In what does this wisdom consist? After describing Socrates’ courage, self-control, and ability to concentrate while he was on military campaigns, Alcibiades offers this answer:
… even his ideas and arguments are just like those hollow statues of Silenus. If you were to listen to his arguments, at first they'd strike you as totally ridiculous; they're clothed in words as coarse as the hides worn by the most vulgar satyrs. He's always going on about pack asses, or blacksmiths, or cobblers, or tanners; he's always making the same tired old points in the same tired old words. If you are foolish, or simply unfamiliar with him, you'd find it impossible not to laugh at his arguments. But if you see them when they open up like the statues, if you go behind their surface, you'll realize that no other arguments make any sense. They're truly worthy of a god, bursting with figures of virtue inside. They're of great – no, of the greatest – importance for anyone who wants to become a truly good [kalos kagathos] man. (221d–222a)
This is the most positive appreciation in Plato's works of the power of Socrates’ speech to transform the character of those who hear it, or read it. Alcibiades, ultimately, was not transformed by Socrates. By his own admission, he refused to listen to Socrates’ arguments; “I stop my ears and tear myself away from him” (216a–b), he says, because the allure of the crowd is too great. Plato, however, was; and I see in Alcibiades’ praise of Socrates, drunken though it may be, an expression of Socrates’ transformative effect on Plato's own life. Plato's encounter with Socrates made him into a philosopher. He saw the inner meaning beneath the surface of Socrates’ arguments. These arguments, like Socrates himself, contain godlike wisdom. Alcibiades’ speech, coming as it does hard on the heels of Socrates’ speech, containing Diotima's account of the ascent of the soul to the Form of Beauty, suggests that Socrates, in Plato's eyes, may have achieved the highest wisdom. He was not the barren seeker after truth, but the fertile possessor of it. Alcibiades goes beyond the contrast between the Socrates who refuses to express his opinion and the Socrates who is willing to say what he thinks; he goes beyond anything Socrates says in his own behalf about his own views. Alcibiades tells us that Socrates was wise, and that his profession of ignorance was as ironic as his profession of love for beautiful youths.
In the end, these two Platonic images of Socrates co-exist in Plato's dialogues. The appeal to irony in the Symposium suggests a way of reconciling them. As I noted in the previous chapter, interpreters have favored the barren inquirer over the fertile Socrates. They also tend to dismiss the speech of Alcibiades as the drunken comments of a spurned but still besotted lover. If we do not accept Alcibiades’ ironic interpretation of Socrates, however, we are confronted with two images of Socrates that do not cohere. If we accept his claim that the portrait of the ignorant inquirer is merely an ironic mask concealing the Socrates who possesses divine images within himself this may help us to bridge the gap between the Socrates of the early or “Socratic” dialogues and the later, “Platonic” ones.
Notes
1 Robinson, Plato's Earlier Dialectic, 51: “the impression vaguely given by the early dialogues as a whole is that Socrates thinks that there is no truth whatever about X that can be known before we know what X is.”
2 David Sedley, The Midwife of Platonism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), 1.
3 Myles Burnyeat, “Socratic Midwifery, Platonic Inspiration,” originally in the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 24 (1977), 7–16; Reprinted in Benson, ed. Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 57. Though Burnyeat argues that the midwife analogy of Socrates is a Platonic invention, he admits that in the Theaetetus “a fresh start [is] prepared by the return to the style and method of the early dialogues,” and “Socrates himself, instead of being a mouthpiece for Platonic views, is restored to something like his original role as the man who knows nothing on his own account but has a mission to help others by his questioning. All this can be understood as a move ‘back to Socrates’ for the purpose of a dialogue which is critical in intent and deliberately restrained in its positive commitments” (58).
4 There is a debate among interpreters as to whether “irony” is the correct term for the behavior Thrasymachus attributes to Socrates. Without going into the debate, I accept the conclusion that it is. The point, however, whether we call it irony or not, is that Socrates is concealing opinions that he denies that he has.
