro’s traditional belief about the differences of perspective, discord and hatred existing among the gods in the pantheon, a mediating term will be implicitly introduced into the discussion. The question arises, concerning what do the gods differ? They do not disagree about quantitative or mathematical matters, such as number, size, weight, because such differences of opinion can be easily settled through the existence of a measure or standard, equally applicable to all similar quantities, against which any dispute can be easily resolved. Because of the existence of a measure independent of the gods and independent of particular quantities, the occasion for passionate disputes disappears. By extension, it is the absence of such an independent measure that will make passionate disputes between the gods possible. If Socrates is going to show that the ancient conceptions of divine discord are untenable, these independent measures will need to be discovered for everything about which one might disagree.

17

See below, pp. 15-17. 11

Initially it appears that, as opposed to mathematical concepts, ethical concepts do lack such an independent measure,18 and so it is subjects like the just, the beautiful and the good, along with their opposites, that make gods and humans disagree passionately. Here the content of this mediation between gods and humans begins to emerge. The possibility of divine harmony on such ethical questions implies the recognition of objective, universally recognized measures independent of particular perspectives, whether human or divine. Up to this point in the dialogue, the ei]dov has been discussed only in terms of the form of piety – now the possibility of a whole world of ei1dh is opened up. At this point the second definition breaks down. If gods perceive different things as just, beautiful, and good, if perceiving something as just, beautiful, and good means holding it dear, and if the pious is what is dear to the gods, then the gods cannot serve as a genuine measure of determining whether something is pious or its opposite. While there is nothing impossible about the same particular being pious in one respect and impious in another19, this is not possible of the form of piety itself,20 which is completely self-identical (the same as itself). But the goal of disclosing this universal form and expressing it in a definition is to have a standard against which particulars can be measured and judged. This definition, when combined with the traditional theology, is incoherent, and provides no way of measuring the piety of particulars. In the discussion 18

This transition in the argument is like the ascent from the mathematical, dianoetic part of the upper half of the Platonic line, to the eidetic, where one makes the transition from objective quantitative measures to objective qualitative measures. This is also the concern of the Meno, which seeks a definition of virtue adequate to the mathematical definition of shape, as well as the Phaedo, which seeks to convert the Pythagoreans Cebes and Simmias from their mathematical understanding of soul to an eidetic grasp of soul. 19 See Burns (1985: 316-17) who cites Allen (1970: 34) on this point. 20 “They are not the same, but quite opposite, the pious and impious.” (7a) 12

that follows, this will be corrected through purging the discord and difference of ethical perception from the divine pantheon. Thus Socrates brings out the practical consequence of the failure of Euthyphro’s second definition – if the pious is what the gods love, and the act can be loved by some gods and hated by others, then Euthyphro cannot claim confidently that the prosecution of his father is a pious act. Euthyphro wants to deny the uncertainty of his own particular case, and he does so by moving from the particularity of the case to a greater level of generality: “I think, Socrates, that on this subject no god would differ from another, that whoever has killed unjustly should pay the penalty” (8b). Socrates’ brief response again points to the forms as objective measures between the gods and particular men and actions. Socrates proceeds by focusing on human disputes, and then applying the conclusion to divine disputes. Our disputes do not occur at the level of generality suggested by Euthyphro, for everyone simply assumes the existence of the law and agrees that deviation from the law must be punished. Humans do not dispute that they must not pay the penalty if they have done wrong, but I think they deny doing wrong….they do not dispute that the wrongdoer must be punished, but they may disagree as to who the wrongdoer is, what he did, and when. (8c-d) The dispute occurs at the level of the application of the general law to the man or deed in its particularity. Assumed here is that the existence of a standard of justice, that justice is good, and that deviation from this measure is bad and must be corrected. There exists an absolute which demands recognition beyond this difference of particular

13

perspectives. A voluntarist perspective, at least in relation to human reason and action, is not tenable, a consequence expressed beautifully by Socrates’ comment that, no matter what claims men make in order to defend themselves, “[t]hey do not say or do just anything” (8c9). This claim is then extended to the gods – even if they do disagree (a possibility which Socrates denies) – they do not disagree about just anything – there are certain general principles which must be recognized by both gods and men: that justice exists, that it is the measure by which we evaluate the justice of particular actions, and that actions or men which fall short must be prosecuted: “no one among gods or men ventures to say that the wrongdoer must not be punished” (8d11-13). The existence of a stable, rational measure of speech and action, both human and divine, further solidifies the introduction of the forms as an objective, rational mediation between divinity and humanity. Although it is not yet recognized by Euthyphro, this constitutes a rational limit on the arbitrary freedom of the traditional divinities. Everyone, whether god or human, acknowledges there is a standard, a measure, of justice – and the question that is disputed is whether or not a particular instance lives up to this standard or falls short of it. The existence of forms of the virtues is thus further secured through placing these universals beyond the differences of opinion that pit god against god and human against human. To establish whether a particular case is or is not an example of injustice, Socrates demands proof (tekmh/rion), that Euthyphro show forth something clear (safe\v e0ndei/casqai) – and once he manifests this to him sufficiently (moi i9kanw~v e0ndei/ch), Socrates will never stop praising (e0gkwmia/zwn) him for his wisdom (9a1-b2). Euthyphro, like the gods in which he believes, does not show forth the clear reason for

14

the piety of his particular action.21 What form would such a clear proof take? The disclosure of the law or ei]dov against which the particulars are being measured, rather than the unpredictable and arbitrary perception and actions of the traditional gods. A disclosure of the form by which the truth of divine perception and love is measured would disclose the reason for the gods’ love of the act. As a result, rather than continuing to focus on the particularity of Euthyphro’s actions, Socrates shifts the discussion back once again to the level of the ei]dov of piety. In the same way that the clear piety of Euthyphro’s particular case presupposes the purgation of divine discord on the subject of the action, the third definition begins with a thorough purgation of divine discord from the ei]dov of piety. Euthyphro’s correction relative to particulars, that a pious act is one that all the gods love, is thus drawn into the logos itself (e0n tw|~ lo/gw| - 9d2) – one might add, into the object which the logos aims to define, the eidos - and this purgation of any opposition from the self-identical universal causes forms the basis for Euthyphro’s third definition of piety. Third Definition Euthyphro’s third definition has received by far the most philosophical attention and scrutiny of any part of the dialogue, so I will not dwell on its details. The third definition shifts the argument from judging particular cases back to the essence, now purged of all conflict and difference at the level of the universal cause. The heart of the discussion of this third definition is where causal priority is to be located: in the god’s love, or the essence of the object loved? The basic point is clear – Euthyphro claims that

