According to some ancient authors Euthyphro is a fictitious character. Your objection may or may not be valid if there was evidence that he was a historical person. But there is none. — Apollodorus

It does not matter if he is a real person. We are analyzing the dialogue, or at least some of us are. He is the title character of the dialogue. Socrates has him say something that tells the reader that this happened five years before he was going to prosecute.

I'm not denying your materialist interpretation, — Apollodorus

That's nice. Except I don't have a materialist interpretation. If you read my thread on Socrates together with the passages I cite you would see that. Or, most likely not. You do seem to miss and misrepresent a lot of what I say.

... only your claim that your interpretation is the only possible or correct one. — Apollodorus

Only I have never made such a claim. I defend my interpretation by citing the dialogues. You have not done the same. I look forward you reading your interpretation of one of the dialogues. And by that I do not mean copy and paste from Wiki or elsewhere.

Another point worth mentioning. Euthyphro says this happened when they were farming in Naxos. (4c) Naxos was lost in the Peloponnesian War with Sparta in 404, five years before the time of the dialogue. Why did he wait for five years to bring charges against his father?

In the academic milieu of the last 100 years or so, Fooloso4's approach to read the dialogues as not being a map to a doctrine is the commonly accepted practice. — Valentinus

Thank you. It is nice to have some confirmation from someone familiar with the scholarship. As you have probably seen, some have accused me of making this up, not knowing what I'm talking about and on and on.

There are, however, still some around who think it is all about Plato's doctrines. They tend not to look at the whole of the dialogues, but pull things out of context.

I'm not sure anymore whether your misrepresentations are intentional or if there is something else going on that prevents you from understanding. Either way I am not going to waste my time responding again.

The death penalty was the most severe form of punishment in Athens and usually reserved only for the most severe offenders of the law. The death sentence was generally reserved for those who had been found guilty of intentional homicide or who had commited another grave sin.

https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/death-penalty-classical-athens/

As to the alleged crime being murder:

Socrates: What is the charge, and what is the lawsuit about?
Euthyphro: Murder, Socrates.

4a

Most of your challenges to what I say could easily be settled if you would just read the text.

It's complicated. Constantine himself was no theologian and couldn't care less which version of JC the bishops would chose. He just wanted the disputes to stop. — Olivier5

Right. That is why I said it was political.

Smolin has a theory of cosmological natural selection in which the laws or constants may change when a new universe is born from a black hole in the preceding universe. So if I understand him right, he doesn't propose that such a change has happened in our universe since it was born. — litewave

I don't understand any of this or his work sufficiently well enough to say one way or the other, and if I did say it was one way or another it would probably not be for the right reason.

The laws according to Smolinare contingent not necessary and changeable in time. I don't know if he says one way or the other whether he things they are invariant in this universe.

Here is a short clip from an interview: https://www.closertotruth.com/interviews/3649

From another interview:

The conclusions that I come to, I think they're not subtle, they're easy to list, are first that—and I was opening with them before, the method of physics with fixed laws—which are given for all time, acting on fixed spaces of states which are given for all time is self-limiting. The picture of atoms with timeless properties moving around in a void according to timeless laws, this is self-limiting. It's the right thing to do when we're discussing small parts of the universe, but it breaks down when you apply it to the whole universe or when your chain of explanation gets too deep.

The third conclusion is that time therefore must be fundamental. Time must go all the way down. It must not be emergent, it must not be an approximate phenomenon, it must not be an illusion.

https://www.edge.org/conversation/lee_smolin-think-about-nature

If he prevailed the likely outcome would be the death penalty
— Fooloso4 [Bold added]

1. Unfortunately, that is exactly what you have zero evidence for. — Apollodorus

The penalty for murder was death. Of course we have no evidence of the outcome of a trial that had not yet happened and might never have happened.

Precisely. So, it is all speculation. — Apollodorus

I made no prediction as to whether or not he would be found guilty. You are the one who speculated on the outcome:

The only relevant thing is the court’s ruling.

4. My take is that, after hearing Euthyphro’s testimony, the court would have found the evidence insufficient to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. — Apollodorus

3. The issue of relevance was in connection with your unfounded assumption that the father would have been (a) found guilty of murder ... — Apollodorus

You need to read more carefully. As an aid I bolded the part of the statement above that you quoted and missed. If he prevailed does not mean he would prevail or did prevail.