4
Piety
The Euthyphro
In the previous chapters I have discussed the cultural environment in which Socrates lived, and which led to his trial; the trial itself; the nature of the method of inquiry that Socrates practiced, the elenchus; the structure of the elenctic dialogue, which is based on that method; Socrates’ profession of ignorance and the nature of the knowledge or wisdom that he disavowed; Socrates’ desire for definitions and the priority of definition principle; the “barren” and the “fertile” Socrates and the tension between them; and finally, the use of irony as a possible way of resolving that tension. In this chapter I want to put these concepts to work in the examination of a single Platonic dialogue, the Euthyphro. The Euthyphro is set before Socrates’ trial, at a preliminary hearing, and it discusses one of the key issues raised by the charges against Socrates, namely the nature of piety. Socrates practices the elenchus throughout the dialogue, and the dialogue displays the typical structure of an elenctic dialogue. Socrates professes his ignorance, and he offers to become Euthyphro's pupil so that he may learn what piety is. Euthyphro claims to be an expert on the subject, just the sort of person Socrates typically wants to examine. Socrates is looking for a definition of piety in the dialogue. Some interpreters have seen in the Euthyphro a commitment to the priority of definition principle.1 Socrates offers a brief account of what he is looking for in a definition. Socrates initially appears as barren, but eventually he offers an opinion of his own concerning the nature of piety. This opinion may provide a basis for constructing a positive Socratic conception of piety and thus, religion. The tension between the barren and the fertile Socrates is not discussed in the dialogue, but one can see the distinction present there. The Euthyphro is a nearly perfect example of the ideas developed so far.
The Euthyphro is important for other reasons as well. In his discussion of definition Socrates introduces the concept of a Form, a precursor of the Platonic theory of separate Forms. The Euthyphro raises a version of a question that is still debated by philosophers of religion today. In Socrates’ version, the question is, is the pious pious because the gods love it, or do they love it because it is pious? The modern version asks, is what is right right because God commands it, or does God command it because it is right? Is morality subjective, based on God's will, or objective? This is sometimes called “the Euthyphro problem.” Finally, the Euthyphro is a miniature masterpiece, a delight to read in its own right. For all these reasons the dialogue deserves our attention.
The Setting of the Dialogue
The Euthyphro is set at the porch, the portico, of the “king-archon,” an Athenian official whose job was to review court cases involving religious matters, to determine if they should go to trial. Socrates explains to Euthyphro that he is there to answer an indictment. He is being charged by an unknown young man named Meletus with corrupting the youth. Socrates says that Meletus “is likely to be wise, and when he sees my ignorance corrupting his contemporaries, he proceeds to accuse me to the city as to their mother. I think he is the only one of our public men to start out the right way, for it is right to care first that the young should be as good as possible” (2c–d). Socrates’ reference to Meletus as wise is certainly ironic; we see from the Apology that Socrates thinks Meletus has never given any thought to the education of the youth (25c). His statement that the right way to care for the state is to care for the youth first, however, is not ironic; it is Socrates’ own view. When Euthyphro asks Socrates how Meletus says he corrupts the youth, Socrates replies, “he
says that I am a maker of gods, and on the ground that I create new gods while not believing in the old gods, he has indicted me” (3b).
Euthyphro
Socrates and Euthyphro know each other. Euthyphro greets Socrates in a familiar way, asking him why he has come to the porch of the king-archon, and Socrates responds in kind. Moreover, Euthyphro is favorably disposed toward Socrates: when Socrates says that Meletus is proceeding in the right way in indicting him for corruption, Euthyphro responds, “I could wish this were true, Socrates, but I fear the opposite may happen. He seems to me to start out by harming the very heart of the city by attempting to wrong you” (3a). He shows his familiarity with Socrates by saying, when Socrates recites the charge that he is a maker of gods, that “this is because you say that the divine sign keeps coming to you” (3b).