21

Euthyphro is here again imitating his conception of divinity – where the reasons for divine actions are not given clearly. More praiseworthy would be the Socratic conception of divinity, which pours forth such justifications for anyone to apprehend. 15

to be pious is to be loved by all the gods, and to be impious is to be hated by all the gods. An object’s being loved is a change to or affection of that object, although it is not caused by the passive object, but rather by the active agent. If piety is being loved by all the gods, the predicate of this definition, being loved by all the gods, is caused by the agent and not the affected object. Socrates asks whether the pious is loved by all the gods because it is pious, or whether it is pious because it is loved by all the gods. Euthyphro’s answer is what yields the breakdown of the third definition: the pious, he agrees, is loved because it is pious. He does not have to concede this point, which leads him to inevitable contradiction, as some interpreters have noticed.22 Why does he do so? I suggest it is inherent in Euthyphro’s prophetic stance that he do so – for the other side of his divine voluntarism is his absolute confidence in his own prophetic insight into the truth of his own judgment on the piety of his prosecution. The contradiction in Euthyphro’s viewpoint is thus forced by an essential feature of the prophetic profession to which he belongs: Euthyphro’s divine voluntarism (a distinction between completely free divinities on the one hand, and particular men, actions and events on the other, with no mediation) conflicts with his total confidence in his own prophetic analysis of particulars, in this case, the piety of his prosecution of his father. The contradiction is generated through bringing the consequences of his voluntarism into conflict with his confidence in the piety of his own actions. On the one hand the gods determine what constitutes piety by their love, but on the other the act itself is lovable because of the presence of piety within it. Euthyphro’s own action could not be reliably

22

See Allen (1970: 44). 16

thought to be pious if it were radically dependent on the unpredictable will of the gods. It must therefore be in itself lovable and pious. The conclusion of the third definition is that being loved by the gods might be true of all pious acts, but it is not the active cause of their being pious intrinsic to what piety is, but rather a universal affection or accident that belongs to all pious things through an external relation. Though it may be present in every case of piety, it is not the causal ou0si/a of the thing’s being pious, but rather a pa/qov. The fact that all the gods love the same things, and that they perceive the same things as good, beautiful or just, means that the possibility for divergence between divine perception and the object of divine perception has been eliminated – each god perceives the true nature of the object, and thus all gods perceive these objects in the same way. Here the gods are no longer the causes of a particular being a particular: the forms have taken over their role as causal governors of the world of human actions and events and sensible particulars. The causal role initially played by the gods’ love is now being played by the justice, goodness, or beauty intrinsic to an object – what is loved are these essential forms in the particulars.23 What is accomplished in this third definition is a purgation of subjectivity from divine principles. The gods’ perception of an object and the like or dislike which follows from the perception is subordinate causally to the object of love – it is not caused by 23

The digression which falls between the third and fourth definition (11b-e), in which a confused Euthyphro accuses Socrates of destabilizing his statements which in and of themselves are completely coherent and stable, follows the same logic as the point of the third definition. Are Euthyphro’s views destabilized because they are unstable, or are they destabilized because of Socrates’ dialectical activity? The answer to this question is central to the question of whether Socrates is guilty of corruption, or whether he is actually purifying the city of its false and contradictory views. [reference omitted for blind review] 17

being loved, but being loved is caused by its intrinsic nature. While being loved by the cause might be a universal property of the pious, it is not an essential property, because it is not the cause of anything being pious – it is merely a pa/qov of the object. As a result, insofar as the gods all love the pious act or man, but they are not the active cause of its being pious, the traditional divinities lose their explanatory role in the pursuit of piety (or justice, beauty, goodness, etc.), they become accidental to the piety, justice, or goodness of a particular.24 The universal forms have now completely usurped the place in the of the traditional gods as the active causes of particular instances and paradigmatic laws which measure the adequacy of these particulars. Fourth Definition At this point in the argument, the role played by the gods as causes of particular men and their acts being pious has been replaced by the form or ousia of piety. The gods, now understood as the forms, have been purged of their subjective, particular character. Universal essences have usurped the causative role of the gods in the sensible human world. The fourth definition and its surrounding discussion restores Zeus, the one highest divinity, beyond the divine causal essences.

24

The gods are not necessarily eliminated from this Platonic cosmos – but they are now brought under the same divine laws and principles that govern human beings, and their causal, governing role has been taken over by the causal essences. McPherran is excellent on this point: “once Euthyphro insists on this latter idea and is thereby forced to concede that the piety of an action is thus ultimately justified by reference to godindependent standards of virtue, the authority of the gods and their commandments must be acknowledged as derivative: one obeys the commands of the gods not because they come from more powerful beings that one ought to fear and placate, but rather, because as wholly good and virtuous beings the gods, more so than any human, must themselves behave (and thus speak) in a fashion consonant with the universal dictates of nature.” See McPherran (1996: 46). 18

Having implicitly established the existence of the forms, Socrates now takes over the argument from Euthyphro. Whereas the previous definitions had been proposed by Euthyphro, Socrates for the first time proposes his own definition, and in doing so introduces the question of how the forms are related to one another. He asks Euthyphro whether the pious is a more particular concept contained within the more general concept of justice – what will after Aristotle be referred to as the relation of a species to a genus. What this relationship between ideas or forms introduces is a multiplicity of distinct forms which fall into a hierarchical relation, with more general and comprehensive forms lying above the more particular ones they comprehend. In asking whether everything pious is just, and conversely, whether everything just is pious, it is this hierarchical relation that is introduced into the discussion. This hierarchical relation of more and less universal forms is initially introduced through the interpretation of a poetic reflection on fear and shame which Socrates cites: You are not willing to name25 Zeus the doer, that is, the one who grew all these things. For whenever there is fear, there is also shame. (12a9-12b1) In this fragment from an unknown poet, we have the first mention of Zeus in the dialogue since Euthyphro’s first attempted definition at 5e, where Zeus, the best and most just of all the gods, served as the justifying model for Euthyphro’s prosecution of his father. Here the name of Zeus, the god responsible for all things (who grows and does all