The physicist Lee Smolin thinks that physics, its laws, and constants evolve: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/troublemaker-lee-smolin-says-physics-8211-and-its-laws-8211-must-evolve/

From a different the philosopher Joseph Margolis: "The Flux of History and the Flux of Science": https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6t1nb4gf;query=;brand=ucpress

It needed the one God if it was to remain one empire. — Olivier5

As you probably know the Council at Nicaea was convened because of a rift between Christian theologians regarding the divinity of Jesus. Under Constantine this was not just a theological matter it was political.

Origen had produced thousands of treatises and books. He had reviewed systematically all the gospels available at his time, including some now lost. For this and many other reasons, the burning of his work was a grievous loss. — Olivier5

On the one hand I think that without the efforts of the Church Fathers to unify the early Jesus movement into the universal Catholic Church, the future of Christianity might have been very different in various ways. This may have saved it from splintering. On the other, this does done at the cost of destroying what was part of the movement's very spirit, that is, the indwelling of spirit expressed through gospels of witness of inspiration.

1. The text says nothing about Euthyphro’s relationship with his father. There is no indication that he wanted to kill him. — Apollodorus

He was there to prosecute his father. If he prevailed the likely outcome would be the death penalty. There is no indication that he wanted his father dead, but he was fully aware of the consequences should he prevail.

3. The fact that Euthyphro calls it “murder” is irrelevant. The only relevant thing is the court’s ruling. — Apollodorus

The dialogue leaves open the question of whether he even does prosecute. With regard to the dialogue there is no relevance of a court ruling for a trial that might never occur.

Another issue he mentions is "the recent growth of historical self-awareness within analytic philosophy".

Well, if you take "intention" as the criterion, then I'm afraid you are demolishing your own case. — Apollodorus

If you think so then you have completely misunderstood what is at issue as I see it. But that is understandable if you start from the assumption that the dialogue is about the Forms.

It is a matter of his intention not of what the outcome might be. He thought he would prevail against his father.

It still doesn't say anywhere that Euthyphro committed patricide. — Apollodorus

Reading Plato requires doing more than just seeing the words on the page. Euthyphro was going to prosecute his father. If he was found guilty he would have been sentenced to death.

What "wider audience" and "what posterity"? — Apollodorus

You answered your own question:

The dialogues were read by students of philosophy and other educated people ... — Apollodorus

Posterity? Us!

I do appreciate your sense of humor but I think you are going a bit off the rails there. — Apollodorus

Editing error. I fixed it.

He may not show that what he is doing is something the Gods love. However, he thinks that they do and that suffices as far he is concerned. — Apollodorus

And that is precisely the problem.

As for "the Gods love patricide", that is too preposterous even for you to believe it. Where on earth did you get "patricide" from? — Apollodorus

5e and the myth cycle of Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus in Hesiod's Theogony.

Patricide is (i) the act of killing one's father, or (ii) a person who kills his or her father or stepfather. The word patricide derives from the Latin word pater (father) and the Latin suffix -cida (cutter or killer).

https://wiki2.org/en/List_of_patricides

You are reverting back to materialism, aren't you? — Apollodorus

I don't know where you got that idea from.

However, as already indicated, the aporia regarding Euthyphro's court case or whatever isn't really the issue. — Apollodorus

Perhaps not for you. The examined life is fundamental for Socrates. The just, noble, and good are fundamental for Socrates. If it cannot be determined whether what Euthyphro is just and proper or pious then it is at the heart of the issue.

But I think it is obvious that Plato really wrote the dialogue for his disciples, for those who knew him and his thoughts, not for the uninitiated. — Apollodorus

That is not at all obvious. No doubt his students read the dialogue but I suspect they had a wider audience. I think he wrote for posterity.

Either way, it changes nothing about the fact that the dialogue doesn't say what Euthyphro should do. — Apollodorus

Let me put it in the form of a syllogism:

One who is not advanced in wisdom [correction -cannot] do the correct thing in this case
Euthyphro is not advanced in wisdom. He does not have "precise knowledge" of divine things.
Euthyphro should not do what he intends to do

That he is not advanced in wisdom is evident. He says that piety is doing what the gods love, but he does not show that what he is doing is something the gods love, unless the gods love patricide.

I can't see one that would follow as an absolute logical necessity from the text. — Apollodorus

So, it reaches an impasse. It seems you now agree with @Banno and I that at least one dialogue ends in aporia.

