Socrates and Euthyphro: Exploring Piety and Knowledge
Socrates and Euthyphro: A Dialogue on Piety
In this dialogue, staged by Plato outside of the courthouse while awaiting his trial, Socrates engages in a conversation with the sophist Euthyphro, a self-described expert on the gods. Socrates poses the question, “What is piety?” Euthyphro attempts various responses. What follows is arguably the best example of Socratic elenchus, a series of questions and answers attempting to reach the truth.
Euthyphro’s Initial Attempts to Define Piety
The first answer that Euthyphro gives Socrates is that piety is prosecuting the impious, ungodly, and unholy. Socrates rejects this answer, considering it too narrow. Euthyphro then suggests that piety is what is pleasing to the Gods. Socrates responds by pointing out that the Gods are often in disagreement with each other, so what may be pleasing to one God may not be pleasing to all the Gods.
Euthyphro then changes his answer from what is agreeable to the Gods to what is approved by the Gods. This manipulation of language is clearly an attempt by Euthyphro to confuse and subsequently silence Socrates and his questioning. By giving a synonym, Euthyphro avoids giving an honest and direct answer, a common practice of sophists. Socrates refutes this argument by explaining in detail how it runs in logical circles, like a dog chasing its own tail. If something is pious, that means it is approved of by the Gods, but the only things that are going to be approved of are pious. Both cannot be true because one determines the other.
So again, Euthyphro attempts to answer the question: “What is piety?” This time his response is that the pursuit of justice is what the Gods like. However, this response is just a conflation of his first and second attempts at an answer. Socrates responds with the fact that the Gods do not need our justice. Finally, after a lot of prodding from Socrates, Euthyphro says that piety is prayers and sacrifices that we give to the Gods. Socrates refutes this by saying that the Gods do not need our prayers or sacrifices. Euthyphro, now very frustrated, leaves Socrates without giving another response. In the end, Socrates is unhappy with all answers given to him because they do not provide a satisfactory definition. However, Socrates does not give an answer himself because that is not his purpose. The only thing that Socrates knows is that he knows nothing.
The Socratic Method in Action
We have just seen the elenchus, the Socratic Method, in action. It is a series of questions followed by answers leading nowhere apparent. The reader is left wondering about the nature of the question. The answer is that they are not answering the reader’s questions. This is the purpose of the Socratic Method and the point of the Euthyphro.
Lessons from the Dialogue
Socrates helps Euthyphro to realize the following:
- His own ignorance
- His inconsistencies
- His need to justify his answers
The most important lesson that Euthyphro learns from this encounter is that doubting his own “knowledge” and challenging his own assumptions is essential to critical thinking. Therefore, Socrates is successful in opening Euthyphro’s mind to real wisdom, namely that we do not know what we think we know.
The Seed of Doubt and the Path to Wisdom
Having planted the seed of doubt in this young man, Socrates succeeds in broadening his mind, perhaps to wisdom, through self-doubt. True knowledge is realizing that we actually know nothing, as Socrates believed.