25

There is some dispute over how the text should read at this point. The manuscripts have e0qe/loiv ei0pei=n, which Burnet has emended as e0qe/loiv neikei=n (you do not wish to quarrel with Zeus). The manuscript version conforms more easily to my own reading of the text, where Zeus as cause of all things is tacitly identified with the Good itself, though this is never spoken. 19

things), remains unspoken out of fear and shame.26 This poetic idea, I think, frames how one is to interpret the result of the discussion of this fourth definition, as we will see below. A highest principle, the universal cause of all things, will be evoked but remain unspoken. It is striking that Socrates should bring the meaning of fear and shame into the discussion to illustrate the logical relation of genus to species. Is this choice of example meaningful? Fear is a recurring theme in the dialogue,27 since Socrates is astonished that Euthyphro is so confident in his knowledge of the gods and piety that he does not fear acting unjustly or impiously in his prosecution: “Whereas, by Zeus, Euthyphro, you think that your knowledge of the divine, and of piety and impiety, is so accurate that, when those things happened as you say, you have no fear of having acted impiously in bringing your father to trial” (4e4-8). At the conclusion of the dialogue, this same idea is further refined and brought in relation to the idea of shame: “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” (15d4-8). Do fear and shame, used in the fourth definition as an illustration of a logical relationship, contribute something substantial to the concept of piety?

26

The word ai0dw&v has two possibly interconnected meanings. 1) reverence or high esteem for another; 2) shame. One perhaps feels shame as a result of the reverence one feels for another and the feeling of one’s own inadequacy in comparison. Both meanings seem plausible until ai0de/omai is associated with ai0sxu/nomai and defined as fear of a reputation for evil (12b9-10), suggesting that Plato means shame and not reverence. 27 In fact, the word eu0se/beia literally mean ‘well-fearing’, derived from the verb sebei=n. See Versenyi (1982: 1). 20

It is helpful to pay close attention to the way Socrates sets up his parallel examples. Fear is the more general concept (it is larger – ple/on), shame the more restricted concept which falls under it. He explains the illustration with yet another example: Shame is a part of fear just as odd is a part of number, with the result that it is not true that where there is number there is also oddness, but that where there is oddness there is also number. (12c5-8) The more extensive concept, fear, is associated with number, while shame, which is defined as fearing and dreading a reputation for evil (do/can ponhri/av), is associated with the odd. The even is associated with a kind of fear that is not explicitly identified. The resulting divisions look as follows:

Fear / Shame

Number \

/ ?

Odd

\ Even

These examples are then used to clarify the original terms of justice and piety: See what comes next: if the pious is a part of the just, we must, it seems, find out what part of the just it is. Now if you asked me something of what we mentioned just now, such as what part of number is even, and what number that is, I would say it is the number that is divisible into two equal (i0soskelh/v), not unequal (skalhno\v), parts. (12d5-10)

21

Euthyphro offers a definition of the two divisions of justice to complete the three parallel bifurcations: I think, Socrates, that the godly and pious is the part of the just that is concerned with the care of the gods, while that concerned with the care of men is the remaining part of justice. (12e5-8) The three examples can be mapped out as follows

Fear / Shame

\ ?

fear of reputation (do/can) for evil

?

Number / \ Odd Even

number divisible into unequal parts (scalene)

number divisible into equal parts (isosceles)

Justice / \ Human28 Piety justice justice about qerapei/a of men

justice about qerapei/a of gods

Plato seems to have organized these three parallel bifurcations in a significant way, beyond their merely illustrative value for the fourth definition. At the very least there is an important correspondence between shame and human justice, the fear opposed to shame. Shame is the part of fear concerning our appearance to other human beings, and the word for reputation – do/ca – is the same Plato elsewhere uses for opinion as opposed to genuine knowledge. Here we fear about how we appear. The other kind of fear not explicitly named opposed to this shame before men is the fear concerning what we actually are, our being as opposed to our mere seeming. While the second kind of fear

28

See Taylor (2008: 64): “Ordinary Greek wisdom would naturally appropriate the term dikaiosune as the name of the virtue of social relations with human agents…” 22

in these divisions goes unnamed at this point of the dialogue, the (already cited) later passage at 15d which closes the dialogue fills in this gap in a very suggestive way: distinct from the shame one feels before men is the fear of the gods, which is glossed as a fear of not acting rightly. As opposed to the fear of appearing evil in the eyes of another human (one’s being relative to another), there is a fear of being and doing evil in reality, measured by the gods or divine forms as the true measure of ethical virtues independently of appearances before other humans. Why choose to illustrate these through the division of odd and even number, characterized geometrically as scalene and isosceles? Allen’s note on this peculiar division is instructive: The terms ‘isosceles’ and ‘scalene’ are in fact simply metaphors, whose explanation has been kindly suggested to me by Professor Cherniss. i0soskelh/v means equal-legged; skalhno/v means uneven, unequal, or rough, and is probably related to skolio/v, crooked, bent, or twisted. Even numbers, being divisible into two equal and integral parts, are ‘isosceles’; odd numbers are scalene because they are not so divisible – they limp.29 Even numbers thus characterized in this context represent what is uniform and equal to itself, reminding us of the earlier characterization of the forms of piety and impiety by Socrates as au0to\ au9tw|~ and au9tw|~ o3moion – the same as itself, like itself. This thinkable self-identity is associated through the parallel divisions with justice in our relation to the gods and fear of the gods understood as the forms, the fear of actually being evil, measured by the true forms of the virtues. Odd numbers, characterized by

29

See Allen (1970: 50), fn. 1. 23

their inequality or difference from themselves, their roughness, their irregularity, are associated with the instability and relativity of human convention and appearances, on the side of shame as the fear for our reputation, and justice as characterizing inter-human relations. To use a Platonic categorization not explicitly present in Euthyphro, fear of the gods, piety as care for the gods, and even numbers are on the side of being, stability, reality, the absolute, while shame, care for humans, and odd numbers are on the side of becoming, change, appearance and relativity. This distinction between our dealings with other imperfect humans and our dealings with perfect gods is further reflected in the two senses of care (qerapei/a) to which the dialogue then turns. The rest of the examination of the fourth definition – that piety is the part of justice concerned with care for the gods – focuses on the meaning of qerapei/a. Socrates and Euthyphro conclude that this is not the same as the care of horses, dogs or cattle, all cases where the care aims at the good or the benefit of the recipient of the care. These beings require the help of someone who knows how the object is to be improved upon or perfected, so that it can attain its proper end from which it is at present separated.30 Unlike the care of animals inferior to the caretaker, care for the gods does not involve benefiting or improving the gods (making them better than they are). Euthyphro proposes the opposite relation of inferiors to their superiors – the care slaves give to their masters, which Socrates characterizes as u9phretikh/.31 Thus the original bifurcation of human justice dealing with our qerapei/a of men and piety as 30

