Ancient Philosophy Instructor: Jason Sheley
Plato's Euthyphro
I am going to suggest a way of reading the Euthyphro and Crito in relation to the Republic and Plato's other works. First, both dialogues are Socratic in nature. That is, the investigation is done in a Socratic style, and achieves Socratic results. Second, each raises issues that will reappear in other dialogues, using different methods, reaching different results.
Reading Plato One of the things I love most about Plato is that he does not do the thinking for you. When you read one dialogue, you may think you know what it's about and what conclusions you should draw. However, sometimes you notice that the dialogue no longer makes sense when you compare it to a different one.
Euthyphro The meeting between the two characters, Socrates and Euthyphro, is quite interesting. On the one hand, we have Socrates who is notorious for testing people publicly. This was quite new to the Athenians, and we today probably wouldn t like it much if someone did it to us. (Imagine that you re at a dinner party, and someone suddenly takes it upon himself to test you on the very thing you claim to be an expert in.)
On the other hand, we have Euthyphro, who really reminds us of someone who might show up on a light-night psychic television commercial. He claims to have thorough and exact knowledge of all sorts of divine matters. Naturally, then, he is just sort of person who Socrates wants to test (as we saw in Apology).
Is this pitch a ball or a strike? Controversial Cases
Controversial Cases How do we solve controversial cases? Can you think of any? Does the problem ever go away?
Some further cases... http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/ 2013/10/18/237103122/scout-leaders-whotoppled-ancient-rock-may-face-charges
Is this valuable? Why or why not?
Philosophical Problems Philosophical problems arise because of the reasons we accept in favor or against some position. Typically, we know that we ve found a good problem when the usual answers we give seem to pose further problems of their own.
What is truth? What makes something true? But compare: What makes something moral? Immoral? What makes something valuable?
A note on the case at hand: Euthyphro is prosecuting his own father for murder. Notice that, even today, this would be extraordinary. (In Ancient Athenian society, this would have been nearly unheard of.)
The Question: What is piety? (hosion) Socrates wants an answer to this question, because he has been brought up on charges of impiety. And if he has the definition, it will help him make his case stronger Having the concept of piety will also help clear up the controversy.
Euthyphro s three proposed definitions: Definition #1: What I am doing now is pious. (What is wrong with this as a definition?)
Definition #2: What the gods love is pious (What s wrong with this one?)
We get a bridge to the larger problem at 7b-7d...
The Problem is much more widespread and deeper than it first appears. I'm going to suggest that the Euthyphro problem is not only a problem about Piety. We can think of the Gods like "umpires" or "referees." This problem pops up in any domain in which judgment is at issue: art, ethics, even knowledge. How do we use judgment to resolve disagreement?
Definition #3: What all the gods love is pious piety = what all the gods love
What follows is one of the most famous passages in Plato, and indeed in all of philosophy Socrates notes that the definition as stated is ambiguous. How is it ambiguous? How does Socrates restate the definition?
Socrates: Consider this: Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?
Two Possible Definitions Possibility #1 The Gods love the pious because it s pious Possibility #2 The pious is pious because the Gods love it
Now, let s see what follows, if we take either approach...
(Might also add that Socrates isn t satisfied with this analysis, since we assume at the outset that piety and being loved by the Gods are not the same thing. So the definition is problematic because it is uninformative.) If the pious is pious because it is loved by the Gods then Gods loving something is the reason for it being called pious. So whenever all of the Gods love something, that thing is thereby pious. So piousness and being loved by the Gods become the same thing. However, we still do not know why the Gods love the pious action. So, the account of piety is arbitrary: any action could be loved by the Gods, and thus become pious.
(Might also add that Socrates isn t satisfied with this analysis, since we assume at the outset that piety and being loved by the Gods are not the same thing. So the definition is problematic because it is uninformative.)
