In the Euthyphro, Socrates is the protagonist of the story and has been charged with impiety and corrupting the youths of Athens. While he going to court, he meets Euthyphro, who has charged his father with murder. Euthyphro is a self-proclaimed expert in all things that deal with holy matters. He says that, unlike most people, he has "exact knowledge" of the views of the gods on what is pious and impious (top of page 9). As was his nature, Socrates feigns his own ignorance when he questions Euthyphro on his expertise in holy matters, in the ruse of getting help for his own upcoming trial. Socrates is a master at getting people to expose their “expert knowledge” of a subject by simply asking moral questions. The concept of holiness is prominent because of the matter at hand. Euthyphro has charged his father with manslaughter. After learning of Euthyphro’s suit, Socrates begins to ask Euthyphro a series of questions in which he asks Euthyphro to define for him what piety is because he feels that this may be an impious thing.…
The purpose of this study is to understand the feeding rate of Daphnia magna. D. magna is a species of Daphnia that belongs to the suborder Cladocera (Ebert, 2005). They live in freshwater and feed on small, suspended particles in the water. They are filter feeders. Phyllopods, which are leaf-like appendages, provide a filtering apparatus for the collection of food. These structures beat to produce a constant current of water, allowing particles to be filtered by fine setae on the thoracic legs. The particles are then transferred to their mouth groove to be ingested. D. magna typically feed on planktonic algae (Ebert, 2005). The following experiment uses algae to test what affects the feeding rate of D. magna. The rate of filtration is dependent on multiple factors including temperature, food density, body size, and water pH.…
This reading is so confusing, I read it three times and still have some confusion about the Socrates statements. Basically, it is a conversation or arguments between Socrates and Euthyphro. Socrates is in the court because a man whose name is Meletus prosecuted him about corrupting the youth. Therefore, Euthyphro is in the court to prosecute his father for the murder of the servant. It is not proven that his father is killer but Euthyphro is trying to get justice on behalf of the servant. Euthyphro thinks that a person has to pay if he/she does something impiety. Euthyphro explains that piety is something the dear to god and impiety is the thing that you do and god does not like. Euthyphro is trying to explain Socrates that he has knowledge…
How does Socrates explain the nature of piety (holiness)? In Euthyphro, Socrates tries to make Euthyphro understand the nature of piety without reference to God or religion. Socrates does this by asking Euthyphro whether piety “is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved”. Socrates is going about this using metaethical inquiry.…
To better clarify his question, Socrates makes an analogy; “a thing is not seen because it is visible, but conversely visible because it is seen” (15). Socrates later makes a distinction between being approved and getting approved; something is being approved because it gets approved, not the other way around. According to Euthyphro, something gets approved by the gods because it is holy and not the other way around; it is not holy because it gets approved by the gods. Furthermore, because it gets approved it is being approved, therefore it is something that is approved by the gods. Nonetheless, from this you can distinguish, that what is holy is something different from what is approved of by the gods. Something holy gets approved because it is holy, and something that is being approved by the gods is being approved of because it gets approved. If what is being approved of by the gods were the same thing as what is holy, and if what is holy gets approved because it is holy, then what is being approved of by the gods would get approved because it is being approved of, when in fact the opposite is true. On the other hand, if we accept that what is being approved of is being approved of because it gets approved, then the holy, too, would have to…
This discussion wraps around the reason Socrates is on trial and his standing on piety in which he wishes not to follow. When speaking to Euthyphro, Socrates uses this moment to help himself understand what the meaning of piety is to himself and emits to Euthyphro that he does not know.…
Euthyphro is a priest, a specialist in religious matters and claiming his highly science. His official role in the city is to examine the merits of the charges as those against Socrates. For a long time it was considered that this soothsayer embodied religious orthodoxy, popular traditional religious beliefs and Plato wanted to show that such a representative was unable to define piety, and thus prevent that Socrates was condemned for impiety. Socrates victim zealots of traditional religion. This thesis has been criticized in the early 20th century and has emerged a very different interpretation that reigned supreme for seventy years: Euthyphro would rather eccentric, fanatic distinguishing clearly the average religiosity of its citizens ...…
Piety, says Euthyphro, is what all the gods love, and the impious is what all the gods hate. Socrates is not satisfied by this definition, either, and so he tries a different tack to extract a definition from Euthyphro. Socrates does this by asking: “Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?” When Euthyphro seems unsure, Socrates simplifies his question with an analogy. He asks Euthyphro if something is “carried” because it is “a thing carried,” or if it is “carried” because something is carrying it. Both men agree that the action confers the state of being. That is, a thing loved is so because someone loves it, and the thing itself is not creating a state of “loving” within the people around it. Likewise, being loved is not a state inherent to the thing loved, but is the result of the love others bear for the thing. Moving from his analogy back to Euthyphro’s definition, Socrates shows the fallacy in Euthyphro’s statement. Being god-loved cannot confer piety, as it confers “god-loved-ness” instead. Therefore, in Euthyphro’s statement, all the gods loving something would make that thing universally god-loved, but in no way makes it pious. An act is loved by the gods because it is pious, and not the other way…