Versenyi (1982: 101) writes: “Thus all therapy presupposes that the thing or organism it is practiced on has not yet attained its ideal state or it has declined from it; in any case it is in some way deficient in its functioning and falls short of fulfilling its function in the best possible way.” 31 It is worth noting that Socrates himself refers to his philosophical activity as “service to the god” in the Apology at 30a6-7, although the term is u9perhsi/an. 24

justice about qerapei/a of gods has been further refined: the former is care appropriate to imperfect beings which require help to attain their perfection or true end, the latter is care (understood as service or u9phretikh/) for beings that already possess their perfection or ideal end. Concerning the latter, Socrates brings out that every master served by a slave has a certain function or work they seek to accomplish, and the slave’s service contributes to the completion of that aim. He asks “to the achievement of what work” (ei0v ti/nov e1rgou a0pergasi/an) does the servant contribute in the case of the doctor, the shipbuilder, the house builder – clearly it is health, a ship, a house – the goal towards which the master’s activity is striving. Socrates then turns to a question that I believe is one of the most important in the whole dialogue,32 one which Socrates ironically tells Euthyphro he should be able to answer because his knowledge of divine things is the best of all men. Socrates’ phrasing here is important to note at every point: he wants to know the all-good work (to\ pa/gkalon e1rgon) the gods complete, and to\ kefa/laion of their activity. to\ kefa/laion (repeated 4 times)33 is usually adequately translated as “the sum of” or “the main point of”. But besides summary, to\ kefa/laion means head, crown, summit. The passage is full of dramatic tension, with Euthyphro again and again putting off answering the question. When he finally does answer he deliberately avoids

32

Here I am recovering and elaborating a view that was prevalent in 19th century interpretations of Euthyphro, and which has been dismissed (unjustly, I think) by more recent interpreters like Versenyi (1982: 106-111) and Allen (1970: 6). For a history of these accounts which see this passage as the key to the positive implicit content of the inquiry into piety, see Rabinowitz’s (1958: 113 ff.) brief survey of these interpretations. I agree with Rabinowitz who writes: “It is inconceivable to me that Plato would have Socrates speak and act so, had he not intended his readers to understand that the vital point in the dialogue had been reached” (1958: 115). 33 The importance of the iteration is noted by Rabinowitz, (1958: 110). 25

identifying the ultimate goal towards which divine activity is directed. Instead he offers the fifth and last definition of the dialogue, that piety is a knowledge of how to please the gods in prayer and sacrifice. Socrates’ disappointed reply is remarkable in its implications:

You could tell me in far fewer words, if you were willing, the sum (to\ kefa/laion) of what I asked, Euthyphro, but you were not keen to teach me, that is clear. You were on the point of doing so, but you turned away. If you had given that answer, I should now have acquired from you sufficient knowledge of the nature of piety. (14b8-c3) If Socrates’ response is to be taken seriously, an adequate answer to this question would yield the definition of piety. If we are to understand the gods at this point in the dialogue as the forms or universal causes, in the context of this fourth definition which treats the hierarchical relation of forms from more particular to more general, what is the crown or summit of this hierarchy? What is it that all the gods, understood as forms, strive towards? Having in the previous section on justice and piety introduced the notion of hierarchically related comprehensiveness with higher forms containing the lower within themselves, here Socrates seeks what is the highest and most comprehensive form of all. It seems to me that Plato is pointing towards the comprehensive cause of all the forms, the idea of the good34 to which all ideas are ordered and in which they are all reconciled

34

Against interpretations which suggest the e1rgon under discussion might be the good, Rabinowitz (1958: 115-16) objects: “What does surprise one...is to find that they all manage, in one way or another, to import the Republic’s idea of good into it, some seeing this concept in the pa&gkalon e1rgon of the gods, some equating it with the gods themselves, others, making the gods and their e1rgon the subjective-objective content of 26

in an ultimate unity. It seems reasonable to believe that Plato gestures towards this unspoken culmination of the dialogue by introducing this whole section with the poetic fragment on not speaking the name of Zeus, who is the origin of all things.35 An understanding of this divine principle and of how to relate to it would yield the nature of piety. It is to this question of how one should relate to this perfectly good, self-sufficient principle that the fifth definition turns.36

the idea of good...no definite sign ore clue can be found within the dialogue to indicate Plato intends qeoi/ or e1rgon tw~n qew~n to be identified with the idea of the good.” But now that we have shown how the gods are the forms, and that the discussion occurs in the section which establishes a hierarchy of forms based in degrees of comprehensiveness – what the kefa&laion of these takes on a new meaning, lending support to the earlier suggestions of Bonitz and Heidel, rejected by Rabinowitz, that the Good is the implied answer to the question. 35 The passage in question ends with a disputed section of text: “nu=n de\ a)na&gkh ga&r to_n e0rw~nta tw|~ e0rwme/nw| a0kolouqei=n o3ph| a!n e0kei=nov u9pa&gh|…” (14c3-4). to_n e0rw~nta tw|~ e0rwme/nw| (it is necessary for the lover to pursue the beloved) has often been emended to to_n e0rwtw~nta tw|~ e0rwtwme/nw| (it is necessary for the questioner to follow the answerer….) On the interpretation of the passage I am offering, it is the beloved that the lover must follow, since here one pursues the ultimate object of love (the Good) against all adversity, but one does so by pursuing the answerer of dialectical questioning. Thus the original reading includes the sense of the emendation without unnecessarily limiting it. On the text in question, see Allen (1970: 57 fn.1) and Emlyn-Jones (2007: 92). 36 Rabinowitz’s excellent article makes the claim, against those views close to his own that Plato is here pointing to the Good, that he is in fact pointing to Nous, or thought as the apprehension of the ideas, as the e1rgon of the gods. He points mainly to later Platonic dialogues to suggest that for Plato, Nous is intermediary between forms and phenomena. This is a huge question which would involve looking to the Phaedo to consider the relation between Nous as first principle there and the Good as first principle in Republic. It is noteworthy that in Phaedo, what it means for Nous to be the principle of all things is that “the directing Mind would direct everything and arrange each thing in the way that was best. If then one wished to know the cause of each thing, why it comes to be or perished or exists, one had to find what was the best way for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. One these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is best….Once he had given the best for each as the cause for each and the general cause for all, I thought he would go on to explain the common good for all” (Phaedo 97c-98b). It is not clear from this passage whether nous is identical to this common good, or responsible for ordering all things to this good. 27