If the pious is loved by the Gods because it is pious then the reason why the Gods love the pious is that it possesses a particular quality: piousness. However, we still do not know what the quality of piousness is. (That is, we still need a definition) And, moreover, this quality is independent of the Gods. So this gives us a reason to investigate what the quality is, independently of the Gods.
At this point, let s take stock. Do you agree more with one position than the other? (That is, do you think, for example, that something is beautiful because it has a quality, or do you think it is beautiful because people think it is?)
Thought Experiment Suppose (sadly) that the zombie apocalypse hits. In an art museum is the Mona Lisa. According to Plato s argument in Euthyphro, is the painting still beautiful? What analysis does each option yield?
Plato leaves us with two options...
Do we ever make progress in Philosophy? What would progress look like?
The left-hand option is relativism. The right-hand option is something like a placeholder concept: "whatever F turns out to be" What drives Plato forward is various attempts to do the following: 1) Find the answer to the placeholder. 2) Find a means of getting us to it. (To put it another way, find the destination, and find a road to it.) We have already seen one way that Plato tried to fill in the placeholder: the theory of Forms.
Let's explore some further problems with each alternative...
Realism
#1) Oh, Form, where art thou? If there are mindindependent Forms, as Plato suggested, where are they? For example, the umpire finds the strike zone. But does that mean it is located in space?
#2: Strange independence If the Form is completely independent of our judgment, it would still exist even when no one is looking. Does that mean that the strike zone exists in stadiums even when everyone leaves the stadium?
#3: Practice, practice, practice? Do people consult mindindependent forms even when they perform activities? For example, think of a doctor as a kind of umpire. Does the doctor consult the form of HEALTH while performing surgery?
Relativism Man is the measure of all things. Of all those that are, that they are. Of all those that are not, that they are not. -Protagoras Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight was ever made.
#1: Disagreement? One of the biggest problems with this sort of relativism is that it completely removes the possibility of disagreement. Disagreement implies that there is a way of continuing the search for the truth.
#2: Keep an open mind We sometimes like to say that we should keep an open mind. Relativism prevents, rather than encourages this. For example, suppose that you change your mind about something. There is no way to say that your judgment improved, or to say that you were mistaken before.
#3: It was, until it wasn t Similar problems ensue for changes over time. Is society getting better? Getting worse? The concept of better or worse implies that there is a standard against which we can measure. With Relativism, we can only say that the view changed.
#4: Arbitrary shifts Plato already mentioned this one. If a change in judgment occurs, we are not able to say why it occurred. Only that it did.
#5: Arbitrary shifts, and Authority Relativism does not occur in a vacuum. Perhaps it does not matter much about things like Crocs or movies or art. However, Relativism can be a dangerous tool in the hands of power. (Sadly, Power is not relative.) Example: I hereby declare that everyone receives an F. The problem of Procrustean Standards
Plato leaves us only two options. How would we build a third alternative?
What is art? Now let s take up our second problem. What is art? Or, to put it another way, what makes something a work of art? First, let s ask around, and see what different people think...
Theories of Art: Three Approaches Approach #1: Realism On this approach, aesthetic quality is an absolute value that is independent of any human view. (What would this view imply about most paintings? Suppose that all human beings became zombies...) (Note: these distinctions are found in Richard Wollheim s book, Art and its Objects)
Approach #2: Relativism On this approach, art has no absolute value. Instead, the value art has depends on, and varies with, the experiences that different humans have. (Note: we could vary this view, and say that the relativism works either according to culture, or to the individual.) Let s take up our zombie case one more time...
Approach #3: Objectivism On this approach, art has an absolute value. However, that value is ultimately dependent on general human experience. (Let s go back to our painting in the zombie world. What does this theory say about this case?)
A related topic one could take up: how to define what Art is What the F do we want out of a good definition, anyway? http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/artdefinition/ Wittgenstein s counterproposal to Socrates account of definitions: http://users.rcn.com/rathbone/ lw65-69c.htm