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

[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)