Before moving to the fifth and final definition, there is one further consequence of this reading of the dialogue worth noting. Recall that at the outset of the first definition, Euthyphro frames piety as imitating the actions of Zeus as the god who is most good and most just. I argued that Euthyphro’s character in the dialogue serves as an imitation of the notion of the highest divinity to which he adheres: voluntarist deities who control human affairs without any mediating rational causes. On this view, there are nothing but particulars on the one hand and gods on the other – particulars are what they are because the gods perceive or will them to be that way, without any reason independent of their own perception and will. Euthyphro conceives divine causes as principles that are by nature inscrutable and unpredictable. They are anything but self-manifesting principles accessible to human thought. These gods are self-concealing, sharing with humans neither their own natures nor the reasons behind their actions. One might think here of the characterization of gods as jealous rejected in Timaeus: “he was good, and one who is good can never become jealous of anything. And so, being free of jealousy, he wanted everything to become as much like him as possible.”37 Aristotle38 takes up this criticism of the god as jealous, and, importantly for our purposes, associates the flawed conception of the jealous god with the poetic tradition, showing how it makes philosophy impossible. Based on the incompatibility of jealousy and divine goodness, Aristotle denies the consequence of this jealousy for the possibility of philosophy – jealous divinity would not be self-revealing or self-manifesting of its own nature due to its perfect goodness, and so the quest for knowledge of these highest principles would be futile. Because it cannot 37

Timaeus 29e. See also Phaedrus 247a: “Inside heaven are many wonderful places from which to look and many aisles which the blessed gods take up and back, each seeing to his own work, since jealousy has no place in the gods’ chorus.” 38 Aristotle, Metaphysics I.2, 982b29-983a11. 28

be jealous, the highest must of its very nature make itself manifest to us, and allow us to become like it by coming to know it. Euthyphro’s attitude towards other human beings perfectly models the conception of the divine as self-concealing and jealous of maintaining its wholly unique goodness. He, alone among men, must have knowledge of the gods and of the nature of piety, since, as he says, “I should be of no use, Socrates, and Euthyphro would not be superior to the majority of men, if I did not have accurate knowledge of all such things.” (4e-5a)39 In fact, it is the private guarding of this secret knowledge of the divine, this refusal to teach and to make others like himself, that makes Euthyphro so unremarkable and for the most part anonymous40 to the Athenian populace. A conception of the divine which is opposed to making others as like it as possible, reflected in the actions of a prophet like Euthyphro who does not try to make anyone like himself, presents no real threat to the polis. When Euthyphro complains, despite his apparently infallible41 record of prophecy, that people jealously laugh at him, and consider him crazy, Socrates answers: My dear Euthyphro, to be laughed at does not matter perhaps, for 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 other like himself they get angry, whether through envy, as you say, or for some other reason.(3c-d) 39

See also 6b-c, where Euthyphro claims to know not only what he has already said about the gods, “but even more surprising things, of which the majority has no knowledge…I will, if you wish, relate many other things about the gods which I know will amaze you.” 40 Like Meletus (see 2b), Euthyphro is characterized by Socrates as unknown: “I know that other people as well as Meletus do not seem to notice you, whereas he sees me so sharply and clearly that he indicts me for ungodliness.” (5c) 41 From the prophetic point of view, infallibility is required, since the only proof or justification given for his prophecies is their predictive success. Nothing is explained or taught. 29

In the Timaeus passage, it is argued that the best divinity would not begrudge that which it causes to be as like it as possible. Euthyphro desires to be absolutely unique in his possession of divine knowledge, distinct from the rest of us who have no immediate access to the divine without Euthyphro’s prophetic mediation, and this desire for uniqueness flows from his emulation of this jealous picture of divinity. This puts him in direct contrast with Socrates’ politically dangerous desire to make himself and others as god-like as possible through philosophical scrutiny. Opposed to this conception of divinity as jealous is the Socratic conception of the highest god, the Good determining itself through a hierarchy of universal causal essences in principle knowable to human beings, which can even lead back to knowledge of it and emulation of it in actions. Just as the jealous Zeus provides the model for Euthyphro’s constant concealing of his supposed knowledge,42 the highest principle characterized as a self-diffusing source provides the model for the character of Socrates throughout the dialogue. Socrates characterizes himself in opposition to Euthyphro in the following terms: Perhaps you seem to make yourself but rarely available, and not be willing to teach your own wisdom, but I’m afraid that my liking for people (filanqrwpi/av) makes them think that I pour out (e0kkexume/nwv) to anybody anything I have to say, not only without charging a fee but even glad to reward anyone who is willing to listen.(3d5-9) In contrast to the self-concealing stance of Euthyphro, Socrates is a spontaneously overflowing being like the sun – he indiscriminately pours out whatever he knows to 42

The dialogue ends with Socrates imploring Euthyphro not to conceal (a)pokru/ptein) from him what he knows about the essence of piety and impiety. 30

anyone, as long as they have a willingness to receive what he is saying. Socrates is here imitating the self-revealing productivity of the Good diffusing itself into ideal and sensible reality, allowing itself to be mediated to human understanding, if people only seek to know the true nature of reality. One can, of course, ignore these truths and live the unexamined life of mere opinion, but the possibility of knowing is in principle available to all humans. It is with this conception of divinity in mind – universal causal essences ordered hierarchically towards the Good itself - that Socrates discloses the problems with Euthyphro’s fifth and final definition.43