Euthyphro is a religious prophet, but an unsuccessful one. “Whenever I speak of divine matters in the assembly and foretell the future, they laugh me down as if I were crazy,” he complains; “and yet I have foretold nothing that did not happen” (3c). Euthyphro has not fared well with interpreters. One refers to his “monumental conceit and stupidity,”2 while another calls him “prodigiously conceited.”3 This judgment may be somewhat harsh. Granted, Euthyphro is very confident at the start of the discussion of his own knowledge of religious matters. Granted, he never admits that he has been shown to lack wisdom by Socrates (though his sudden departure at the end of the dialogue may be an implicit recognition of this fact). Granted, he is not up to the rigors of the Socratic elenchus. Yes, Euthyphro is conceited and stupid, or perhaps ignorant, but is he more so than many of Socrates’ other interlocutors? Many of them are embarrassed in the same way Euthyphro is and fare no better in the face of Socratic questioning. In fact the Euthyphro is a rather typical elenctic dialogue in these respects. Socrates makes virtually all of his interlocutors look foolish in these dialogues.
One recent interpreter has appealed to a distinction from ancient comedy to understand the relation between Socrates and his interlocutors.4 In ancient comedy, of the sort that Aristophanes, for instance, wrote, there is a pair of stock characters, the alazōn and the eirōn. The alazōn is an imposter, someone who pretends to have some ability or experience he actually lacks. The eirōn, on the other hand, is just the opposite. He knows more than he lets on, and especially more than the alazōn. In comedy the eirōn gets the better of the alazōn; he exposes him and chases him from the stage, usually with a beating. We do not know the degree to which these two comic models may have been in Plato's mind when he wrote his elenctic dialogues. I am not suggesting that every one of the interlocutors in these dialogues is described for comic effect (though some are, including, I believe, Euthyphro). Nor am I suggesting that the claim to knowledge of every one of Socrates’ interlocutors is regarded with irony by Socrates (though Euthyphro's claim to knowledge is certainly so regarded). Plato wrote dialogues, not comic plays. Nonetheless, the interlocutors in the elenctic dialogues have several key features in common with the alazones of Greek comedy. First, they usually pretend or claim to have knowledge of, expertise in, some subject of interest to Socrates. Second, Socrates often treats them with irony, which they usually do not detect. Third, he bests them in dialectical conversation, revealing (to the reader, and perhaps to those in the audience, if not always to the interlocutor himself) that they are ignorant. The “beating” that Socrates administers is not a physical but a philosophical, dialectical, one. Fourth, though most of them do not leave in haste at the end of the dialogue as does Euthyphro, they are left in a state of confusion, a confusion Socrates often says he shares. Fifth, Socrates, on the other hand, gets the upper hand in the argument; as an eirōn he disclaims knowledge, but he seems at the end of the dialogue to know more than the alleged experts he defeats in argument. Exactly what he knows is not revealed, but as Socrates points out in the Apology (23a) people think he must have the answers to the questions he asks others. Though he denies this, in the Apology and elsewhere, the fact that Socrates resembles the eirōn of Greek comedy suggests that this disclaimer may be ironic. As we saw in the last chapter, both Thrasymachus and Alcibiades make this claim.
Euthyphro is an alazōn: he claims to be an expert in religious matters. He does so in response to Socrates’ astonished statement when Euthyphro announces that he is prosecuting his father on a charge of murder. Socrates exclaims, “Good heavens! Certainly, Euthyphro, most men would not know how they could do this and be right. It is not the part of anyone to do this, but of one who is far advanced in wisdom” (4a–b). Euthyphro agrees. A little later, when Socrates says to Euthyphro, “by Zeus, Euthyphro, you think that your knowledge of the divine, and of piety and impiety, is so accurate that … you have no fear of having acted impiously in bringing your father to trial?” (4e), Euthyphro replies, “I should be of no use, Socrates, and Euthyphro would not be superior to the majority of men, if I did not have accurate knowledge of all such things” (4e–5a). Clearly, Euthyphro makes a claim to knowledge that most people do not have. Again, when he cites two examples of gods punishing their fathers for unjust acts, and Socrates asks him whether he believes the stories are true, Euthyphro replies, “yes, Socrates, and so are even more surprising things, of which the majority has no knowledge” (6b). This answer gives us a clue to Euthyphro's conception of knowledge, the basis for his belief that he is an expert on piety. What Euthyphro has is lore, a collection of stories about the gods, some of which are arcane. What he lacks is a critical understanding of the nature of piety, as the subsequent discussion reveals. It is this critical understanding, expressed in the ability to answer Socrates’ questions about the nature of piety, that Socrates is looking for.
