Plato 3: Power Sharing

[koganbot]

Euthyphro

Question here is "What is piety?" (my translator Fowler tending to use "piety" or "holiness" interchangeably, whereas the translator used in class tends to stick with "piety"); the dialogue ends inconclusively, the point being that you shouldn't smugly think you know what something such as piety is unless you've given it a lot of thought, and the dialogue is an example of how to go about thinking.

The question is of interest to Socrates not just for its own sake but because he's about to go on trial for his life, one of the accusations being impiety, so it would help to have an idea of what piety is when he faces his accusers. Euthyphro, though certain that he already knows, turns out to be of no help in the matter and ultimately begs out of the conversation.

A basic question that Socrates asks but I think ends up sidestepping: Is something (some behavior) holy because the gods love it, or do they love it because it's holy?

I see this as a question about authority. Is something holy on authority of the gods, or is holiness holy on its own authority? And on what authority or whose authority can we say what holiness is? 2,400 years later, such questions still seem like good ones;* that is, not easy to answer, though looking back 2,400 years (how time flies when you're doing philosophy!), I think Plato is asking them wrong, or is asking the wrong questions. He's far too either/or in the choices he give us and is wrong to think that the question of authority needs or can get a general, universal answer.

Socrates: We speak of being carried and of carrying, of being led and of leading, of being seen and of seeing; and you understand - do you not? - that in all such expressions the two parts differ one from the other in meaning and how they differ.

Euthyphro: I think I understand.

Socrates: Then, too, we conceive of a thing being loved and of a thing loving, that the two are different?

This actually sets the conversation going in a poor way, from which it never recovers, the difficulty being that it leaves out a third possibility, that something is visible yet unseen owing to no one having yet looked. And furthermore, the question as to whether a loved thing deserves to be loved doesn't really get posed in this framework, even though that's a question that Socrates seems to be raising in regard to piety.

Here's Socrates' argument at length

Socrates: We speak of being carried and of carrying, of being led and of leading, of being seen and of seeing; and you understand - do you not? - that in all such expressions the two parts differ one from the other in meaning and how they differ.

Euthyphro: I think I understand.

Socrates: Then, too, we conceive of a thing being loved and of a thing loving, that the two are different?

Euthyphro: Of course.

Socrates: Now tell me, is a thing which is being carried a carried thing because one carries it, or for some other reason?

Euthyphro: No, for that reason.

Socrates: And a thing which is being led is led because one leads it, and a thing which is seen is so because one sees it?

Euthyphro: Certainly.

Socrates: Then one does not see it because it is a seen thing, but, on the contrary, it is a seen thing because one sees it; and one does not lead it because it is a led thing, but it is a led thing because one leads it; and does not carry it because it is a carried thing but because one carries it. Is it clear Euthyphro, what I am trying to say? I am trying to say this, that if anything becomes or undergoes, it does not become because it is in a state of becoming, but it is in a state of becoming because it becomes, and it does not undergo because it is a thing which undergoes, but because it undergoes it is a thing which undergoes; or do you not agree to this?

Euthyphro: I agree.

Socrates: Is not that which is beloved a thing which is either becoming or undergoing something?

Euthyphro: Certainly.

Socrates: And is this case like the former ones; those who love it do not love it because it is a beloved thing, but it is a beloved thing because they love it?

Euthyphro: Obviously.

Socrates: Now what do you say about that which is holy, Euthyphro? It is loved by all the gods, is it not, according to what you said?

Euthyphro: Yes.

Socrates: For this reason, because it is holy, or for some other reason?

Euthyphro: No, for this reason.

Socrates: Is it loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved?

Euthyphro: I think so.

Socrates: But that which is dear to the gods is dear to them and beloved by them because they love it.

Euthyphro: Of course.

Socrates: Then that which is dear to the gods and that which is holy are not identical, but differ one from the other.

Euthyphro: How so, Socrates?

Socrates: Because we are agreed that the holy is loved because it is holy and that it is not holy because it is loved; are we not?

Euthyphro: Yes.

Socrates: But we are agreed that what is dear to the gods is dear to them because they love it, that is, by reason of this love, not that they love it because it is dear.

Euthyphro: Very true.

