Euthyphro
Euthyphro tells Socrates that he is going to court himself to prosecute his father for binding a worker in chains and leaving him to die.
Euthyphro has come to present charges of murder against his own father who, after arresting one of his workers (Thetes) for killing a slave from the family estate on Naxos Island, tied him and threw him in a ditch where he died of exposure to the elements (3e–4d) while Euthyphro's father waited to hear from the exegetes (cf.
Socrates is astonished by Euthyphro's confidence in being able to prosecute his own father for the serious charge of manslaughter, despite the fact that Athenian Law allows only relatives of the dead man to file suit for murder (Dem.
Euthyphro dismisses the astonishment of Socrates, which confirms his overconfidence in his own critical judgment of religious and ethical matters.
[3] Because he is facing a formal charge of impiety, Socrates expresses the hope to learn from Euthyphro, all the better to defend himself in the trial, as he himself is being accused of religious transgressions.
From the perspective of some Athenians, Socrates expressed skepticism of the accounts about the Greek gods, which he and Euthyphro briefly discuss, before proceeding to the main argument of their dialogue: the definition of "piety".
After claiming to know and be able to tell more astonishing divine stories, Euthyphro spends little time and effort defending the conventional Greek view of the gods.
Therefore, from his dialogue with Euthyphro, Socrates received nothing helpful to his defense against a formal charge of impiety (15c ff.).
The purpose of establishing a clear definition is to provide a basis for Euthyphro to teach Socrates the answer to the question: "What is piety?"
Ostensibly, the purpose of the dialogue is to provide Socrates with a definitive meaning of "piety", with which he can defend against the charge of impiety in the pending trial.
(6e–7a) Socrates applauds this definition, because it is expressed in a general form, but criticizes it saying that the gods disagree among themselves as to what is pleasing.
Euthyphro argues against Socrates' criticism, by noting that not even the gods would disagree, among themselves, that someone who kills without justification should be punished.
At that juncture of their dialogue, Euthyphro does not understand what makes his definition of "piety" a circular argument; he agrees with Socrates that the gods like an action because it is pious.
Socrates' argument is convoluted not only because of its structure but because of the language used, and is said to have "reduced translators to babble and driven commentators to despair".
(13c) In turn, Euthyphro responds that "looking after" involves service to others, and Socrates asks: What is the end product of piety?
He proposes the notion of piety as a form of knowledge, of how to do exchange: Giving gifts to the gods, and asking favours in return.
(14e) Socrates presses Euthyphro to say what benefit the gods perceive from human gifts – warning him that "knowledge of exchange" is a type of commerce.
The dialogue has come full circle, and Euthyphro leaves Socrates without a clear definition of "piety" as he faces a trial for impiety (ἀσέβεια asebeia).
This dialogue is notable for containing one of the few surviving fragments of the poet Stasinus, a relative of Homer and author of the lost work Cypria.
In the early 3rd century BC, the Epicurean Metrodorus of Lampsacus wrote a pamphlet titled Against the Euthyphro which is now lost.
[10] He also claimed that after the events of this dialogue, Euthyphro was persuaded not to prosecute his father though that is not supported by any of Plato's own writings.
[11][12] In the surviving fragment of On Plato's Secret Doctrines by Numenius of Apamea he suggests that the character of Euthyphro was entirely fictitious and represented the Athenian popular religion.
[13] He reasoned that Plato had to criticize the Athenian religion in dialogue form rather than directly attacking it in order to avoid being executed like Socrates himself.