Fifth Definition Having disappointed Socrates with his unwillingness or inability to disclose the crowning result of all divine activity, the dialogue closes with what can seem like a somewhat anticlimactic discussion of a fifth definition proposed by Euthyphro. If the fourth definition is about the hierarchical order of divine forms or essences of things as contained by the highest of these causes, the Good itself, the fifth definition serves to clarify what is the pious human attitude towards this novel concept of divine being as a principle which is as good as could be, the source of every single other good thing, a wholly self-sufficient end in itself.44 Almost as a divisionary tactic, Euthyphro proposes

43

The Good itself makes an implicit appearance in other similarly early Socratic dialogues – the first friend argument of the Lysis (219c-220b), or the question of a knower than knows itself immediately without an object other than itself from Charmides (168e-169c), for example. 44 As opposed to the earlier discussion of the divine causal essences in definitions 2-3, with the fourth definition, the examination already moves, in the word of Steven Burns, to a consideration of piety “as a virtue of persons.” See Burns (1985: 320) fn.10. 31

to Socrates that “if a man knows how to say and do what is pleasing to the gods at prayer and sacrifice, those are pious actions such as preserve both private houses and public affairs of state” (14b2-5). Socrates summarizes the definition of piety as “a knowledge of how to sacrifice and pray,” with sacrifice defined as “giving to” and prayer defined as “begging from” the gods.

While the first definitions seek to determine piety as an

activity of the gods (# 2-3), or as a relation between divine forms (# 4), this last formulation, expanding the notion of qerapei/a from the fourth definition, defines piety in terms of human attitudes and activities in relation to the gods. Thus the dialogue culminates with a reflection on what traits and actions characterize the pious person.45 This definition, framed as a “trading skill (e0mporikh/)”,46 is corrected relative to the Platonic-Socratic conception of divinity as the Good and the forms that has been disclosed by the argument to this point. On the one hand there is nothing that needs to be begged from the gods (now understood as the Good and the forms), for, as Socrates says, “What [the gods] give us is obvious to all. There is no good that we do not receive from them” (14e11-15a2). The Good produces being and intelligibility not because it is asked, but because it is its nature to do so. But how can such gods be benefited when they are as good as they can be – they cannot be improved and they lack nothing. Socrates asks: “do 45

In the light of this claim of piety’s preserving effect in human life, note that the entire dialogue is framed around two possible pollutions, one in the oikos (Euthyphro’s prosecution of his father) and one in the polis (Meletus’ prosecution of Socrates). 46 Notice that when Socrates asks whether this definition be called a form of trading skill, Euthyphro answers “if naming it in this way is more pleasant (h3dion) to you.” (14e8) For Euthyphro, as from the beginning of the dialogue, this criterion of something being pious is being perceived as good by the gods and consequently loved by them – here he imitates this criterion in discussion with Socrates. Socrates’ response is instructive – “nothing is more pleasant to me, unless it happens to be true.” (14e9) Here Socrates imitates his own conception of divinity – something is not true because it is loved, but is loved because it is true. And the love is an affection of the agent in relation to an object, not affecting the intrinsic nature of that beloved object. 32

we have such an advantage over them in the trade that we receive all our blessings from them and they receive nothing from us?”(15a3-4) What seems preposterous about characterizing our relations with the gods as a business deal is the suggestion that the relation between human and divine is one of equality, a symmetrical reciprocity. But could complete and radical asymmetry be true, where the gods (the Good and the forms) give us everything and we give them nothing in return? (“Or do we have such an advantage over them in the trade that we receive all our blessings from them and they receive nothing from us?” [15a2-4]) The gods are responsible for every good thing, and we have nothing we could ever give back even remotely commensurate. This, it seems, is in fact the character of the Platonic relation to divinity – the Good is the source of all being and intelligibility – but does not require any repayment for the generosity of its self-diffusion. This all-giving nature of divinity with no need or expectation of repayment is reflected in the very character of Socrates who uses this highest god as the model for his own activity – recall his statement: “I pour out to anybody anything I have to say, not only without charging a fee but even glad to reward anyone who is willing to listen.” What then is the proper human attitude towards the divine if the gods need nothing from us and no gift to them could be commensurate with the goods we receive from them? What are we meant to make of the gifts to the gods suggested by Euthyphro – that what we give back to the gods in return for what we receive is honour, reverence, and gratitude? Socrates takes the last of these, xa&riv (thanks or gratitude), and through a slight verbal twist, brings out how Euthyphro’s conception of divinity has not been in the least transformed through the course of the argument. He asks Euthyphro if he means

33

that the pious is pleasing (kexarisme/non) to the gods - if so, it is also beneficial (w0fe/limon) to them, and dear (fi/lon) to them. The question of usefulness or benefit to the god has been made moot by the implicit result of the fourth definition – the end towards which all divine activity is directed is goodness or the good itself, a completely self-sufficient end. Of course Euthyphro’s original answers – honour, reverence, gratitude - were not about the way the gods relate, react, or feel towards our actions – all three were ways we humans should be disposed towards these divine beings. These three ways of relating to the divine can be true, so long as they are not taken to constitute observations about the nature of the gods as needing, desiring, being pleased by these attitudes. These gods have been through the course of the argument radically de-personalized. But that a pious human attitude demands some form of honour, reverence, and gratitude for what the Good and the divine essences of things provide to us does not entail any repersonalization of these principles. Socrates, by making this shift from xa/riv to xari/zesqai toi=v qeoi=v, demonstrates how Euthyphro has remained unaffected by the argument, but not that there is not something plausible and important about the way a pious human being must show honour, reverence and thanks to the highest philosophical principles. Conclusion After the failure of the final definition, in his last words to Euthyphro, Socrates exemplifies the picture of what true piety might look like. The entire second-last paragraph is worth citing to disclose the contours of this novel, yet deeply traditional piety:

34

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. (15c11-e2) The first point to take from this is the demand that one inquire into and keep constantly before one’s mind true objects of thought, the objects sought in the dialectical quest for definitions. As Socrates said at the beginning of the dialogue, “in the past too I considered knowledge about the divine (ta_ qei=a) to be most important.” (5a5-6) The gods, understood as the good and the forms, the divine essences which are the causes of all things and the principles of understanding them, must be revered and honoured as objects of the highest concern. This attitude of reverence towards these divine truths beyond human opinion and convention is evoked in the idea of turning one’s mind to these objects – prose/xein to_n nou=n – evoked at 14d4 and 15d1-2, an expression evoking attentive devotion to the object. This devotion requires a kind of philosophical courage, not to willingly give up in the face of either failure, or opposition from the perspective of merely human opinions (Socrates will not willingly flinch [e9kw_n…ou0k a)podeilia&sw]