Socrates: But if that which is dear to the gods and that which is holy were identical, my dear Euthyphro, then if the holy were loved because it is holy, that which is dear to the gods would be loved because it is dear, and if that which is dear to the gods is dear because it is loved, then that which is holy would be holy because it is loved; but now you see the opposite is the case, showing that the two are entirely different from each other. For the one becomes lovable from the fact that it is loved, whereas the other is loved because it is itself lovable. And, Euthyphro, it seems that when you were asked what holiness is you were unwilling to make plain its essence, but you mentioned something that has happened to this holiness, namely that it is loved by the gods. But you did not tell as yet what it really is.

*Except we're likely to ask the question in regard to "value" rather than "piety": is something valuable because we value it or do we value it because it's valuable?

Comments

[koganbot]

The crucial bad assumption here is that either something is essential to holiness or something happens to holiness but that the latter can never contribute to the former so there is no middle ground. However, I see plenty of middle ground; for instance, we could argue that the essence of, say, parenthood is to care for one's children, but we - or I, anyway - would have no problem acknowledging that for this caring to occur you have to first undergo something; that is, you have to adopt or give birth to a child, and furthermore that this giving birth or adopting helps create the caring; that is, the urge and the obligation to take care of the child come in part because it is your child, and social mores and social roles also help create the urges and the obligations. So the nurturing that is the essence of parenthood need not stand free from the people and the society that give birth to the nurturing. Ditto for the people, societies, gods that give birth to piety. But I doubt that Plato was ever confronted with such an argument. And he would have bridled at the contention that piety is something that is given birth to, rather than something that's set for eternity. But that's my point: these are assumptions he simply makes without arguing for them, that an essence can't be contingent on the world that surrounds it and that something like piety must be set for eternity. And of course I in the 21st century would argue that we should drop such assumptions, and when we do a lot of Plato's questions simply disappear. (But as I said up top, there can be good questions in the vicinity of the ones that Plato poses, even if Plato poses the wrong ones.)

This passage here seems really weak:

Socrates: Now what do you say about that which is holy, Euthyphro? It is loved by all the gods, is it not, according to what you said?

Euthyphro: Yes.

Socrates: For this reason, because it is holy, or for some other reason?

Euthyphro: No, for this reason.

Socrates: Is it loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved?

Euthyphro: I think so.

Socrates is asking the basic question, but he makes no argument for his answer; instead, he simply gives it to us. I think that Socrates and Euthyphro (and Plato) feel that the answer should be "loved because it's holy" - and if those are the only two choices, that's the way I'd lean, that there's something intuitive in thinking, at the least, that something isn't holy merely because the gods love it. But in making no argument, Plato evades what I think is the most interesting question: on whose authority or what authority is something holy (or valuable, or lovable)?

[koganbot]

One could say (or Socrates/Plato would probably say), (1) our saying that the gods love what is holy does not tell us what holiness is, whereas (2) if we know what holiness is we will know what the gods love in the things they consider holy, so therefore we will know why they love it. I agree with (1) but I find (2) to be a problem, so I'm looking at this in more detail.

Go back to where Socrates is saying that one does not carry something because it is a carried thing, but rather it is a carried thing because one carries it; one does not lead it because it is a led thing, but rather it is a led thing because one leads it; one does not see it because it is a seen thing, but rather it is a seen thing because one sees it; and those who love something do not love it because it is a beloved thing, but rather it is a beloved thing because they love it.

Now it's a trivial point to say that one would not carry something that they could not lift, and that there can be liftable things that no one has bothered to carry; maybe slightly less trivial to say that some things are leadable but no one has bothered to lead them; less trivial still to say that something is visible but no one has seen it because no one has taken the trouble to look; and not at all trivial to say that someone is lovable but no one with the ability to appreciate her has taken notice yet. And someone isn't likely to carry something merely because it can be carried; but someone might well lead someone because he wants followers (hence the follower is being led, at least in part, because he's leadable); someone might well see something in part because it's visible (think of this analogy: someone might see the point of an argument because it's clear, and seek out similar such arguments, if clarity is what she wants). And most certainly some guy might love someone who is lovable and also because he wants somebody to love. And the question "Is she loved because he loves her or because she's lovable?" seems wide open. So, if the question goes, "Is something beloved because it's a loved thing, or is it a loved thing because someone loves it?" the answer is clearly "because someone loves it." But if we phrase the question "Is something beloved because it's lovable, or is it lovable because it's beloved?" the answer isn't at all clear, yet we've been using the verb "love" and the adjective "lovable" for centuries without wanting or needing a definitive answer to this question.