Euthyphro's Case and its Justification
Euthyphro is in court to prosecute his father on a charge of murder. He explains to Socrates the details of his case: the victim was a dependent of his. This man had killed one of the household slaves while drunk and Euthyphro's father had him tied up and thrown into a ditch until a priest could be consulted (homicide being one of the crimes that had religious implications). The dependent died of hunger and exposure before the messenger sent to the priest returned. Now, Euthyphro says, “both my father and my other relatives are angry that I am prosecuting my father for murder on behalf of a murderer when he hadn't even killed him, they say, and even if he had, the dead man does not deserve a thought, since he was a killer. For, they say, it is impious for a son to prosecute his father for murder” (4d–e). Euthyphro states two reasons for his prosecution. One sounds modern; the other was ancient even in Euthyphro's time. “It is ridiculous, Socrates,” he states, “for you to think that it makes any difference whether the victim is a stranger or a relative. One should only watch whether the killer acted justly or not; if he acted justly, let him go, but if not, one should prosecute, [even] if, that is to say, the killer shares your hearth and table” (4b–c). Justice is impartial, and takes precedence over family relations. This sounds modern, but the next part of his reasoning comes from the archaic past of Greek religion: “the pollution is the same if you knowingly keep company with such a man and do not cleanse yourself and him by bringing him to justice” (4c). The Greek word translated “pollution” is miasma, and it gives an idea of the concept involved. A murderer brings a cloud into the house he inhabits, something like an illness, and with it the anger of the gods. Someone sheltering a murderer invites disaster, in the form of divine vengeance, for himself and all who live with him. It is essential for this pollution to be cleansed from the house, and this can only be done by bringing the murderer to justice. It is not clear what is needed to remove the pollution: perhaps the death or exile of the murderer, perhaps only a ritual cleansing of the murderer and the home. Euthyphro believes this can only be produced by a judicial proceeding. It has been argued that Euthyphro is wrong about the law, that this is not an appropriate case to bring to trial, and that if tried it would have been likely to bring about his father's acquittal.5 Socrates does not,
however, tell Euthyphro that he is wrong to prosecute his father. He does not take a stand on the substantive issue of his father's guilt. What he says is that Euthyphro must be “far advanced in wisdom” to prosecute his father. As we have seen, Euthyphro agrees with Socrates’ assessment. It is Euthyphro's claim of expert knowledge that arouses Socrates’ interest in examining him, and that leads to Euthyphro's downfall. The dialogue turns on the question whether Euthyphro has the accurate knowledge he claims to have; and as it turns out, he is shown not to have it. (Whether Euthyphro realizes this is not so clear.)
One thing we might see in Euthyphro's prosecution of his father is a conflict of duties. On the one hand, Euthyphro's father and other relatives insist, it is impious for a son to prosecute his father for murder. Respect for one's parents was a religious obligation in Euthyphro's day, much as it is regarded by those who accept the Ten Commandments, including the commandment to honor one's father and mother, as religious obligations today. On the other, Euthyphro argues, not only does impartial justice override filial piety, but it may be the only way to see that impiety is removed from Euthyphro's household. We recognize today that there might be a conflict of duties within a family if a family member believes that another has committed a serious crime. We might face something like the dilemma that Euthyphro faces if we found ourselves in his position. Euthyphro does not see himself as in a dilemma because he does not accept the principle that it is impious for a son to prosecute his father, even if he thinks his father is guilty. Still, this principle is accepted by Euthyphro's father and other relatives. On the surface at least, the two virtues of justice and piety seem to conflict. Justice requires that Euthyphro prosecute his father (as he thinks); filial piety requires that he not prosecute him (as his relatives think). Can filial piety be reconciled with impartial justice? Can virtues conflict with one another? These are questions raised by Euthyphro's prosecution of his father. The relation between piety and justice will be pursued by Socrates later in the dialogue. Socrates will attempt to integrate the two virtues, to show that they are compatible. To this extent, though perhaps only to this extent, he supports Euthyphro's point of view.
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