35

until he understands the form). That one’s chief and primary concern should be these objects, and that they should be sought out and known before acting, is what Socrates means by “fear of the gods.” The second point to take from Socrates’ statement above is that the proper relation to others follows naturally upon this primary obligation to the gods, to the forms as divine laws. Not to think someone unworthy (a)timia&sh|v) involves focusing on the truth and adequacy of what they say, and the rightness of their actions. Honouring another human being properly means not letting their words and deeds go by unexamined, prosecuting by holding them to the standard of truth and rightness in the forms as divine law, by not letting them escape like the formless Proteus into the unstable world of merely human opinions, relativity and inattention to the divine. This should be seen as a form of purification, expelling the pollution and impurity of any false opinions and evil acts opposed to divine law.47 This qerapei/a of men can happen only by recognizing the difference between the service owed to imperfect, defective beings always on their way to or away from their true good, and the service to perfect gods beyond any possible defect. Insofar as the primacy of our service to the divine is neglected, proper service to other humans is rendered impossible. This devotion to one’s interlocutor is evidenced throughout the dialogues by Socrates, who, as a lover, must pursue his beloved (14c3-5): “because I am so desirous of your wisdom, and I concentrate my mind on it, so that no word of yours may fall to the ground” (14d4-5). 47

See Versenyi, (1982: 17): “The sole function of Socratic thought is therapy. A therapy that is to begin with a therapy of thinking: a clearing up of confusion and eliminating of contradictions within our various, so often internally incoherent, beliefs and opinions; a conceptual clarification of the terms we use so thoughtlessly in everyday discourse. Its aim is a type of catharsis: a purification of concepts that cleanses our ignorance about the subjects under discussion.” 36

The total attentiveness to the divine is reflected in a total attentiveness to other human beings. In his prosecution of his father, Euthyphro accused his father of insufficient care for another human being due to excessive scrupulousness to religious obligation: [Euthyphro’s pela&thv] killed one of our household slaves in drunken anger, so my father bound him hand and foot and threw him in a ditch, then sent a man here to inquire from the priest what should be done. During that time he gave no thought or care (w)ligw&rei te kai\ h0me/lei) to the bound man, as being a killer, and it was no matter if he died, which he did. (4c5-d3) For Euthyphro, because his father, governed by a very traditional piety, neutralizes the wrongdoer and waits for the will of the gods to be made manifest though the instruction of the e0chghth/v, he neglected the human needs of Euthyphro’s dependent. In the same way, Socrates neutralizes his rash interlocutors while devoting his attention to the divine measures of human actions, until these divine laws are made manifest in human thinking, i.e. until a true definition adequate to the one form or causal essence governing sensible particulars is grasped in thought. While Euthyphro opposes this unconditional duty to the divine to the care for human beings, Socrates shows that genuine care for humans arises as a by-product of one’s unconditional devotion to the knowledge of divine forms under the form of the Good. This care for humans exhibited by Socrates should be contrasted with Euthyphro's behaviour. Rather than show his own ignorance by pursuing Socrates’ line of questioning, Euthyphro turns away (a)potre/pein) from investigation into the form of piety (14c1-3), to be compared with Socrates holding his mind towards these objects and

37

the words that strive to express them. While Socrates hangs on every single word spoken by Euthyphro, Euthyphro’s voluntarism seems to extend even to the meaning of words. When Socrates asks him if by knowledge of sacrificing and praying he means a trading skill (e0mporikh/), Euthyphro replies affirmatively, “ei0 ou3twv h93dio&n soi o0noma&zein – if so naming it is more pleasing to you” (14e8). For Socrates, what is pleasing to others is not the measure of the adequacy of words, but rather the truth itself: “Nothing is more pleasing to me, unless it happens to be true” (14e9). One cannot simply treat words carelessly, but must treat them as vehicles for the disclosure of divine truths. Finally, at the very end of the dialogue, Euthyphro is in a hurry to go away, leaving Socrates without the knowledge of piety or of divine things that he would require to defend himself from execution in his trial. To preserve his reputation and his appearance of wisdom, Euthyphro is willing to neglect working with Socrates to improve him and save him.48 In other words, by ignoring his primary duty to the true divinities, he is neglectful of his secondary obligations to other human beings. Given this Socratic re-grounding of our obligations to other human beings in our prior obligation to the divine, the dialogue’s conclusion also offers some explanation for the more conservative relation to the laws and ancestral customs exhibited by Socrates in the Crito, for example. In the absence of clear and accurate knowledge of the divine forms through definition, one should not lightly overturn or compromise ancestral

48

Socrates ends the dialogue by claiming he has been thrown down from his high hopes and abandoned by Euthyphro. The word for throwing down – katabalw&n – is the same word used for Euthyphro’s father throwing the dependent down into the ditch and abandoning him. Thus Euthyphro is guilty of the same fatal neglect for which he prosecutes his own father. [reference omitted for blind review] 38

authority.49 Without this knowledge, we can and must use the authority of law and ancestral beliefs as the grounds for our action.50 Until the time that the forms of the virtues which should form the basis of good human action are disclosed in definitions, dialectical investigation respects the authority of tradition, using it as a ground for action in the absence of clear and accurate knowledge. This ensures that one does not act according to a merely private measure, to “rashly improvise (au0tosxedia/zein) and make innovations (kainotomei=n)” about divine things (16a2).51 Socrates clearly expresses horror that one could neglect the reverence due to one’s father as the source of one’s natural and spiritual being (see 4a-b). It is shocking to him that the authority of the paternal source and ruling principle of the oikos, along with the authority of the customary views of the polis which the murder prosecution of a father overturns, could be undermined without clear and accurate knowledge of the grounds for this anticonventional act. Just as he thinks that the father is due special reverence in the oikos, the laws and customs are also due a special reverence. It is for this reason that, rather than dialectically investigating the older men and their traditional understandings, Socratic investigation focuses on the youth and their novel views. He endorses Meletus’ focus on the corruption of the youth before turning his attention their elders. In principle, Socrates agrees with the way Meletus is proceeding, if only he were serious about his charges. For the charges of corruption emerge out of a concern or care 49