[koganbot]

one would not carry something that they could not lift

Having trouble figuring out whether I'm participating in unity, duality, or plurality.

One could not carry something that he or she could not lift.

[koganbot]

As I've said, all Plato has shown us is that something isn't holy merely because the gods love it. But he hasn't even asked the more general question, "Is X beloved because it's lovable, or is it lovable because it's beloved?" He's merely given the first answer for "piety" and implied that the second answer goes for most other beloved things, without being at all clear to himself that this is what he's done or why he's done it.

Let's ask the question "Do we value something because it's valuable, or is it valuable because people value it?" The answer here seems open, depending on circumstances, though my guess is that in the current usage of "value" and "love" the answer here might lean a bit more towards "we value it because it's valuable" whereas with "beloved" and "lovable" we'll lean more towards "she's loved because someone loves her." "She's lovable, but no one loves her" may be rare but is hardly impossible, and "her ideas are valuable but no one values them" seems likely enough. We give love to the lovers a bit more than we give value to the valuers, but in each case we'll go both ways: "Her ideas are valuable but no one values them" implies "No one but me." "Her ideas might be valuable, but so far no one (including me and including herself) values them." "She might be lovable, but so far no one (including me and including herself) loves her." The "including herself" seems more plausible in regard to "love" than to "value," but both are plausible, and the romances promise that there's someone out there who will love her, someone with the eyes to truly see her. And as for something being valuable because people value it, would oxygen be valued if we didn't need to breathe it? Would Hello Kitty merchandise be valuable to a store owner if no one valued it enough to buy it? (Ricardo and Marx to thread.)

Anyway, not to kowtow to standard usage, but dividing the power, as it were, between the lover and the beloved, the valuer and the thing valued, is more functional than to give all the power to one side or the other. Dividing the power allows us to disagree with one another as to what we value and why and to differentiate ourselves individually and socially on the basis of these disagreements, but not to the extent that we abandon the idea that some of us are more perceptive than others or that we ourselves could become more perceptive than we are.

But I suspect that what I find flexible and functional Plato finds problematic (and what Plato would find definitive, I would find dysfunctional).

So I wonder if I really can be a philosopher - is philosophy possible if you don't find such division of power problematic? Can you be a philosopher if, like me, you find such a sliding division of power between the valuer and the thing being valued useful and not at all a problem? By saying that I don't find it problematic I don't mean it's never a problem how much power should be granted to the valuer and how much to the thing being valued - in fact, such questions are usually in play - but that I think there's no general answer to the question, hence no way for philosophy to help answer the questions when they arise. But this doesn't mean that there are only specific answers in specific instances; the instances and therefore the answers hardly exist in isolation from each other; they act as models or precedents for each other.

[koganbot]

Euthyphro starts with Euthyphro giving a specific instance of what is holy (he's prosecuting his own father for murder, and it is holy for him to do this, to not give his father special treatment but make him subject to the same laws as everyone else), but Socrates says that this instance doesn't tell us what the essence of holiness is. But being a modern, I don't see an either/or between instances and essences.

Another thing about the dialogue, though, is that underneath what I'm calling the issue of authority (on whose authority is something holy, the gods or the essence of holiness itself?) there's another, implied, issue of authority: what right does Socrates have to incite us to think about such things?

The dialogue continues with holiness then being seen as a kind of service to the gods, and I think Socrates and Plato would assent to this being holiness, but they demand that we recognize that "what gratifies the gods" is not a good answer to what constitutes service to the gods. Are we being holy because we serve them or are we serving them by being holy? Plato would insist on the latter, but then, what is holiness? The question remains and the dialogue doesn't pretend to an answer.

