Class Responses and Instructor Comments

 

>From MILDRED FERENTINO:

"This is the reason why I am a defendant in the case, because I find it hard to accept things like that being said about the gods and it is likely to be the reason why I shall be told I do wrong. Now however if you who have full knowledge of such things share their opinions then we must agree with them too, it would seem."

 

>rm says: No, Socrates has objections to the particular definition Euthyphro provided.

>From Avrohom Markovits:

Socrates says he has done no wrong?

>rm says: No. Socrates says that Euthyphro's definition of 'pious' isn't a proper definition. So, the question is why.

>From Avrohom:

Euthyphro's reasoning of the pious is based off of their gods. So Socrates questions Euthyphro's knowledge of the gods, "do you truly believe that these things happened so," that one god killed his father and his father castrated his father...? and if we dont realy know what exactly happened with the gods, how can we base anything off of these stories?

 

>rm says: That's a good point, but even if we accept the stories as true, there remains a problem with Euthyphro's attempted definition.

 

>From nr:

euthyphro's first defintion of piety was to prosecute wrong doers. socrates has a problem with this because he says to euthyphro that he needs a general meaning of the idea of piety- not just one or two examples. euthyphro first definition of piety is not broad and does not encompass all aspects of piety.

 

>rm says: Well said.

>From Avrohom:

How does one know who the wrongdoer is? it could be you Euthyphro, who is doing the unpious. hows that?

>rm says: This is a separate difficulty with the application of this definition.

>From KAI YU and WAI YAN:

But this is not a definition rather than it is one pious action