See 4e4-9: “you think that your knowledge of the divine, and of piety and impiety, is so accurate that, when those things happened as you say, you have no fear of having acted impiously in bringing your father to trial.” 50 That these have survived in being handed down to us suggests perhaps that the source of their stability could be conformity with the divine will – or compatibility with the Good and the forms beyond human convention. 51 See also 5a7-8, where Socrates says he is accused of improvising and innovating about divine matters: “…au0tosxedia&zonta&…kai\ kainotomou=nta peri\ tw~n qei/wn.” 39

that the young be as good as possible (2d1-3a5), while the charge of impiety is laid for the sake of the old gods (3b1-4). But without investigating the essential, divine truth about what the gods are, what the good of a human being is, or what is the best way for humans to relate to the gods, Meletus cannot claim that he knows what true piety is, or what real corruption is. As Socrates shows in his cross-examination of Meletus at the trial (Apology 24c-28a), Meletus is acting based on purely human opinion, without the slightest attention to the divine truth of the grounds for his prosecution. By the argument of the Euthyphro, both Meletus and Euthyphro are convicted of impiety, insofar as they refuse to investigate the divine truth beyond human opinions when the actions which result from these unexamined opinions are of such a serious nature. In contrast, when the gods are shown to have the nature of the forms, the Socratic dialectical quest for a definition adequate to these divine measures as the prior grounds for human action should be seen as traditionally pious activity, analogous to Euthyphro’s father’s consultation of the divine will while neutralizing the wrongdoer. It is a recovery of the traditional radical subordination of human concerns to the divine will which has been lost in the actions of a Euthyphro or a Meletus. Philosophy involves this radical subordination of the human to the gods who govern all our thinking and action. It is true that the Socratic stance undermines prophetic modes of subordination to the divine, where the divine will is essentially mysterious but immediately accessible to the prophetic few. In its place, human rationality, through devotion to the dialectical search for definition, has access to these self-manifesting divinities. But this is not the collapse of the divine-human distinction, but rather a re-affirmation of the traditional separation, with a rationally accessible mediation which demands a pious reverence to these supra-

40

human principles. Taylor’s view, that moral virtue is directly identified with service to the gods in Euthyphro, cannot stand.52 Moral virtue follows upon but is not constitutive of true piety. Piety is the attitude of theoretical reverence toward the forms in the light of the good, and as such makes possible virtuous activity in our relations with other humans, since humans can be then improved rather than corrupted when measured according to human opinions but a divine law. Versenyi offers a possible criticism of the kind of view I am presenting. Insofar as the gods become objects of thought and piety is redefined as a philosophical orientation to these objects, Versenyi argues that the gods become superfluous, replaced by a human reason which has become deified – a view suggested by Anderson’s claim that it is thinking inquiry or dialectic which “has by the end of the dialogue taken on a number of deific characteristics.”53 For Versenyi, a consequence of this view is that “any reference to the gods in the definition of piety becomes entirely gratuitous,”54 and “the gods become a mere surrogate for rationality.”55 Essential to the idea of religion and piety, Versenyi argues, is some notion of heteronomy, being legislated by something other than oneself, but the interpretation Versenyi criticizes apparently ascribes to Plato a “quasi-Kantian restoration of the autonomy of human reason.”56 But on the interpretation I have presented, there is a fundamental heteronomy in Plato’s view. The divine nomoi of the forms and the Good are wholly other than and prior to any human thinking. While it is true that these principles are essentially accessible to human thinking as the objects 52

“True hosiotēs, the real service of the gods, turns out to be nothing other than aretē itself.” Taylor (2008: 67). 53 Anderson, (1967: 5). 54 Versenyi (1982: 107). 55 Versenyi (1982: 108). 56 Versenyi (1982: 108). 41

towards which all philosophical thinking strives, these objects are given, not made. It is not “more a relationship between equals than one of subordinates to superiors.”57 Rather, our relation to the divine is a relation to perfect divine forms, while our relation to equals is a relation to imperfect beings on the way towards or away from these perfect measures. Our care for imperfect human beings must be founded on the prior and more primary relationship to divinity. This devotion to and reverence for this philosophically purified conception of the divine is thus at once revolutionary (which Socrates himself recognizes – see 6a6-9) and profoundly traditional. It is the perspective of those who allow either their own private opinions or purely human concerns to guide their actions, as if nothing were simply divinely given and every meaning were created by us, the perspective exemplified by Meletus and Euthyphro, which runs against traditional Greek piety in a more profound way. In a sense, the whole dialogue is an answer to the opening question of the dialogue – ti/ new&teron – what is more new? While Socrates will be executed for theological novelty, it is the unphilosophical rashness of Euthyphro and Meletus that truly innovates. Socrates both restores and preserves the traditionally pious devotion to the divine through his philosophical devotion to divine causes which transcend human power.

57

Versenyi (1982: 109).

42

Works Cited Allen, R.E. Plato’s ‘Euthyphro’ and the Earlier Theory of Forms. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970. Anderson, D. “Socrates’ Concept of Piety.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 5 (1967), 1-13. Bodéüs, Richard. Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Immortals. Trans. Jan Garrett. Albany: SUNY, 2000. Burns, S. “Doing Business with the Gods.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 15 (1985), 311-326. Cooper, J.M. (ed.) and Hutchinson, D.S (assoc. ed.). Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997. Emlyn-Jones, C. Plato’s Euthyphro. London: Duckworth, 2007. Heidel, W.A. “On Plato’s Euthyphro.” Transactions of the American Philological Society 31 (1900), 164-181. Kidd, I.G. “The Case of Homicide in Plato’s Euthyphro.” In Owls to Athens: Essays on Classical Subjects Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover, ed. E.M. Clark. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. McPherran, M. The Religion of Socrates. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. Plato. “Euthyphro.” In Plato: Complete Works. Ed. J. M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis: Hackett) 1997. Rabbås, Øyvind. “Piety as a Virtue in Euthyphro.” Ancient Philosophy 25 (2005), 291318. Rabinowitz, W.G. “Platonic Piety: An Essay Towards the Solution of an Enigma.” Phronesis 3 (1958), 108-120. Taylor, C.C.W. “The End of Euthyphro.” In Pleasure, Mind, and Soul: Selected Papers in Ancient Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Versényi, L. Holiness and Justice: An Interpretation of Plato’s Euthyphro. Washington: University Press of America, 1982.

43