A reason to study Plato, beyond the obvious (that he's historically important and that it's always good to confront oneself with a different mode of thought, and also that he's a good read), is that he can provoke one into being more self-conscious about the question of authority: on whose or what authority is something valuable, or holy, etc.? You can ask this in a number of circumstances. The problem with Plato though is that he can also give people a good model for faking themselves out of answering their own questions by turning the questions into philosophical rather than social questions. The modern-day philosophical "answer" that I've implied above - "in most instances the question is somewhat open" - is at best a platitude and is at worst a filibuster. E.g., "On whose or what authority do traffic laws have value?" simply is not an interesting question. Even if there can be real conflicts about particular laws (the relation between speed limits and fuel conservation, for instance, or the question as to whether adding a left-turn-only lane will help or hurt a set of nearby stores etc.), no one's making an interesting argument against the existence of traffic laws. The laws' existence is an issue that isn't open, until someone opens it, and if it does somehow get opened, it won't be philosophy that creates the opening. And where the question already is open, "On whose or what authority does arts education have value?" or something like that, philosophy seems to have nothing to add. Simply ask "How much money shall we allot to arts education?" and the question of authority (valuable in what way? to whom?) will arise without prompting.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i think an interesting passage in the discussion is the one where socrates brings up the stories of squabbles in heaven to demonstrate that we can't easily know what the gods feel about an issue -- ie can't use their attitude to such-and-such as our guide (bcz hera will be for but aphrodite against etc, and who are we to decide between them)

my general sense is socrates -- or shall we say plato's socrates -- was moving away from the everyday athenian usage of its own mythology (where gossip about the gods and their predilictions was in fact a way of discussing value, turning it into an amusing domestic between these larger-than-life somewhat cartoony, well-known figures, and judging their attitudes via you the citizen's response to the outcomes of the stories) towards something more technical and specialist and priestly, where establishment of what constituted piety needed to be left to experts (alsdo known as philosophers), and the ordinary citizen, rather than making their own judgment via gossipy intra-citizen discussion, would do better to hand over the judgment to those better qualified

the question socrates seems to ask about the gods and where they derive their authority, and then dodges, is well enough answered if Euthyphro says "from us"; we mortals are the judges of piety, but we need the chatter that surrounds these cartoony gossipy stories -- our seriousness of outrage, our deflating amusement -- to explore and discover what we believe, and feel, and need. But this answer is never going to be endorsed by plato...

[koganbot]

While I believe that "from us" is the right answer, it's an answer that's ultimately too broad to do me much good. "From us" means "from conversation" (as Rorty would say) or "from chatter" (as you would say), and the Kogan codicil to that would be that part of the value of the words "value" and "piety" is the disagreements we have over what constitutes value and what constitutes piety, disagreements that allow us to differentiate ourselves from each other and keep the words flexible. The overbroadness of "from us"/"from conversation"/"from disagreement" is that it "explains" every result, no matter what. It applies as much to Socrates' logic and Stalin's edicts as to the stories the Greeks told about their gods. All are the result of social processes, that we do (or don't) go along with logic or edicts and that we are (or aren't) convinced by them.

towards something more technical and specialist and priestly, where establishment of what constituted piety needed to be left to experts (also known as philosophers)

I think you're projecting too much back onto Socrates. In any event, it isn't in the text itself. My impression from The Apology, which we also read, was that philosophers were basically freelancers, got hired on as tutors and wise men or - in Socrates' case - did it for free. And if you take the form of Euthyphro as an example, Socrates didn't think much of experts and of other philosophers. They're the people he was tearing up. Here's Euthyphro, an apparent expert; Socrates basically exposes the guy as not knowing what he himself means and not being able to give any account of why he behaves in the way he calls "pious" or why it deserves the name "piety." (Note that Socrates is doing this to a potential friend and ally.) And the implication is that any expert and any idea can and should be subjected to the same questioning. So in this sense he's not saying "leave it to the philosophers" but rather "test everything and everyone." And I don't see where he's so different from you and me and Lex and Dave and Tom and Alex and Moggy and Cis etc. However there's a germ of what you're talking about in that Socrates is trying to create a special activity - philosophy as Socrates practices it - that future generations can say "we know how to do and you don't." A Veblen or a Dewey might say, not that Socrates was making philosophy into something priestly, but that he was usurping a role for philosophy that had previously been given to priests and oracles and an upper class of men who thought themselves above ordinary everday concerns - this despite his decision to live in near poverty rather than accept money for his philosophic activities. But I see not just the germ of professionalism in this, if you want it, but also - if you want it - the germ of bohemianism and self-styled critical thinking and insurgent or apocalyptic prophecy.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

"projecting"

yes i think this is extremely likely -- "platonism" is a bit of a default sin, to my way of thinking, in regard to politics especially, and i suspect i'm going to find it quite hard (esp.on driveby readings) not to be importing and interlarding stuff i long ago decided i think (all of based entierely on secondary or tertiary sources -- this is the first time i've ever tackled plato directly) (well, semi-directly, as i'm reading him in elgnish not greek)

[koganbot]

Surely you meant to write "elfish, not geek."