In the writing called Euthyphro by Plato, Socrates is being charged with corrupting the youth and not believing in all of the Gods. He is being accused of this by a man named Meletus who feels as though he is guilty of not believing in the Gods of the states. Not only does he not believe in the Gods but he is accused of making up new ones. The crimes that he is being charged with go hand in hand with each other but he maintains his innocence because he feels he isn’t guilty. While on the other hand Euthyphro is prosecuting his father and indicting him for murder. Morally Euthyphro feels as though it’s the right thing to do and his family doesn’t agree only because it’s his father. In this essay I will summarize the dialogue and its message relating to piety/holiness.…
Plato's dialog called Euthyphro is about a discussion that took place between Socrates and Euthyphro concerning the meaning of piety, or one's duty to both gods and to humanity. Socrates has recently been charged with impiety and is about to be tried before the Athenian court while Euthyphro is on trial for murder. Because Socrates knew that the Athenian people did not understand the meaning of piety, Socrates asks Euthyphro to answer the question "What is piety?" He wants to see if Euthyphro is as wise as he claims to be, and if he is not, Socrates will debunk his claim.…
One of the major themes that Socrates heavily focused on in his speech was the philosophical ideas of wisdom and a description of Socrates’ own wisdom as well. Older accusers had allegedly claimed that Socrates did not believe in gods, and instead would try to explain phenomenons through physical explanations instead, as well as the fact that Socrates would teach others how to make a weak argument triumph a stronger one by using clever rhetorics. In Socrates’ defense, he has stated that he does not have any kind of competence and expertise in any of these areas. This statement truly divides Socrates from sophists and even Presocratics, as teachers that each belong to these organizations assert that only through experience and examination they can gain…
His views are rather romantic with a nostalgic perspective. Socrates is not skeptical unlike sophist philosophers of his age. He reasons, however, with a firm belief in his own conception of this world which is a projection of a higher world of ideas functioning in harmony. He believes that gods are just (Plato, 29). Homer's Iliad on the other hand states otherwise, portraying gods are cruel and jelous. Therefore, Socrates thinks within his own ideology. He tries to impose his ideology to Thrasymachus who never disagrees with him at all. For example, in Socrates' opinion, injustice causes civil strife, antagonism and disorder while justice brings friendship and a sense of common purpose. However, in a World which does not precisely regulate the terms of justice or injustice, Thrasymachus' view that justice always looks to the advantage of the stronger makes more sense. Thrasymachus' claims are based on his own experience of Ancient Greek life while Socrates' statements hardly related to the realities of the life surrounding him. He is blinded by what he firmly believes. He is trying to adjust the common realities of the society to his own ideology. Altough he is able to convince Thrasymachus at the end, what he does during this process is misleading. Thrasymachus seems to be an agent for Socrates to express his ideology in a dialogue for.…
While there are varying characterizations and notions about what constitutes piety, in Euthyphro by Plato, an attempt is made to formulate an ultimate definition for what is pious and what is impious. According to Euthyphro, the most reasonable explanation of piety is tending to the gods, showing reverence and respect for them, or ultimately, doing anything benefitting to the gods. Piety can be narrowed down into simpler terms; it consists of everything that all the gods love, while impiety is everything that all the gods hate. Socrates emphasizes the belief…
Socrates did not participate in societies worship towards the Gods, and the people of Athens were furious in result. The jurors were already influenced on what they thought of Socrates before these actions took place. They had already considered Socrates a fool because of the Euthyphro case where they had debated about holiness. In the debate you could notice how he asks a lot of questions and the amount of arrogance he uses. Not to mention the sophists who were also against Socrates because he believed that what they did by tutoring others to argue and spin words without any foundation was useless. “Socrates is guilty of corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in supernatural things of his own invention instead of the Gods recognized by the State” (Plato 48). The jurors were not happy with the fact that Socrates did not believe in the Gods they believed in. Socrates states that he teaches people to believe in some Gods, which implies that he is not completely atheist but still does not believe in the same Gods recognized by State.…
SOCRATES, one of those who sought to develop a more consistent and purer concept of god, but he paid the price of a pioneer in that the masses misunderstood him. He was considered as the destroyer of the gods of the Greeks. He maintained that the centrality of the real essence of man and individual is not only its acceptance of the different gods but the real understanding of one’s relationship with others in a rational manner. This implies a rational knowledge with all its capabilities within the realm of knowledge – the highest god, thus, the nature and conceptualization of god, for him, is the actual understanding of knowledge which one god. For Socrates, is something that can be reached through knowing and knowledge that the individual can possess?…