Are you saying that there is no clear correct answer as to what Euthyphro should do?

There is in the Analects of Kongzi (Confucius) a similar problem:

The Duke of She said to Kongzi, "Among my people there is one we call 'Upright Gong'. When his father stole a sheep, he reported him to the authorities."

Kongzi replied, "Among my people, those who consider 'upright' are different from this: fathers cover up for their sons, and sons cover up for their fathers. 'uprightness ' is to be found in this." (13:18)

The premise is that filial piety is more important than civic piety. Without filial piety there will be no civic piety.

Possibly it was not even murder, more like involuntary manslaughter or something that didn't even warrant any serious punishment. — Apollodorus

In that case would someone advanced in wisdom prosecute his father for something that may not even warrant serious punishment?

And, what would you do if your own father killed someone? — Apollodorus

It would depend on the circumstances. At worse I would report him. I would not bring a lawsuit against him.

Anyway, what's wrong with asking you to provide some evidence for your statements like those on Euthyphro? — Apollodorus

Nothing wrong with the question. The problem is with who is asking. Your evasiveness and deceptive practices are not something I am willing to deal with anymore. You can put the blame on me and others who have experienced the same thing if you think that helps, but it is ironic given the context.

By the way, you need to read what Euthyphro says in the beginning of the dialogue to understand the circumstances. It was not a simple case of murder.

Fooloso4 You could also stand to just be respectful and patient. You are presenting ideas about Plato that most would hold to be absurd, so if you encounter resistance, just say "thanks, but I disagree." — frank

Thanks but I disagree forestalls philosophical discussion. I have not problem with resistance. It is standard practice. If I disagree I say why. I back up my claims with textual support. Some here do the same, others do not. Some think that accusations and misrepresentation is the same as reasoned argument.

However, you may remember that he did the same on the Phaedo thread. He conveniently left out the bit about immortality and when I challenged him he said it wasn't in the translation he was using. I posted several translations to show him that the missing bit should be included. I also posted the Greek text and he still denied it. IMHO something isn't right there. Either he doesn't know what he is doing or he is doing it on purpose. — Apollodorus

This is a good example of why I no longer respond to you. You misrepresent what I said. You have done the same with others here as well. Anyone who is interested can read the thread and see what was and was not said and judge your hectoring for themselves.

He seemed to have recognized very early on that without precise definitions, there would be no clear picture of the corresponding questions and trying to find answers would be moot. — TheMadFool

If by precise definition you mean that by which we can recognize that was is said about it is true or false and what is done is either right or wrong, then I agree, But he never thought that it is pointless to pursue knowledge. You seem to want to begin with answers to the very thing that is in question. Socrates proceeds by way of the examination of opinion. We each have opinions about such things as what is just and unjust.

His signature move was, simply put, refutation and not proof and thus, he would have little to no use for rhetoric - he wasn't trying to convince people that his ideas were right, au contraire, he was refuting theirs. — TheMadFool

I think there is more to it. Although he does not arrive at final answers the pursuit of the question has value. We still need to evaluate and judge. He helps us in developing the necessary skills to do so.

As I am attempting to show in the thread on Socratic philosophy https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11210/socratic-philosophy/p1 any attempt to understand Plato by way of conforming to categories other than his own lead to distortions.

Rather than appeal to one or another of the conflicting "authorities" my interpretation is grounded in the details of the dialogues. The fact that one scholar or another holds views other than my own is inconclusive, for there are other scholars who do support my claims and have played a role in informing my views. The only way forward in my opinion is through the texts.

Plato is not a 'realist' or an 'idealist' or a 'materialist' or 'naturalist' and not a Platonist. If this prompts you ask "then what is he", read the thread. It is not intended to be the final interpretation, but rather, to turn your attention to the texts themselves. Plato does not provide answers that foreclose further inquiry but instead opens up the problems to in order to provoke further inquiry.

Yet there do seem to be definitive answers such as a 'theory of Forms', and such is what you are likely to find in standard textbooks. But don't take my word for it, or what you find in textbooks or elsewhere, see what the dialogues themselves say. And by this I do not mean isolated claims or passages but with a view to understanding the whole and how the parts function in the whole.

I don't think the Republic is intended to be a model for an actual city.
— Fooloso4

How do you interpret it? — Olivier5

That would require a very long and detailed explanation. One interpretation that I agree with is that it the Plato's philosophical apology for Socrates. His lack of a strong defense is at least in part explained by the difference between public persuasion and philosophical speech (17a-18a).