[koganbot]

One thing that separates Socrates from priests is his insistence that you give an account of your reasons. My problem with "from us" is that it's not a good reason, even if it's true. It's not a good response to "Where, Frank, do you and Tim Finney get the authority to say the following about Ashlee Simpson?" (this from one of my two LVW Ashlee pieces):

"Say Goodbye," a complicated song at the end of Ashlee's generally less-complicated second album, has the saddest most generous break-up line: "Maybe you don't/Love me/Like I/Love you baby/’Cause the broken in you doesn't make me run." Nineteen words, one image, several abstractions, and somehow an intricate story is told complete; you don't even have to know the rest of the song. As my friend Tim Finney points out, Ashlee's telling the guy that it's OK to be broken but that she doesn't feel he allowed her her brokenness in turn, so they have a different sense of what was required in a relationship and therefore the relationship itself is beyond repair.

OK, now on ilX, Tim and I were hit with the charge (not in relation to this passage in particular, but to our writing about Ashlee in general) that we see things in Ashlee that aren't there. So the question is "On what authority can I say that this actually is there in Ashlee?" Would Ashlee say it's there? How can we be so presumptuous as to think our own interpretation are right? In any event, if I say where I got such interpretations from, "From us" or "From conversation and controversy," this is a correct general answer - that indeed is where I get my interpretations from, even of lines that I've never discussed with anyone else. There's a general social practice of interpretation and disagreement that I've long participated in. But my point here is that naming the process by which I came up with an interpretation ("from us," "from conversation and controversy") does nothing one way or another towards justifying my contention that my interpretation is correct.

What my answer "from us" means to me is that there's no generally applicable nonplatitudinous answer to the question "On what authority do you justify such interpretations?" I think that if you read my interpretation and listen to the song and apply your knowledge of the world, my interpretation will be compelling. And if need be I can elaborate on my interpretation and the passage and my knowledge of the world, but beyond that I've got nothing else to compel you to find my arguments compelling, if the arguments can't do so themselves. And this is why I question whether I can be a philosopher. I've got no underlying principle or argument that compels a compelling argument to be compelling. It just is compelling. (Or it isn't.)

And there's no profundity in my saying that authority comes from us, or from conversation and controversy. It's no more useful as an underlying principle than anything else is.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ok but there's surely one non-platitudinous distinction between world-of-ashlee and olympus, which is world-of-ashlee exists and is mortal not divine (or indeed fictional), so the question from whence does authority derive is subtly different -- "from us" in the greek instance makes a an important claim, viz not "from them" (the gods-AS-GODS), so it rules out one line of possibility

essentially i DO think we use world-of-ashlee and world-of-post-punk and world-of-_____ and world-of-______ much the way the greeks used the olympic soap opera, so yes, once you reach our version of the conversation, it is platitudinous to say "from us"; but "from us" ius a necessary step away from one line a greek discussion of piety could take (and a christian one still would)

my initial inclination was to say that socrates's approach pushes us from greek polytheism towards christian monotheism (ie in the opposite direction from where i want to move, and from where "from us" moves us) -- but that's not the case on the evidence of this dialogue alone, and may be wrong altogether (because even if we're making the distinctions and decisions, we're making them on the basis of things outside ourselves -- maybe the process plato calls "recognition of forms" is a good way to describe the secular mechanism also) (i tend to think not, but that may be by unfair association)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i don't think my swift read of phaedo or euthyphro has been anything like close or careful enough to make sure judgments -- but i very much get this weird vibe of bad faith, in the direction of socrates' questions (as rewritten by plato, perhaps)

over the years my second-hand encounters with plato have all been hostile, i might add: i may well be intensely prejudiced against him

i. popper, an age ago, was a foe -- i think popper's demolitions in "the open society and its enemies" of more recent thinkers are naive and problematic, but i never got round to thinking through where he got plato wrong
ii. nietzsche is an intensely engaged and fascinating foe, who above all wants to rescue "life" from the icy grip of socratic thinking and platonic thinking
iii. and i.f.stone, whose "the tiral of socrates" is a polemic about democracy and its enemies, and the subtle links between politics and philososphy; quite no-nonsense populist, very engaging, i have no idea how reliable (when stone retired from washington muckraking, after a heart scare, he sat down and taught himself classical greek, and read through the canon, for pleasure and edification... i enormously admire this)