Themes, Ideas & Arguments
Piety
Piety is the central topic of discourse in Euthyphro. Socrates and Euthyphro spend most of this dialogue debating back and forth, attempting to define what might be common to all holy acts. Despite this unified focus of their conversation, however, the two men remain unable to formulate any clear, uncontroversial definition of piety. Euthyphro makes several attempts, defining piety as prosecution of civil offenders, as that which is dear to the gods, as that which all the gods approve of or love, and finally as a science of proper transactions with the gods through rituals, reverence, and sacrifice. Socrates, however, quickly dispels each of these formulations, showing that none of them suffice to provide an adequate definition of piety.
This inconclusiveness can be seen as a sort of foreshadowing on Plato's part. In terms of historical context, one of the major charges brought against Socrates—and against which he defends himself in the......
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