The Republic covers a very broad range of subjects from the theopolitical to the epistemological, from justice to power, from the proper order of the soul to the proper order of the city.

Because he saw what was coming viz. nobody really knows anything at all! — TheMadFool

Socrates calls himself a midwife and a physician of the soul. He acknowledges that both have knowledge. Like the sophists he has knowledge of how to argue using reason and rhetoric,

Are such characters wise? They defend social norms, — baker

But Euthyphro is not defending social norms. One of the ironies of the dialogue is that Euthyphro's acting on what he is convinced he knows regarding what the gods want is destructive of social norms. Prosecuting your own father is contrary to social norms.

I would call the ideas for raising and educating children in "the city of words" communitarian rather than communist. — Valentinus

I mean communist in the original sense of the term, but neither term as they are used today includes the human breeding practices outlined in the Republic.

I think the political dimension of Plato cannot be denied. — Olivier5

I completely agree, but I don't think the Republic is intended to be a model for an actual city.

So there is mutual influence between the souls of the citizens and the soul of the city. — Olivier5

And with this as well.

People cannot live without art. — Olivier5

He bans the poets not poetry. He is quite specific about the kinds of music would and would not be allowed.

Re. religion, is there ANY role for priests in the Republic? — Olivier5

Good question. There is one mention at 461a of a child being born without:

... the protection of the sacrifices and prayers which priestesses, priests, and the whole city offer at every marriage ...

There is no mention of which class they belong to or what their education is.

...and when put to the test, fails to give a satisfactory account. — Banno

Perhaps those who cannot see that his actions are wrong cannot because they are too much like Euthyphro. As I said in my first post:

He represents a character type. A type that seems incapable of knowing his ignorance. — Fooloso4

Some of the matter of what is "one's business" relates to family obligations in tension with others. — Valentinus

Yes. There is a tension that exists between the city and the family. The city demands that sons go to war. was brought sharply into focus during the Vietnam war. The communist idea of raising children in the just city was intended to avoid such conflicts of interest, but in an actual city would be a source of endless conflict, I think it was also intended to be anti-ideological. What seems best in speech is not what is best in practice.

When reading Euthyphro with this tension in mind, it is striking that Socrates considers the betrayal of the the father as not warranted by the arguments presented as advancing the desires of particular gods. — Valentinus

Euthyphro, by claiming he is purifying the city and piously doing what the gods love, unwittingly sets the gods against the city and family.

Euthyphro claims to have divine wisdom, that is, wisdom regarding divine things.

“Cheers, mate! I will echo a sentiment of Bloom’s and say that, though we disagree on much, our concern for the same things proves we have more in common than what separates us. — Todd Martin

Very nice. Unfortunately some here take disagreement as a personal attack or resort to personal attacks where there is disagreement.

I would like to see how the ideas develop in the course of the dialogues, rather than interpreting them in line with subsequent developments. — Wayfarer

I think that this is the proper way to do it if your interest is in reading and understanding Plato rather than Platonism or the history of philosophy.

I suppose one might take it as a mere pedagogic device, leaving the conclusion open so as to induce further conversation after a reading of the dialogue. — Banno

This is consonant with what Socrates describes as his practice in the Apology - making people see that they do not know what they profess to know. Whether or not he has been successful with Euthyphro remains an open question.

What is said is only half of what is at issue. Of equal or greater importance is what one does. A key statement quoted above. Socrates says:

For I don't suppose that it is the part of just anyone to do this correctly, but of one who is no doubt already advanced in wisdom.

Euthyphro despite his high opinion of himself is not advanced in wisdom and so should not do what he intends to do. He has noted importance of avoiding evil and injustice to the city, beginning with the hearth (3a). The hearth was both the center of both the family and its religion. The name of the goddess Hestia means hearth. Euthyphro, acting without the necessary knowledge of what he is doing, is ignorant of his ignorance. Socrates, knowing he does not know, would not prosecute his own father. He is aware of how corrosive this might be to the city, the family, and the hearth.

And of course this sits comfortably with my view of philosophy as consisting in critique rather than construction. Socrates pulling stuff down, Plato trying to put it back together again. — Banno

Dialectic both separates and joins together. I will have more to say on this in the Socratic philosophy thread. This relates to the problem of aporia. Can the two opposing methods be brought together to create an account of the whole?